O2 Roaming Bill - £508.71 - HELP?

seanie_og

Hi all.

Hoping there is someone who can help here...

Background
Last year my wife had a miscarriage in August 2009. Obviously we were both upset and my wife was particularly distressed. At this time opening letters and bills were the last thing she was thinking of and many letters were subsequently simply put in a bag to be opened later but which never were.

o2 Bill - International Data Roaming (but we were in UK!)
Then a few weeks ago, my wife found these letters, and opened her o2 bill for October 2009 and it was £508.71 !!!! Quite a shock.

This was due to international data roaming.
However, we were in the UK. My parents live in Derry (Northern Ireland) and we had visited them. Whilst there my wife was watching TV Catchup on her iPhone are their house (which is in Northern Ireland, UK).

Often phones in NI along the border pick up networks in Southern Ireland (usually O2 Ireland, Orange Ireland etc). We are sure that this must have happened in this case.

Contacted o2
I contacted O2 and spoke to a very helpful advisor who looked into it and was herself shocked at the bill. She went off to speak to her manager and called us back a couple days later. Apparently the manager said that they sympathised with the situation and if my wife had contacted them within a couple of months they probably would have refunded most, if not all, of the charges. But because it is now 11months later they could not refund but offered us 200 free mins instead.

I explained that this was basically useless as my wife only ever uses about 60mins/month. She said she would speak to the manager again and see if anything could be done - I have not heard back from O2 since.

The fact that O2 said they would have refunded it but now they couldn't has really puzzled me. If they could refund it 11months ago, surely they actually could still refund now if they actually wanted to.

Has anyone had anything remotely similar happen to them?

Anything else we could try?

I know that there are no limits/cutoffs in place for these charges but weren't at the time


Thanks for reading this.

Sean

BOBS

I would say that your phone has picked up the southern signal - but anytime this has happened me I have gotten a courtesy text to tell me i was on a different network and an idea of charges.
You might have a case if you didnt get this - but then again you would have no way of proving you didnt.

seanie_og

Thanks for the reply.

Because it was 11 months ago now, my wife has no idea if she got the text or not.

BOBS

Just thinking - why did they not chase her for the payment ????

seanie_og

She pays by direct debit so it was paid automatically.

:-(

Jon_01

Networks will only go back 3 months on any payment issue. They reason that you should be checking your bills/statements each month. That's why they could have done something at the time but not now.

johnnyroper

as harsh as it sounds it is not the networks fault your wifes phone picked up the southern signal while she was battering the data watching catch up tv.after 11 months there is no way they will refund in my opinion best thing to do is put it down to experience and make sure it never happens again.

BOBS

BOBS wrote: »

Just thinking - why did they not chase her for the payment ????

You need to keep a tighter eye on your bank account - £508 overpayment should be noticed quickly. I probably overdo checking statements but even a read through of incomings and outgoings every couple of weeks you should have picked this up. I know you were going through a terrible time but I would worry what else might have been missed.

questionabout

johnnyroper wrote: »

as harsh as it sounds it is not the networks fault your wifes phone picked up the southern signal while she was battering the data

Actually it IS the Networks Fault, hence why they say they would have refunded her if they contacted O2 sooner. Its not like his Wife has an option to select which Network Signal to use. Derry is a big enough place for O2 to pick up a local signal and its not his Wife's job to worry about local signals, thats what she pays O2 for.

johnnyroper wrote: »

after 11 months there is no way they will refund.

I agree with this though. The problem here is a time issue to dispute not a roaming issue which is very clear and easy for her to prove.

iwanttosave_2

questionabout wrote: »

Actually it IS the Networks Fault, hence why they say they would have refunded her if they contacted O2 sooner. Its not like his Wife has an option to select which Network Signal to use. Derry is a big enough place for O2 to pick up a local signal and its not his Wife's job to worry about local signals, thats what she pays O2 for.




I agree with this though. The problem here is a time issue to dispute not a roaming issue which is very clear and easy for her to prove.

Actually she can, she can manually select a network to use. A lot of people in NI are aware of this and have their phones manually selected to only receive their home signal.

johnnyroper

questionabout wrote: »

Actually it IS the Networks Fault, hence why they say they would have refunded her if they contacted O2 sooner. Its not like his Wife has an option to select which Network Signal to use. Derry is a big enough place for O2 to pick up a local signal and its not his Wife's job to worry about local signals, thats what she pays O2 for.




I agree with this though. The problem here is a time issue to dispute not a roaming issue which is very clear and easy for her to prove.

Well i disagree it is not o2's fault the op did not realise what network her phone was picking up,iPhone is no different to other phones you can select network manually or leave on auto another feature is turning data roaming off so it cannot use data if not on own network.

As the op was staying with family you would think they would be aware of this problem?

O2 by saying they would refund if earlier is not accepting liability it would have been a good will gesture