Massive O2 bill from holiday

schalkie1610

I recently returned from South Africa to find I'd racked up a £652 bill on my O2 iPhone. I'd like some advice if anyone has any experience in this area.


Points:
* I was expecting to receive texts when my bill reached £50, £100, etc (which I had previously been sent when abroad), but didn't receive any.
* I previously had an international cap of £150, but reached this when I was taken ill and hospitalised in Spain last October with a collapsed lung. At the time, when I reached this £150 limit, and requested more data by text, but without realising that I was removing this cap permanently.
* I used wifi as much as possible, only turning it on for brief periods when I needed data connection and wifi was unavailable.
* I was in SA for 7 days
* Cost per MB looks like it's £6 per MB


Upon discussing with O2:
* Because the cap was removed by text, it looks likely that I inadvertently opted out (permanently) without realising this - I thought I was simply adding more data for that month
* O2 say that because I was in SA, they can't guarantee sending heavy usage messages (the one I did receive at £652) or the texts about £50, £100, etc reached - it can take 7 to 30 days for them to receive this information themselves. However, they did send £50 usage notification texts when I was in South Africa on previous visits and had a cap in place.


Questions:
* How can O2 provide a capping service at £150 if it takes 7-30 days to receive the data usage from international carriers?
* What do international carriers charge O2 for data and what is O2's mark up?
* If the mark up is huge then do I have any means of presenting that as an argument?


Thanks for reading, and thank's in anticipation for your help.

Schalk

sax11

You will need to go over their roaming T&C's to see wether you have a case.

Only point i can really comment on is the mark up - this will depend on what the network carrier is SA charges, there may not be a huge mark up after all.

NFH

schalkie1610 wrote: »

* I used wifi as much as possible, only turning it on for brief periods when I needed data connection and wifi was unavailable.
* I was in SA for 7 days
* Cost per MB looks like it's £6 per MB

Why on earth did you use a UK SIM card in South Africa at a price of £6,000 per gigabyte? The going rate in the UK is around £10 per gigabyte and Vodacom charges ZAR 5 for 20MB per day (ZAR 250 per gigabyte). You should have got a South African SIM card. Given your name, I assume that you're South African and were interacting with locals, so a South African mobile number would have been of benefit to you and others. A Vodacom SIM card never expires, provided that you receive or send a communication every 215 days (even just receiving SMS for free while in the UK).

schalkie1610

You need prove of address to get a SA SIM now which I did not have on me and my family lent me a SA sim for a old nokia phone which I used for local calls and texts and only used my iphone Uk account for online stuff but was connected to wifi 90% of the time and switched data roaming off as much as possible. Ive been to SA for 3 weeks before and done the same thing having not even reached my £150 at that time yet this time the charges are off the charts and were racked up within 5 days.

MataNui

The cap is in technical terms just a flag on the database. If you request it removed then its removed (unless you request it put back). Data use can take a while (networks suggest at least 24hrs) to register on your account if you are in the UK. Longer if you are roaming in the EU (vodafone took 5 working days to update my account with data use from the channel islands) and potentially several days if you are international roaming as you found.

In answer to your specific questions though.
They provide the cap as its a billing cap, not a usage cap. If you use a LOT of data you may find you actually get to use a bit more than your cap should allow.
Search the internet for the data charges. There have been a few articles which 'guess' at the charge and markup but i dont think there are any proper published figures.

grumbler

sax11 wrote: »

Only point i can really comment on is the mark up - this will depend on what the network carrier is SA charges, there may not be a huge mark up after all.

As 200Mb bundle costs £120, the cost of 1Mb is below £0.60, i.e the markup is at least 900%.

This possibly explains why they can offer a cap without having live information on your usage.

NFH

schalkie1610 wrote: »

You need prove of address to get a SA SIM now which I did not have on me and my family lent me a SA sim

It doesn't matter who submits their documents for RICA. Any of your family members can buy you a SIM card with the RICA in their name and then you can use it, even registering the online account in your name, for which RICA is irrelevant. Forget using nearly any UK SIM card outside the EEA; it's a recipe for large bills.

d123

schalkie1610 wrote: »

You need prove of address to get a SA SIM now which I did not have on me and my family lent me a SA sim for a old nokia phone which I used for local calls and texts and only used my iphone Uk account for online stuff

I'll bet next time that SA sim will go into the iPhone and the old Nokia can stay in a drawer.

I've never heard of a person having problems either RICA'ing a sim in a family members name and address or even getting one from a small reseller who arranges the RICA for the phone "informally" .

NFH

d123 wrote: »

I've never heard of a person having problems either RICA'ing a sim in a family members name and address or even getting one from a small reseller who arranges the RICA for the phone "informally" .

One reason for getting the RICA done by someone you know well is that if you need to change the SIM card (e.g. micro to nano etc), then the new SIM card has to be RICA'd to the same person as the old SIM card, otherwise they can't transfer your account and mobile number. This is one of the few occasions when they check the RICA registration.

System

Data is always routed via the home network so they will know how much data you are using as accurately as at home. Most networks use 'CAMEL' for roaming customers; this gives the home network easier access to billing data also.

MataNui wrote: »

The cap is in technical terms just a flag on the database. If you request it removed then its removed (unless you request it put back). Data use can take a while (networks suggest at least 24hrs) to register on your account if you are in the UK. Longer if you are roaming in the EU (vodafone took 5 working days to update my account with data use from the channel islands) and potentially several days if you are international roaming as you found.

In answer to your specific questions though.
They provide the cap as its a billing cap, not a usage cap. If you use a LOT of data you may find you actually get to use a bit more than your cap should allow.
Search the internet for the data charges. There have been a few articles which 'guess' at the charge and markup but i dont think there are any proper published figures.

Techhead_2

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Data is always routed via the home network so they will know how much data you are using as accurately as at home. Most networks use 'CAMEL' for roaming customers; this gives the home network easier access to billing data also.

CAMEL is mainly used for pay as you go isn't it? Not all countries have implemented phase 4?

As for data, I believe , its often handled locally nowadays.