Using I phone/Balckberry abroad question

davetrousers

Congratulations on making this sound SO difficult.

FiatDino

Just saw this thread and thought I should relay a recent experience:

My wife and I took our two 3GS iPhones to Greece. We switched OFF our data roaming at Heathrow, and only switched it back on when we arrived back in the UK. But we did use lots of WiFi when we were away (ie. where provided free in hotels etc.) and thought nothing of it.

Next bill from O2 comes ... guess what? £20 of roaming charges. Now I know that is hardly a horror story, but still it rankles. What's going on? I phone 02 and tell them the story. The customer services girl goes through to her tech team, and the answer comes back that when you use WiFi with the iPhone, apparently the software can (WITHOUT you knowing) temporarily switch ON the data roaming ... so unbeknownst to you it can start downloading data through the foreign network.

I argued that this was a fault with the phone, and as supplier of the phone they should make a refund, and in due course they agreed to do this. But just before hanging up, the girl said that this should be a lesson, and that from now on I should assume that using WiFi abroad with the iPhone could very well run up roaming charges and they would NOT refund in any future incident!

Very strange - and I'm sure this is something that the old consumer watchdogs would have a field day with - but thought I should report it anyway.

Cheers -

FD.

steevie_b

I have a Blackberry 8900 on Orange. There is a setting on it which switches off Mobile Network data when roaming, which is always on. When arriving in Fuerteventura, the phone connected to the local network and the gprs in the corner was in small letters (meaning data isn't available). I used wifi every now and again to get emails and whatnot. Upon returning, I checked my bill on the Orange website and have not been charged anything for the wifi I used.

Aiadi

FiatDino wrote: »

Just saw this thread and thought I should relay a recent experience:

apparently the software can (WITHOUT you knowing) temporarily switch ON the data roaming ... so unbeknownst to you it can start downloading data through the foreign network.

Thanks for sharing the experience. The point here is still that your 'data roaming' through the mobile network got turned on somehow and this is still a separate thing from WiFi use. I can't explain how your data roaming got turned on though as I haven't got an iPhone.

Aiadi

davetrousers wrote: »

Congratulations on making this sound SO difficult.

I have been really trying .....................:whistle: