Huge mobile phone bills due to data roaming

Kian

On the 15th of July I rang Orange to set my son's mobile phone up for roaming whilst on a trip to Ireland (iphone 3g). I spoke to one of their off shore customer service contacts who
did not mention anything to me about the costs or ways to avoid data download costs. To be honest I wasn't thinking of internet costs as he was going on a trip with the sea cadets and spending a week on a yacht. I have just got a bill for over £300 incl VAT download charges for usage on one day. Orange advised
me that 89megabytes were used on the 17th of July when he was on the marina in Howth Ireland. My son is adament that the data roaming was off on his phone and says that he just sent text that day and did not use his phone for anything else, as it is he only uses itunes, facebook and games when he is in the UK.
Orange said to me that they would have sent him a text to alert him that he had reached his monthly allowance and the text asked him to text yes to opt out. He must have text yes as I can see it on the bill , but by doing this it has allowed the phone to continue to keep accessing the internet. My son having no idea of
what this meant at the time and being dyslexic would have difficulty working out something that is ambiguous. As a result of this when he was again in Ireland for a week on the 26th of August at my parents house we have a pending bill of over £500.Again he said that he did not use his phone at this time as he had his laptop with him.
I have contacted Orange and they have offered me £150 as a goodwill gesture against my total bill of approx £800. I have explained my situation and that I was not give enough advice on the phone when I originally set the phone up for roaming and I felt that while the alert messages is set to protect users from huge charges, it did not in my case. Orange said that it was my responsibility as I had chosen to allow my son to have an iphone do regardless it was my responsibility.

I would appreciate if you could give me some advice on whether I should accept the goodwill gesture or take the matter further.

grumbler

A typical picture again:

• a child with a parent's contract phone,
• Orange,
• data roaming.

iPhone roaming charges - please help.
mobile phone abroad - see inside for a few more links


See also this: Complaints over erroneous iPhone data roaming charges

He must have text yes as I can see it on the bill , but by doing this it has allowed the phone to continue to keep accessing the internet. My son having no idea of what this meant at the time and being dyslexic would have difficulty working out something that is ambiguous.

It was your phone with unlimited credit and your decision to give it to your son. It is your problem, not Orange's

spiro

If you son got the 'youve reached the £40 data limit' and responded to allow him to continue to use data then there is nothing you can do. I would except the offer. If he had been outside the EU not only would he have not got a warning you would also been looking at a much larger bill.

You asked the to enable roaming, which they did. If you had asked 'is there anything I should do to avoid a large bill' they would probably advised you about roaming.

Unfortunately this forum is littered with threads about large overseas data bills because people dont understand their smartphone or the associated costs of data roaming.

I would suggest that you tell you son, if you receive a text from Orange and dont fully understand it speak to someone before doing ANYTHING with your phone.

drbesty

Orange now do 30MB of EU daily data for £3, so hopefully these threads will become less prevalent

Hammyman

drbesty wrote: »

Orange now do 30MB of EU daily data for £3, so hopefully these threads will become less prevalent

I seriously doubt it. It requires intelligence to go look what the costs are for data outside the UK in the first place. I don't see much of that happening in the OPs post.

Techhead_2

drbesty wrote: »

Orange now do 30MB of EU daily data for £3, so hopefully these threads will become less prevalent

I doubt it, I feel parents will still give contract phones to children and they will still use them without knowing what they are doing.