Bill of £1,600

steve1980

Why did your friend not turn the roaming off? Or alternatively buy an overseas sim to use in the country should he have to make a call back to the UK.

dej23

I went to New York in July for 3 nights, came back and had a roaming bill of around £250. I phoned up T-mobile customer services and was told that there was nothing I could do about it, I should have turned roaming off etc - I phoned again and again - I finally got through to a supervisor and he cancelled all the charges. I was polite every time I called and I explained I was a long standing customer, I didn't use data abroad and I couldn't afford to pay the bill.. I was lucky I was expecting a discount in the charges, but luckily all charges were removed from my bill.

watcherman

dmg24 wrote: »

If someone is not capable of understanding a mobile contract, they should not be signing up to one.

See my earlier reply.

gjchester

watcherman wrote: »

See my earlier reply.

With respect there have been enough "horror stories" in the press and on TV of hideous romaing bills it would be hard for anyone to say they didn't know the cost would be higher than normal.

It's also no different to if you went to another country and called home on a landline, you'd expect to pay more than in the UK for a call. You also would ask first what the cost is.

I've said before I went to Vodafone website, types "using my phone abroad" in the search engines and got the cost back, you can also call customer services, go in a shop or there s a text back service on vodafone. It's hard for anyone to justify they did not exect the bill to be higher or at least know how much it would be.

Weather people do or do not find out first is another matter though

Guys_Dad

gjchester wrote: »

With respect there have been enough "horror stories" in the press and on TV of hideous romaing bills it would be hard for anyone to say they didn't know the cost would be higher than normal.

It's also no different to if you went to another country and called home on a landline, you'd expect to pay more than in the UK for a call. You also would ask first what the cost is.

You are right, of course, but it seems clear from some posts that the people in question just don't seem to understand that their smartphones actually consume data in the background or even that if they access maps, that is chargeable data. I also read a post on here recently that seemed to suggest that Iphones require additional "switching off" of data to stop them from connecting.

MSE members may very well be prudent about not making or receiving calls, but through lack of understanding, are clocking up the charges through their data connections.

DUTR

Guys_Dad wrote: »

You are right, of course, but it seems clear from some posts that the people in question just don't seem to understand that their smartphones actually consume data in the background or even that if they access maps, that is chargeable data. I also read a post on here recently that seemed to suggest that Iphones require additional "switching off" of data to stop them from connecting.

MSE members may very well be prudent about not making or receiving calls, but through lack of understanding, are clocking up the charges through their data connections.

I understand that, I'm just not feeling it, what is most puzzling with 'all' these type of posts are that when in the UK, their natural data usage is somewhat much less than when on holiday, when in practice the data whilst roaming should be less, after all they are on holiday.
Whilst I can knock up 500mb of data in a month, I do have to have the phone connected to my netbook to do so, otherwise using the data daily I'm hard pushed to even knock up 30mb and yes I have facebook and snaptu with twice daily weather updates, have a satnav that uses data services.
I know my phone has settings that diable data whilst roaming and it works, so not sure why some of these brilliant fault free handsets are not able to achieve the basics.
I suppose at £6/mb then 250mb is going to return a high bill, but 250mb from a mobile is high usage when on holiday.

MissKeith

Data Roaming on an iPhone is set to 'off' as default. You would have to go into into the settings and manually turn it on for this to happen. There is also a message about how using data whilst roaming will result in higher charges. Ignorance isn't an excuse with an iPhone.

baloo

I have a very similar story - my friend has just returned from Oz and run up a £2500 bill!! :eek:Mostly roaming charges. The thing is that he rang Orange before he left and asked for details of all charges he would incur when in Oz, price of calls, texts and ANY OTHER CHARGES that he may receive. No-one from Orange even mentioned roaming charges.
And although I sometimes agree that "ignorance is no excuse" surely by ringing and asking his phone provider a list of all costs before he went should count for something?

almillar

As in post #18 - the Palm Pre knows when it's on a foreign network and won't use any data unless you force it to. Hope your friend familiarises himself with his phone and his operator's charges (consider PAYG), or gets a better phone, or doesn't sit watching YouTube clips all day in the airport!
Guy's Dad's advice is good - throw yourself on the mercy of the company whilst gently reminding them of the EU guidance...