o2 - is it worth disputing a £488 bill for international calls

mystic_bertie

my girlfriend was in crete for 1 week recently, and we were calling each other on our mobile phones, i was using phonecards to call her thinking this would help.

turns out because she is roaming she is charged 85p and 95p per minute, to call uk and to recieve calls. we were unaware of these crazy rates for merely recieving a call.

anyway we spent a while talking on our phones as we had important stuff to sort out. Now my girlfriend has a bill for £488 on her o2 account. I have offered to pay half.

Is there anyway of disputing the bill, i know its the rates but we were naive, is there anyway of getting o2 to cut something off the bill as a gesture of goodwill or do we have to pay the full amount.

just wondering if someone else has found themselves in a similar situation.

kevin_M

bad news im affraid.

They will want payment in full.. and expect it

seen this quite a few times and know there is no way around it

stiffnuts69

Look at it this way if as you say "anyway we spent a while talking on our phones as we had important stuff to sort out" then its £488 well spent.

Yeah ask the company to waive all the cost as a gesture of goodwill, in fact we should all run up high phone bills and then call the respective companies and ask them to waive their profits as a gesture of goodwill. it might catch on.

pin

Afraid as kevin_M has said, probably unlikely you will be able to dispute it.

You may be able to negotiate spreading the payment though.

mystic_bertie

thanks for the feedback, even if its not good news its always best to find out if theres any chance of a reduction.

not really looking to spread the payment, i think we would rather just bite the bullet and pay what is necessary just now.

fonesaver

Why not suggest to O2 that you pay for the calls calculated at the ITS rates. If you are a good customer and say you want a PAC code cos phone company X has much better roaming rates they just might do something...worth a try I think..

mystic_bertie

fonesaver wrote:

Why not suggest to O2 that you pay for the calls calculated at the ITS rates. If you are a good customer and say you want a PAC code cos phone company X has much better roaming rates they just might do something...worth a try I think..

thanks, thats a good idea, i just hope they are willing to reduce the bill, will try what you suggested.

redux

It would be interesting to wonder why the original call to enable roaming did not entail any advice about ITS or whether they sent any info about the recently introduced MyEurope tariff. How much is the monthly line rental and how old the contract? - ITS is included free on contracts over either £30 or £35 (not sure which)

redux

If you're likely to repeat a visit like this, get one of the global roaming SIMs with an Isle of Man number, then incoming calls are free in plenty of countries and calls from O2 will come out of inclusive minutes, and 5p offpeak if you run out. Alternatively use two Vodafone UK SIMs, the one here registered for Stop-the-clock, and the one abroad for Passport. Then off-peak calls would cost 15p here 75p abroad, for a call up to an hour.

mystic_bertie

redux wrote:

It would be interesting to wonder why the original call to enable roaming did not entail any advice about ITS or whether they sent any info about the recently introduced MyEurope tariff. How much is the monthly line rental and how old the contract? - ITS is included free on contracts over either £30 or £35 (not sure which)

as far a si know the monthly tarrif is £20 so wont qualify for ITS. I dont think they did send any info out about my europe tarrif, we are both online customes so we dont get any paperwork thru the door. whether or not we were sent an email regarding these new tarrifs i cant remember.

thanks for the advice, but we have no more plans that we should need to call abroad bt will bear your advice in mind should i need it.

redux

You mean qualify for it free - ITS can still be optionally subscribed to for £2.99 per month pro rata in incomplete billing periods