iPhone roaming charges - please help.

Guys_Dad

dappyhel wrote: »

- SO WHY THE BL**DY HELL DIDN'T SOMEONE CONTACT ME TO TELL ME?!!! OR CUT ME OFF?! They've did it once before, back in my poorer days - text to tell me I've hit such-and-such amount, cut off until back from holiday a week later. No iPhone then, no internet on my phone.

I'm just baffled by some of the aspects of this bill. Why on earth didn't Orange send a text to tell me the bill was climbing so rapidly?.

They would have been obliged to for data roaming in the EU. One of the few good things the EU have done.

The other point is that these charges are from data used on other networks apart from Orange UK. Now the amount they charge Orange is nowhere what Orange charges you, but there is a delay between you using the data and Orange themselves being notified by the 3rd party.

Have you managed to get anywhere with reducing your bill yet?

Guys_Dad

dappyhel wrote: »

I should have made this a bit clearer - every other time I've gone abroad (with previous phones/contracts) I've had to ring Orange in order to activate the roaming. As I didn't ring, I assumed it hadn't activated.

Probably been left set "ON" from last time you asked for it to be set on.

macman

dappyhel wrote: »

This is one of the things that has really wound me up about this huge bill, especially as the week has gone on and I've had time to think about it.
Okay, I had no idea about the data roaming button being on etc - I did know that every other phone & contract I have had with Orange since I became a customer 10 years ago required me to activate international roaming prior to going abroad, so assumed I'd have to do the same this time, which I didn't. Soon found out I could make a call back to the UK though which told me I did have international roaming activated. But I am a run-of-the-mill, basic phone and laptop user who has a basic knowledge (or perhaps less than basic it now seems).

Anyway, I'm digressing. What has irritated me is that when I rang the billing services to discuss the charges and why my bill was so high, the man straightaway responded with, "yes, we have seen that it's quite a lot higher than usual" - SO WHY THE BL**DY HELL DIDN'T SOMEONE CONTACT ME TO TELL ME?!!! OR CUT ME OFF?! They've did it once before, back in my poorer days - text to tell me I've hit such-and-such amount, cut off until back from holiday a week later. No iPhone then, no internet on my phone.

I'm just baffled by some of the aspects of this bill. Why on earth didn't Orange send a text to tell me the bill was climbing so rapidly? They text and ring me about a variety of other rubbish, "Hello it's so-and-so from Orange, just a quick customer service call". Grrrrr.

Also, the battery was running low on many a day as I use the iPhone for the iPod, hence I put the use of power down to the fact that I was using the iPod for a good few hours each day. See, I am a techno-idiot.

Because the charges are not notified to Orange in real time. It may be hours or days before they are passed back by the local network, by which time it is too late. Nor does any phone company manually check the usage of their millions of customers. You may have had a perfectly good reason to be using the data. Someone might have an emergency that requires intensive phone use-how would they react if their provider just cut them off under such circumstances?
The auto warnings and cut-offs apply in the EU only-not outside.

grumbler

dappyhel wrote: »

...SO WHY THE BL**DY HELL DIDN'T SOMEONE CONTACT ME TO TELL ME?!!! OR CUT ME OFF?! ...

Why would they? Roaming is a cash caw for all networks, and Orange are notorious for this.

At the time of stoozing I was given pretty big credit limits by some providers. However, many other credit card companies didn't give me more than £2K.

In the light of the above, almost unlimited credit that all networks give to all contract customers looks odd. Why do they give it away then? Because it's big, easy and low-risk money for them. Even if they write off 50% of the debt, that they do sometimes, they don't lose anything. As simple as that.

macman wrote: »

Because the charges are not notified to Orange in real time.

An easy, but arguable explanation. If it works this way, this doesn't mean that it is the only way this can work. This notorious 'delay' causes no problem for networks when it comes to PAYG customers.

dappyhel

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Probably been left set "ON" from last time you asked for it to be set on.

I've never asked for it to be set on with this phone or this number.

korky69

orange are awful in their stealth charges,
last month i ended up with a tiny excess bill (£10) compared to yours but i queried it at £3 and said i'd switched off the 3g and data setting but still getting charges a pound a day for around 50kb a day, yes kb and that was when i quickly switched it on to send 1 of my free mms.

they said iphones always find a way to connect so it was either switch off until my bill date or pay a pound a day for nothing, thats oranges reply over the phone!
i complained about that bill 2 weeks ago via secure message and not heard a thing.
absolutely shocking customer service

dappyhel

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Have you managed to get anywhere with reducing your bill yet?

We've written a letter outlining everything - looked at the contract etc, in which it is stated that they would give me a copy of the Ts and Cs which they never did but I never noticed (another stupid mistake on my part but another thing that they failed to do). I've not been in from work early enough to ring them until today but I'm doing so this evening. It's really stressing me out, I feel sick at the thought of arguing this over the phone.

2sides2everystory

I understand that sick feeling, dappyhel. It is very frustrating when you know that the odds of getting a fair hearing and resolution over the phone are thin.

You may be aware that there is some degree of official Orange help available in this MSE forum under the username Orange Company Representative. Different individuals respond via that username - sometimes helpfully, sometimes blandly.

In their signature they also indicate a presence as "Orange Helpers" on Twitter and Facebook as follows:

Twitter: @OrangeHelpers
Facebook: Orange UK

Fingers crossed you find someone at Orange who is going to resolve this nicely for you. My feeling is that that previous history of the requirement you've experienced in other years of having to call them to activate data-roaming might be one worth pressing.

Also if you have never consciously switched data roaming on from the supposed default of OFF then clearly you can press that too.

The ON / OFF switches concerned are I believe under Settings > General > Network and I link to this image on the maclife.com website to show you what it looks like:



The two switches that need to be off when not using cellular data are Cellular Data and Data Roaming. I don't know what the difference is when roaming - I suppose the effect to be the same when roaming.

Somewhere else in the Settings there is I believe another ON / OFF setting for Location Services I believe which enables you to use the "Find My iPhone" service at me.com - I am not sure what if any chargeable cellular data this uses.

Good luck

dappyhel

I just thought I would post again, only this time thanking everyone for all of their responses, and letting you know the latest. Hopefully the saga is over! I spoke to 2 people at Orange on Thursday night, I think I was on the phone for nearly an hour. The second lady offered me a credit of £150 for this month which would then be added to next month's bill which I declined. I escalated my complaint with her which she said (promised in fact!) she would discuss with her manager the following day and I would hear from them in the next 24-48 hours (by Saturday night). Well, it got to lunchtime yesterday (Sunday) and still nothing so I decided to ring them. In the end, I spoke to another manager who couldn't track down the woman I'd spoken to on Thursday despite me being able to provide a name and extension number. However, yesterday's lady did sort it out for me. She looked at the cost of the 77MB of internet use had I purchased a roaming bundle, which came to £72. She then deducted it from the £620 of internet charges which I originally had, and then credited my account with the remaining £548. So I was left with a bill of £153 something which has been paid and my account is now clear.

I know I was lucky; I'm still cross with the lack of help I got from some of the people at Orange but it shows that it pays to ring and discuss calmly, rather than get angry and end up not actually getting anywhere. Thanks so much to all of you who gave me advice, it's been much appreciated.

Cash-Strapped.T32

Well played :cool: - I would hope (!!!) I never let myself get in that situation, but if ever I'm unlucky enough to do so, I really hope I could get as good a result.