T Mobile - unexpected bill

MrChips

I have a contract with T Mobile which includes a 1GB data allowance. I have set a monthly data limit on my phone (Nexus 5) to cut off at 0.97 GB in line with my monthly billing cycle.

I was surprised to find that I had incurred some out of plan allowance charges for this month and have just seen my bill. It includes around £7 of data charges.

I know for a fact (because I get a notification on my phone) that the limit was reached in early September and thus it told me it had stopped picking up mobile data. However, my itemised bill shows small amounts of data being charged for from 3 September. Curiously there seems to be a recurring pattern each day - a small amount of data (around 7KB) listed as "part free" and a separate line of around 125KB later the same day.

Can anyone help shed some light on this before I go through the hell of talking to T Mobile customer services?

1) How can I incur data charges when my phone claims to have switched off mobile data (and I know I still had a tiny amount of unused data allowance when it claims to have switched off as I checked my usage with T Mobile's auto generated text service on 3 September, it told me I had 3 MB left and so I changed the monthly imposed limit on my phone to cut me off at that moment)
2) Notwithstanding this, why am I being charged for data when my own bill is giving me "part free" data each day, which implies to me I have not gone over the inclusive allowance?
3) Notwithstanding either of these points, do T Mobile really charge over £7 per MB??

Rant over.

MrChips

ps - I thought the EU imposed a maximum data charge of €0.20 per MB?

simax

The EU rule is for roaming. Not home country use.

Secondly, the plan almost certainly has a cap of £1 per day for the days used once the allowance has exceeded. This shows as Part Free then a charge underneath.

Mobile networks can only bill for what the phone sends to the network, so read into that what you will.

MrChips

Thanks Simax. I'll probably have to take it up with T Mobile directly.

You mention a "cap" of £1 per day - how much would I have to use to come in under this cap if 125KB is enough to go over £1???

MrChips

Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser. I can see my monthly data usage on my phone and by sequentially changing the date of the cycle I can see that in spite of the data limit being set and kicking in (and my phone telling me it had kicked in), according to my phone I was still using mobile data at the rate of around 0.01MB per day even after it cut off the mobile data?

This was between 3 and 9 September. On the 9th I actually switched off mobile data (rather than relying on the limit being applied). After this date I was not charged for data by T Mobile. So perhaps there is a fault with the mobile data limit function on my Nexus 5? All the same, I find it hard to justify paying T Mobile £1 for 0.01MB.

simax

At least you know the answer. Sorry, I didn't explain myself properly before - it's a £1 per day product, not a cap as such. Any data use, no matter how small, will trigger the £1 per day charge. It's a shame you didn't know as you could have taken advantage of the data allowance for the day

The text self-serve service (AL to 150) now reports data use too. May be worth sending a text to that once in a while - just to calibrate your data counter...?

MrChips

Thanks again simax - I was aware of the text service, I make good use of it - that's how I new I only had 3MB left half way through the month and reduced my monthly self applied cap immediately so it came into force straight away.

Through another forum, I've learned that some apps can actually use data even when the phone is set to apply a limit. The only safe way is to actually switch data off altogether. From studying the amount of data used by each app over the period concerned, it seems the following may have been responsible:
- Android OS
- WhatsApp
- BBC News
- BBC iPlayer Radio
- TuneIn Radio

I might give T Mobile a call to see if they'll take pity on me.