Wait, it costs money to receive calls in the US?
Bought 750min plan.
Used phone first week to do a few conference calls to a 1-800 number.
next week i was already out of "plan minutes" because i had to 'pay' for the 1800 calls.
not to mention SMS costs, and data being billed up to 3x (actual data plan, smart phone plan ($30), tethering ($25-50), plus tax)
Summary: the problems you're experiencing don't seem to have much to do with what country you're in, so much as your belief that buying a plan with a ton of bizarre extra costs makes sense.
I did enjoy the fact that this simple dumbphone had a very easy-to-use "tip calculator", making it easier to adapt to the local customs :) (until I found out that apparently tip percentage are calculated before-taxes, not over the full bill?)
I'm actually only on AT&T because they scammed me via my employee. They advertise 30% discount. So you go there, sign up for 2yrs. It takes exactly 90 days for a bill to show up with the discount when you have a FAN id (corp discount). why? because after 90 days you can't cancel the 2yr contract anymore, and then you learn that the 30% only applies to voice, for the first line. so you get $6 instead of the $30/mo you were expecting.
i would have gone with t-mobile. and the 2yrs are ending now, so i might switch.
the 700min is already too expensive. $60 + $30data + tax and ridiculous fees (like $4/mo for the ferederal universal access fee. like AT&T even uses that money to give phone access to everyone one...)
US local calls don't have per-minute changes. And cell phone numbering is not using a separate number sequence as in most other countries (e.g. in UK all cellphone numbers start 07x where x is 4 or above, so everyone knows when calling a cellphone).
Because of that, it'd be unreasonable to charge callers for cellphone calls, as people don't have an easy way of knowing if they're making a local landline call or calling someone on a cellphone that's potentially at the other side of the country, or abroad.
Similarly for international roaming we pay to receive in Europe too, as the caller don't know if the cellphone is abroad. Except caller pays whatever their plan would normally charge if the phone was in the country its numbering plan indicates, and the roaming charges covers the rest.