MSE news: Complaints over erroneous iPhone data roaming charges

gbliss

I've had this happen on two occasions. The data download seems to happen immediately after switching on the phone (or turning off airplane mode). A few seconds later the data romiang off function kicks in and nothign else is downloaded. This short time lag (even if data roaming is disabled before leavign the UK) appears to cause the problem. Last year O2 refunded me on two occasions. I have just had the same happen on arrival in Japan so am waitign to see what appears on my bill. Clearly a bug that needs sorting.

willie_bath

I am another lamb to the slaughter, last month I got erroneous data charges and I am practically anal about having the roaming feature off, in fact it has never been on, I also turn off location charges, the people at o2 have been, unhelpful to say the least, and Apple informed me that the excuses o2 made are just ludicrous, it only happened last month and not on my previous trips, and I had an iPad with me, which did all the "surfing" etc. And that cannot be charged as I have no sim card! This is obviously a serious problem that, apart from anything else, o2 are making a fortune from, no promised call backs, nothing. I will now write to o2 as has been pointed out earlier on this forum, it is not possible to talk to a "superior".

richleeds

Glad I found this thread.

I have worked for British Airways for many years, week in week out I am overseas and have had iphones since they launched and have never had a single data roaming charge, as my data roaming is always switched off, its frustrating, as I would like to be abroad and checking emails and facebook etc but I only do so when I find a wireless connection.

In June I got a text out of the blue from o2 saying "Just to let you know you have spent £320 (yes £320!!!!) on data so far while you've been abroad. Its £3 a MB in the EU. If you spend too much we might stop your data."

So I was straight on the phone to them when I got back to the UK and they said there was a data charge of £40 which was a relief compared to £320 but I knew I hadnt even used £40 - so an obvious o2 system error.

Anyway, went away with work again and got a 2nd text from o2 saying (again with data roaming turned off as always) "You've hit your 50MB limit. If you want to use more go to www.o2international.co.uk (free) for details."

So again on the phone to them, no I hadnt spent £320 on overseas data according to their system and no I hadnt used my 50MB limit on overseas data either.

So, we argued over the next few days, I made them look back over my bills for the last 12 months, they could see that every month I was overseas via my text usage but had never used any data. We argued some more, I told them about the 2 incorrect system texts I had recieved, particularly the £320 notification text when their own systems showed I hadnt spent £320, and in the end they have agreed to refund all charges as a "one off" under the bill shock scheme, which as I gather means if you get a one off bill that is alot more than you usually spend and is out of sync with your usual bill pattern for calls/text/data you didnt make or didnt think you made they will refund it.

So there is most certainly a system error their end.

pensionsexpert

I used my iPhone while abroad (Australia - usually on wifi and when not only very rarely). They sent me a text on landing saying that data charges would be a max of £14.99 for 25mb. What they misled me about by not including the key detail was that this was PER DAY! The natural period is a billing month. Got a bill for £120!

Complaint 1 - They just said the charges were correct
Complaint 2 - (said I would rather sort this out with them before I took it to OFCOM) £90 refund offered and accepted.

Didn't expect to pay nothing for this service but the charges are so high for so little, especially given the network used was Vodafone Australia - same Company!

Name and shame those who charge an extortionate amount. Vodafone did repair some damage in the end but are reliant on you not complaining.

Tips - Check and be aware of charges (including the rates, i.e. per day, per month), turn roaming off when not in use, check bill carefully and if in doubt complain (mentioning thier regulator OFCOM!)

Gecks

I was charged £7.05 during a trip to NYC in September. I know I changed the data-roaming option off (else it would have been much more with the iphone!), so I knew it was some sort of balls-up, but yeah. Sending my complaint now!

Mairn138

Hi!
I got my iPhone in January, when I got to Florida I received a message about the high cost of roaming so switched the phone off and used my Samsung for calls only.
We were going to Tunisia in June so I called O2 to have a data bolt-on added. I asked them how much I usually used over the month on my home (O2) broadband (9.5 mb max) so decided to go for the £20= 10MB bolt-on.
All I did was check out emails, facebook etc and 4 days into the holiday received an automatically generated text saying I owed them £309!!!! Needless to say I didn't tell the other half (Mr £10 top-up lasts 4 months...;) All I used it for after that was to check 2 pages of my Uni website to get my classification (2:1, Yay for extremely mature students!)
Got home and phoned to query my £309 bill which was now £712, they guided me through checking the online billing, when I checked it some of the entries were 2-3-5 o'clock in the morning! I thought I was late in bed if it was after 12!
I asked them to start an investigation, I don't mind paying for what I use but not over £300 at 5am. My bill ended up at £45 (£35 chg + £10 in calls home)
Happy bunny!:j

cosydow

I was very interested to read this article and the many responses as I was under the impression, until now, that I was the only one who'd had problems! Having travelled to Italy for 10 days (May 2010) with the iphone (all necessary off's were off and I didn't use the internet whilst there) I was rather shocked to get a text from O2 telling me my data charges amounted to £208:eek:. So shocked I switched off the phone........ and when I switched it on again at the end of the week, had another text from them telling me that I had spent over £446 above my tariff charge for the month (didn't think I had one but there you go). Not bad going considering the phone was OFF and the text was posted 1 day after the first!:eek::eek:

I phoned O2 the day I got home to ask what was going on, and as a goodwill gesture, having argued that the iphone cannot have it's battery removed and after switching it off and leaving it at the bottom of my suitcase, the only other option was to flush it, they agreed to cancel the charges 'on this occassion':j:j

ukgreatdeals

I travelled to Egypt in March and made sure my data roaming and all push notifications were off. On my return I had a bill for £75.93 for “data use”. I did use the free wifi in the hotel to browse the net on my IPhone but at no time made calls or texts and data roaming remained switched off.

After reading up on the net i was not the only one with this problem I rang O2 on 21/7/10. They agreed to refund my data charges under a one off scheme they have called “bill shock”. They told me also that if you lose the wi-fi signal while on the internet on your phone it will flick over to use gsm data and you will get charged even if your data roaming is switched off. They told me this is an issue with Apple and the IPhone not O2. I am now concerned as this one off scheme is now used up for me and I could innocently use free wi-fi with data roaming function turned off and still incur GSM data roaming charges. What's the point of having a "data roaming off" button when it can still data roam!!!!! Not impressed with this! BEWARE EVERYONE if what O2 say is true.

Kingsd316

Does this only effect O2 customers (im on orange) , im off to spain soon and am now worried, might just not take the iphone and use the adaptor to turn the micro sim back to a normal sim and use my SE Satio

mystica_3

I also experienced this on a recent trip to Malaysia and Thailand. When data roaming was switched off, and the phone switched between different cellular networks, my unread e-mail count went up. When I noticed this, I checked the data roaming setting and it was definitely switched off.

This was with an iPhone 4. I've had an original iPhone and iPhone 3G in the past and this has never happened before. I did see it happen to a friend of mine with a 3GS in Prague, so maybe it's something that started with that phone.

I called AppleCare to tell them about it, of course the person I spoke to had no knowledge of the issue but I know Apple collects statistics about these calls so if enough people complain they might take the problem seriously.

I'm not going to try to get a refund from O2, because I was actually using data roaming to check work e-mails from time to time, and couldn't say which charges were deliberate and which weren't. With the new charging scheme the bill was capped at £40, which is what I had been expecting to pay on the trip anyway.

Hopefully increasing awareness of this problem among iPhone users and some press coverage will encourage Apple to fix it.

J-P