just been billed £1554 for phone use in Australia

opaque

It will be your actual internet use that you've admitted to and all the push services and using the apps on the phone that would easily add up to that much.

>I thought there was a monthly cap, i understand that just applies to Europe.<

You've just answered your own question there. There is now a cap in Europe, but nowhere else.The responsibility for data use is the customers outside of the EU.

Did you turn off the data element of your phone when you got on the plane? That's what I did when I went to the US and only turned it back on again when I wanted to use the wifi. At which point I was utilising another network and presumably accepting their terms and conditions as a partner of O2.
On the plane they said either turn it off or turn off the data services.

drbesty

d123 wrote: »

did you actually read my post, I said exactly that, the OP must have streamed video at some stage.

Email and some internet = 380MB, NO streaming included.

I did read your post, infact I read it twice because it didnt make any sense, you've got your figures all wrong

gjchester

boliston wrote: »

I think it is high time legislation is introduced to prevent these extortionate charges for roaming.

Great idea, like the fact the EU forced EU calls, text and roaming data prices down to save us all money.

Oh wait, we lost 12 month contracts, Unlimited data and free calls to voicemail, not to mention plans all jumped up in price when the EU forced these changes in.

Legislation will reduce these charges but then something else will go up. If you don't want these charges don't use the service.

This sounds bad to the OP but why should I have to pay more each and every month to subsidise someone who uses a phone overseas and does not bother asking the costs before they go?

I use my iPhone abroad, last time cost me 75p a call on Vodafones passport, I knew the costs and expected to pay more. Or take an old phone that can't do data if you just want someway to call home.

I don't want to subsidise someone who doesn't ask cost then uses it to facebook there friend that they are on the beach all the time and then gets "disgusted" about charges they never thought to query before they went.

Hauptmann

gjchester wrote: »

Great idea, like the fact the EU forced EU calls, text and roaming data prices down to save us all money.

Oh wait, we lost 12 month contracts, Unlimited data and free calls to voicemail, not to mention plans all jumped up in price when the EU forced these changes in.

It is not a reasonable argument to suggest that mobile networks should use excessive roaming charges to cross-subsidise other parts of their business. EU roaming costs the networks very little - not least because many customers are only actually 'roaming' on to overseas branches of the same network (e.g. T-mobile, which operates in many EU countries).
The networks were saying that 12 month contacts were 'unsustainable' well before the EU legislation was mooted - they have been itching to increase contract length and reduce customer 'churn' for many years.
Data costs for most networks are actually very low now. One of the reasons for this is that there is massive over-capacity in international and intercontinental data traffic - the reason for this being great improvements in data compression technologies, which were not envisaged when the links were first planned.

boliston

gjchester wrote: »

Great idea, like the fact the EU forced EU calls, text and roaming data prices down to save us all money.

Oh wait, we lost 12 month contracts, Unlimited data and free calls to voicemail, not to mention plans all jumped up in price when the EU forced these changes in...

I think the loss of 12 month contracts is more due to the fact that phones are getting more sophisticated and the monthly cost would simply be too much if it was spread over 12 months only.

If a typical smartphone handset is now worth £500-600 then spreading this over only 12 months will probably see monthly costs of £75+ as they have to cover both the hardware costs and the costs of any bundled data/texts/minutes.

gjchester wrote: »

...Legislation will reduce these charges but then something else will go up. If you don't want these charges don't use the service.

This sounds bad to the OP but why should I have to pay more each and every month to subsidise someone who uses a phone overseas and does not bother asking the costs before they go?...

I think they still make plenty of profit on overseas charges even with EU legislation. It still costs up to £3 per MB in some cases which is about 200 times the cost that locals will be paying for that same data.

geekgirl

To the OP two different scenarios that I know of recently.
My sister in law run up a large bill on her mobile. She rang Orange with a full on attitude of i'm not paying it, you can take me to court etc..... she ended up having to pay the bill and extra for not paying in time.
My friend ran up a huge bill for roaming when she was on holiday. She hadn't realised that this would be the case as she hadn't made herself aware of the situation. She rang orange very apologetic, was asking for help as she didn't have access to the amount they had billed her. They knocked most of the money off and gave her time to pay as well.
It's all in the approach. You may not be successful as you do owe it but you may get help if you are nice about but much less likely if you have attitude with them.

mrcamp

Wow! With all the information out there regarding iphone and data usage, and how much folks that roamed with their iphones have racked up ridiculous charges, I cannot believe that you still made this mistake. Like others said, see if you can talk your way into paying half of it. They have all right to say know, since you actually used what you are being charged for. Good luck!

boliston

geekgirl wrote: »

To the OP two different scenarios that I know of recently.
My sister in law run up a large bill on her mobile. She rang Orange with a full on attitude of i'm not paying it, you can take me to court etc..... she ended up having to pay the bill and extra for not paying in time.
My friend ran up a huge bill for roaming when she was on holiday. She hadn't realised that this would be the case as she hadn't made herself aware of the situation. She rang orange very apologetic, was asking for help as she didn't have access to the amount they had billed her. They knocked most of the money off and gave her time to pay as well.
It's all in the approach. You may not be successful as you do owe it but you may get help if you are nice about but much less likely if you have attitude with them.

The fact that they always seem only too happy to write off the bulk of these roaming charges as long as you "talk nice" to them rather implies that there is a MASSIVE mark-up added onto the price the customer pays.

I can't think of any other product you can buy, but when it comes to time to pay they happily say "oh don't worry we will knock 75% off and just pay us 25%".

Perhaps I should try this after filling up with petrol "sorry i did not realise how expensive petrol is these days" or after I've had an expensive meal at a restaurant "that £75 bill seems a lot for a meal for two, I only got charged £10 by macdonalds when I last ate out".

gjchester

boliston wrote: »

The fact that they always seem only too happy to write off the bulk of these roaming charges as long as you "talk nice" to them rather implies that there is a MASSIVE mark-up added onto the price the customer pays.

Probably true, but my experience of going overseas for work and pleasure is the people who tend to hammer mobile phones are businessmen and women who put the thing on expenses so really don't care about the cost. They use voice and data without thihnking about the cost.

Regardless of if it's overpriced or not if the EU forces the cost down *SOMETHING* will go up for all customers. Was EU capping what made 12 months untenable or was it handsets going up? we'll never know, I find it too much a coincidence that each time the EU legislates something tarriff wise then the mobile co's make to changes to the detriment of all UK users.

Personally I'd rather see companies pay high roaming charged and yes some careless customers, than see my almost always UK only bill go up for those reasons.

sibot74

boliston wrote: »

I can't think of any other product you can buy, but when it comes to time to pay they happily say "oh don't worry we will knock 75% off and just pay us 25%".

You can't? Not bought a sofa recently then?