MSE News: Holidaymaker sailing Greek islands charged £8,000 after her mobile used...

zagfles

pmduk wrote: »

Phone calls will usually be processed via the UK, data may be OKed at the beginning of a session but the full cost won't be known until later.

Oh really? They seem to manage to cut PAYG off as soon as you've used up your credit. Of course they can do data in real time. It's data, it's on the internet, you can talk to anywhere in the world in real time.

esuhl

redux wrote: »

As already said, networks and devices are designed that way.

YES! That is exactly my point! And this is something that needs to be changed!

zagfles wrote: »

Oh really? They seem to manage to cut PAYG off as soon as you've used up your credit. Of course they can do data in real time. It's data, it's on the internet, you can talk to anywhere in the world in real time.

Exactly. There's no reason (other than profiteering) why networks can't have reliable measures in place to prevent unexpectedly high bills.

redux

esuhl wrote: »

YES! That is exactly my point! And this is something that needs to be changed!



Exactly. There's no reason (other than profiteering) why networks can't have reliable measures in place to prevent unexpectedly high bills.

No, I meant that things are already most of the way you are demanding, that give people control.

Turning off mobile or roaming data, either on the phone or with some networks also online in the account, manual roaming, and so on.

Perhaps you want something extra on top, without defining how it can be done, but whatever systems there are now or as developed in future they might not cope with people who voluntarily accept stepping outside the protections available.

I adamantly disagree with your suggestion of cutting off roaming for most of the world, on what was designed as a system common across the world.

People that want to watch videos every day while roaming, and switch off the protection cap limits to do it, need to look up the tariffs and learn how to use their phone. If they can't be bothered to do that, they'd probably also defeat whatever else you could insist on adding.

Some people can still manage to use a few kilobytes at a time, such as manually downloading only email headers and reading just a couple of urgent ones, leave the rest until later on wifi. On one occasion I logged into a prepaid debit card and topped it up. This used 45 kB. Ok, UW would charge nearly a quid for this in Turkey, but others could be under a penny.

Why sanction these users, when it is others causing problems? What is needed is better education (though again, what about people who ignore what is on the website), not closing things down.

redux

zagfles wrote: »

Oh really? They seem to manage to cut PAYG off as soon as you've used up your credit. Of course they can do data in real time. It's data, it's on the internet, you can talk to anywhere in the world in real time.

Payg sometimes isn't as simple as it seems.

I have a SIM with bundle limit of 200 MB of data per month

In the billing period ending in July, while roaming, it reached about 230 MB, updating the last 2.5 days' usage some time in the night.

I have 3 of those SIMs, and swapped to another. I could have swapped earlier if it was updating in real time.

esuhl

redux wrote: »

Perhaps you want something extra on top, without defining how it can be done...

I've already "defined how it could be done". Perhaps you have shares in these mobile companies and have a vested interest in the exploitation of consumers...

There are countless ways that consumers could be protected from this. And you haven't offered any valid technical reason why it can't be done.

redux

esuhl wrote: »

I've already "defined how it could be done". Perhaps you have shares in these mobile companies and have a vested interest in the exploitation of consumers...

There are countless ways that consumers could be protected from this. And you haven't offered any valid technical reason why it can't be done.

Well, instead of throwing cheap and false insults at people here, why don't you write to the regulators and networks with your suggestions?

But if you propose blocking roaming data use for all users just to protect a small minority who will switch off or ignore the protections already available, I'm not sure how far you'd get, as even other consumers would object.

UW publishes its very high tariffs, and other networks are cheaper. This is one useful conclusion from this saga. Let's recap some more advice.

Be careful when roaming near borders if this can cause a tariff difference is another, so use manual selection of network.

Switch off mobile data, or data roaming, or control applications which use background data.

Reduce the synchronisation of messaging apps, either to longer intervals or off, and do on!y manually. Some email apps can be set to headers only, select some to read, leave the rest until later in wifi.

Consider browsers which use data compression, and maybe switch off images if not needed, which can save at least 90% of data while browsing.

