Mysterious roaming charges on HTC Hero on Orange

Niall01

I went to florida for 2 weeks in july on holiday. When I arrived at the villa we were staying in I switched on my phone, no reception!, I walked around the house and still no signal. The next day when at the local supermarket I checked again and still no bars. So later on that evening I gave up and turned my HTC Hero off.

Returning from holiday I was shocked to see orange had charged me £301 for data roaming charges. I thought there must be some kind off mistake.

This is where the excuses from orange began. I was firstly told that if I used WIFI and the signal was weak my phone would switch to 3G. I knew this was true, but considering I used WIFI once to check the BBC website, but being in the same room as the router and not having any signal made this excuse laughable.

Secondly I was told that all smartphones like HTCs automatically update themselves. Again I know this to be true, but having requested a copy of my data usuage I found that orange state I connected only twice using 20MB and 16MB of data, none of the previous entries on my bill were above 4MB.

Thirdly I was asked if I had email set up on the phone or if I had a Facebook app. I do. "Ah! There's the problem!" said the customer service advisor. Emails and facebook update themselves all the time. My email account recieves three to four emails at most a day and emails on the Hero are text only and file sizes are in kbs not MBs. Facebook staus updates also are text only with the persons profile picture in the corner, but the latest status when I got back in the UK was dated the 26th June( the day I left). I did not take this explaination seriously.

Then something amazing happened and I was advised in future to switch data roaming off. Mmmm I thought I must check if it was on or not. Then the Eureka moment, It was Switched off!. I also found out that the HTC Hero data roaming setting is set to off by default.
It was only a couple of days later I saw an arcticle in a newspaper(It was linked to the arcticle on this site) about this problem and Iphones. Brilliant I thought, this will clear it up.

So phoned orange again, but was told "You don't have an Iphone do you!" by a manager who sounded like I was keeping him back from his lunch break. I was told that this problem was not possible on other phones.
Having searched through the internet I have found that this problem seems to have affected a considerable chunk of the smartphone market; there where americans complaining about the T-mobile G1, people complianing about blackberries and complaints about several models of HTCs.

I am now being told by that manager that I must of used it, full stop!
He told me that it was in black and white on the screen infront of him. I told him it was in black and white in front of me as well as some sort of mistake. He told me mistakes aren't possible. I doubt that Orange have never made a mistake on a bill.

I was told that the american network I used was cingular usa. What seems supicious is that Cingular merged with AT&T and since 2005 has stopped trading under that name, no one at orange could comment on why I had been charged by a company that in my view doesn't exist.

To me it would be very easy to scam smartphone users out of hundreads even thousands of pounds, by adding numbers to my bill that are "untraceble". Orange told me that they don't know what type of data was used but that the cingular just sends them the bill. Seems like a very good business deal at £8 a MB.

I waiting for an higher ranked manager to phone me and I have sent off a written complaint. The most I have been offered was £150 off but I will not pay a penny for orange not providing a service i.e No Signal!

I'm not sure why I posted this here, It seemed like a good place to inform, get potenial advice and just a good way to let off steam.
I hope I did not go on to long and thanks to anyone who reads this.

Thanks
Niall

Niall01

After getting nowhere with Orange customer care. My father recommened that I email the CEO of Orange. I got a quick reponse saying they would look into it. The day after they phoned again and told me that they could not explain the charges. I got a full refund! Case closed!

gawk

can i have the email address

thanks

sootysue2

This is happening to me too, Orange will not co-operate at all and have a thousand and one excuses it's unbelievable as my husband has had his data charges cancelled by T- mobile immediately he contacted them and the strange thing is that we were charged on exactly the same 2 days and for similar amounts whilst on holiday in Turkey! How do i find the email address for CEO?
Thanks Sue

bubblesmoney

i guess it is pretty easy for any foreign network to make a quick buck and claim data charges even when not used as no one will challenge them as usually they get paid by the uk network on which they roam. as soon as the foreign network detects that you are on their network, they know the phone details and some unscrupulous ones probably can get away by making charges for data that was not used.

unless someone tests this data roaming rip off in court, this issue isnt going to go away. there should be some way these transactions can be authenticated by pin numbers etc before roaming data is used just like on credit cards. should be an encrypted verification process for scamsters not to overcome the pin process. guess it will be a while before such things become reality and that wont happen unless the networks are forced by either courts or legislation to bring about those changes.

ruggedtoast

I went to Asia a couple of weeks ago and I turned my HTC Desire off at Heathrow and I didnt turn it on again until I'd put a local SIM card in.

Niall01

Useful link for major uk companies including Orange:

www. connectotel. com /marcus/ ceoemail

Take out spaces as i wasnt allowed to post link