Assistance required.. Mobile phone roaming charges.

Luke_Davies

Dear anyone/everyone.

Your asisstance would be appreciated.

I have a direct debit returned to my bank and having investigated this, it appears to be the result of an enormous orange phone bill to the value of £2097.64 for the month of June 2011.

I had travelled abroad to Turkey for a one week period and not being too technically minded, was not aware of having to switch a function off on the handset to prevent this 'roaming' facility on the handset.

The roaming element of the bill is to the tune of £2,000.00 as this feature was left switched on, on the handset all week of my holiday.

I have made calls and texts abroad which I am not disputing, and more than happy to pay.

I have also used the internet which I assumed the handset would charge me from the moment I began using until I had finished….and again I am happy to pay for this as it was only for about a 1 hour duration over the course of the week abroad.

I have been a loyal customer to orange for 11+ years, and my average bill is £65 - £80 per month which is always paid on time.

I need advice/assistance into how to proceed on this matter to see if I can dispute these charges.

Could anyone please offer any assistance?
Thank you

Guys_Dad

Luke_Davies wrote: »

Dear anyone/everyone.

Your asisstance would be appreciated.

I have a direct debit returned to my bank and having investigated this, it appears to be the result of an enormous orange phone bill to the value of £2097.64 for the month of June 2011.

I had travelled abroad to Turkey for a one week period and not being too technically minded, was not aware of having to switch a function off on the handset to prevent this 'roaming' facility on the handset.

The roaming element of the bill is to the tune of £2,000.00 as this feature was left switched on, on the handset all week of my holiday.

I have made calls and texts abroad which I am not disputing, and more than happy to pay.

I have also used the internet which I assumed the handset would charge me from the moment I began using until I had finished….and again I am happy to pay for this as it was only for about a 1 hour duration over the course of the week abroad.

I have been a loyal customer to orange for 11+ years, and my average bill is £65 - £80 per month which is always paid on time.

I need advice/assistance into how to proceed on this matter to see if I can dispute these charges.

Could anyone please offer any assistance? My tel is ***********

Thank you

I suggest you remove your telephone number.

Nothing can really be done until you check your bill.

Is it mainly data charges?

What phone do you have?

Luke_Davies

Thanks for the rompt reply Guys Dad.

I have the Iphone 3GS and the roaming charges equate to around £2,000 of a £2,097.00 bill.

Will remove contact nr.

Regards

Techhead_2

But were the roaming charges for calls/texts or data? Before you went did you check how much calls/text/data will cost?

gjchester

As posted in http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=45442094&postcount=10



Iphone DO NOT have roaming enabled by default and there is a warning that to enable the feature can be expensive.

£2k @ £8 a megabyte is 250mb of use. Thats not just a little surfing thats a lot of use.

Turkey is a memeber of the EU so the data cap should apply, you may want to ask Orange why it wasn't applied to your account.

Guys_Dad

gjchester wrote: »

As posted in http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=45442094&postcount=10



Iphone DO NOT have roaming enabled by default and there is a warning that to enable the feature can be expensive.

£2k @ £8 a megabyte is 250mb of use. Thats not just a little surfing thats a lot of use.

Turkey is a memeber of the EU so the data cap should apply, you may want to ask Orange why it wasn't applied to your account.

I think I have the answer to that, GJ.

From Orange web site
Where does the data limit apply?
The data limit takes affect in EU countries, so that’s the Republic of Ireland and Channel Islands zone and Europe 1 zone.


Europe 1
Andorra Austria Belgium Bulgaria
Cyprus (South) Czech Republic Denmark Estonia
Finland France French Guiana Germany
Gibraltar Greece Guadeloupe (inc St Barthelemy and St Martin) Hungary
Iceland Italy Latvia Liechtenstein
Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Martinique
Moldova Monaco Netherlands Norway
Poland Portugal (inc Azores and Madeira) Reunion Romania
San Marino Satellite Slovakia Slovenia
Spain (inc. Canary and Balearic Islands) Sweden Switzerland Vatican

Turkey is Europe 2.

Europe 2
Albania Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia
Cyprus (North) Faroe Islands Gaza Strip Georgia
Israel Macedonia Montenegro Serbia
Turkey Ukraine West Bank

Luke_Davies

Have sent a letter to Orange explaining how I have never turned on the roaming feature on the handset as I was completely unaware of such a service.

I am fully aware that calls/texts/internet would be expensive, but would only be charged when making calls/texts/internet use and this i did.

I was not aware of a roaming feature to be charging me in the background whilst my phone stood on standby all day, only being used for a short duration each night.

I have received a replacement handset 2 months ago following me cracking the glass on the original screen which deemed the phone useless.
Could it be possible that the replacement handset was a reconditioned handset whereby the feature would have already been switched on unto my knowledge??? and a valid argument for me to negotiate with Orange???

Orange have replied to my original 'letter of disgust' saying I am liable and have offered No reduction in the bill. Phone has been cut off.. which i expected!!!

Other users say Turkey is out of the EU hence the high rates.

Is there any way of negotiating to reduce this bill of £2,000 ???

grumbler

I think data roaming is normally disabled by default and manuals explain how to enable it (check yours).
However, it is impossible to prove that it was enabled in the replacement handset. And even if it was, you have already admitted that you used internet (i.e. used data roaming), but did not know about background charges.

Re negotiating, some victims were able to get up to 50% discount.

spiro

Luke_Davies wrote: »

Orange have replied to my original 'letter of disgust' saying I am liable and have offered No reduction in the bill. Phone has been cut off.. which i expected!!!

Other users say Turkey is out of the EU hence the high rates.

Is there any way of negotiating to reduce this bill of £2,000 ???

Turkey may be listed as Europe but it is not in the EU so the EU cap does not apply.

What you do next will depend on the tone of your letter to a degree and also how you speak to them. By your own admission you used the internet while in Turkey so Orange will rightly expect that you know about roaming and how to turn it on/off. Your best move is to try and 'grovel' but the providors are proably getting bored of people saying the same thing given the amount of publicity over the last 2 years.