DATA ROAMING - Orange phone bill of £1320.40

smitchy73

Why do people go on holiday and insist on taking their phones with them, I remember you used to leave the hotel's number with family in case of an emergency, but we did take my blackberry on hols to the states a few years ago and didn't get any charges other than a couple of emergency calls we had to make(ill f-i-l) and we only got charged about a tenner for about 15 minutes calls. Apart from that nothing.
Anyway thats my tuppence worth.

OP I do feel sympathy for you, it's just like most things we all do, it takes us a silly mistake to learn a lesson, and unfortunately these days it always seems to cost us a pigging fortune for that mistake.

NFH

smitchy73 wrote: »

Why do people go on holiday and insist on taking their phones with them

Why shouldn't they? I take much more, including laptops etc. The OP was right to take and use her iPhone but she should have found a wireless network to use instead of £8/MB 3G data.

zagfles

sdg1976 wrote: »

I have just paid it and put it on my credit card.

It just saddens me that I have been with Orange for over 10 years and they couldnt help in anyway, I used to be a premium member when I lived in London but had to reduce it when I moved to Devon and couldnt get a proper signal in my flat. I should of moved provider then but they promised the signal would get better when they merged with T-Mobile.

Anyway, Lesson learnt on my part.

Thanks everyone.

I wouldn't leave it there. Write to them - many people have got big discounts on ridiculously high roaming bills. Although now you've paid it may be harder - but definitely worth a try, you might get a token freebie or something at least.

There is the concept of "fair and reasonable" in contract law. Ignore all the sanctimonious "you should have read the T&Cs", "you should have looked up the prices" bull - wonder how many of these people always check the bar tariff before ordering a round in a pub, or always read the licence agreement of every software update they download...

You have an expectation of pricing from past experience, your past experience suggested the price would be high but not ridiculous. Like eg buying a round of drinks in a nightclub and then being charged £1000...

This article about excessive pricing (see section 2) is interesting.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/competition_law/oft414a.pdf

Wonder if anyone has taken legal action? Or whether the threat to has made the networks back down - they do seem to cut bills when people complain...

vax2002

I would have offered you sympathy, but I have had trouble finding where my jaw went when it dropped off...

Colin_London

It's strange - T-Mobile and Orange are brands of the same company (Everything Everywhere) yet T-Mobile have the eminently sensible approach of forcing you to buy 'Euro Boosters' if you want to use the internet. Thus it's impossible to use the internet unless you actively opt in and buy credit.

Now the reason the OP here has been caught out I believe is that Croatia is not yet in the EU - it's only a candidate country. So the rules regarding rates, and texts when you exceed a certain spend do not apply there.

So a warning to everyone travelling outside the EU - either set your phone to prompt you every time you want to make a data connection, or set data as 'off when roaming'. In this was you will be made aware each time that you are about to be charged for internet access, and you'll have to take an action to receive the data so you are fully aware of what you are letting yourself in for. Another idea is to set the data counter on your phone to zero before you travel so you have an independent record of how much data you are consuming.

Colin_London

visidigi wrote: »

BB is the most prudent with Data without a doubt, but thats more to do with the lack of apps - Android isn't too bad as the no data while roaming controls apps too, but there is a real issue with the iphone and background data usage, its that which is causing these massive bills to keep appearing...

Settings > Mobile Data > Data Roaming OFF.

As the message under this setting in iOS states:
'Turn data roaming off when abroad to avoid substantial roaming charges when using email, web browsing and other data services'.

grumbler

visidigi wrote: »

...there is a real issue with the iphone and background data usage, its that which is causing these massive bills to keep appearing...

Colin_London wrote: »

...As the message under this setting in iOS states: 'Turn data roaming off when abroad to avoid substantial roaming charges when using email, web browsing and other data services'.

The message does say about using. It says nothing about substantial charges when not using.

NFH

grumbler wrote: »

The message does say about using. It says nothing about substantial charges when not using.

Background data usage is covered by "other data services".

grumbler

You have to be an expert to know this.
If you are an expert, you don't need any warning messages.

banger9365

Colin_London wrote: »

It's strange - T-Mobile and Orange are brands of the same company (Everything Everywhere) yet T-Mobile have the eminently sensible approach of forcing you to buy 'Euro Boosters' if you want to use the internet. Thus it's impossible to use the internet unless you actively opt in and buy credit.

wrong only if you use thier recommended network.found this out after two weeks in malta
vodafone =no internet with out buying a bundle
go mobile = internet worked without buying a bundle

i did not take a smart phone only a dum phone