Beware of streaming, especially video

If you don't want to spend more than the data cap, don't switch it off.

On some contracts there can also be a fair use limit on data, lower than at home, which is notified by the network, with a fee per GB for exceeding this. The bundle isn't valid everywhere though.

People on this forum are giving this sort of advice plenty of times, and I am amongst them, so I'll thank you not to accuse me of corruption.

esuhl

redux wrote: »

But if you propose blocking roaming data use for all users just to protect a small minority...

Nope. I think there should be more safeguards.

redux wrote: »

People on this forum are giving this sort of advice plenty of times, and I am amongst them, so I'll thank you not to accuse me of corruption.

I have no problem with such advice. It's very sensible.

However it isn't sufficient to prevent unscrupulous companies from charging unwitting customers. It's immoral that it is so easy for people to fall victim to this. The penalties for a small mistake are ridiculously severe.

Yes people should know better, but it's far too easy to make mistakes. And companies have a duty to prevent such insanely expensive mistakes.

Technology is supposed to help us. There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why real-time charges cannot be displayed on a phone's display. But networks haven't been designed to do that because there's no interest in reminding people that they're spending money.

This has been a problem since mobile roaming was invented. The fact that mobile networks STILL haven't implemented such a basic feature means that they should be held responsible for these unexpected bills and forced to do something about it.

redux

esuhl wrote: »

Technology is supposed to help us. There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why real-time charges cannot be displayed on a phone's display.

In a banner across or in the corner of a website page or a video, variable colour chosen to clash with the rest of the picture?

Perhaps there could be an option to turn it off, for people who thought it spoiled what they were looking at, and then vulnerable people would ignore it.

How would someone see this display if they were making a phone call at the same time as data was downloading?

Actually there might be technical reasons why it might be tricky to show the call cost on the screen in real time. Is it broadcast to the local cell site? There are billing platform differences between postpaid and prepaid. On the other hand perhaps you can explain some of these technical reasons better than I can.

buglawton

I know roaming data was expensive in Turkey, when I was there I topped up with £15 to do a tiny bit of pedestrian satnav. The data ran out and was cut off almost instantly and credit was back to zero. After that I turned the useless data roaming off and stuck to wifi, with a downloaded Google map for the rest of the trip.

So, Pay as You Go is the best protection available, and the reason I stick to it rather than go for one of the tempting-looking contract offers that pops up these days.

zagfles

esuhl wrote: »

Nope. I think there should be more safeguards.



I have no problem with such advice. It's very sensible.

However it isn't sufficient to prevent unscrupulous companies from charging unwitting customers. It's immoral that it is so easy for people to fall victim to this. The penalties for a small mistake are ridiculously severe.

Yes people should know better, but it's far too easy to make mistakes. And companies have a duty to prevent such insanely expensive mistakes.

Technology is supposed to help us. There is NO TECHNICAL REASON why real-time charges cannot be displayed on a phone's display. But networks haven't been designed to do that because there's no interest in reminding people that they're spending money.

This has been a problem since mobile roaming was invented. The fact that mobile networks STILL haven't implemented such a basic feature means that they should be held responsible for these unexpected bills and forced to do something about it.

The solution is far simpler. The problem is that ridiculous charges are allowed - the EU capped ridiculous prices for EU roaming - why not for all roaming? As someone posted above, UW are charging over 1000 times what others charge.

Strange how banks got done for selling PPI at big profit margins, and under the Plevin ruling the profit margin alone can be used to get a reclaim regardless of whether it was mis-sold.

Yet mobile companies are able to con the gullible with far higher profit margins and charge £8000 for something which has a normal retail value of £5.

It's a bit like ordering a coffee at the end of your meal in a restaurant, and then getting charged £2000 for it. It wouldn't be tolerated, why should this?

Although I'm sure the sanctimonious "you should have checked the tariffs" brigade would never order a coffee at the end of a meal without checking the price first. Any more than they'd walk into a bar and order a round without first checking the bar tariff.