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

esuhl

redux wrote: »

It has taken many years for the mobile networks to be dragged kicking and screaming into the current position regulated by the EU.
...
So good luck with that demand that networks bring down rates. Until they do the customer needs to be self-reliant, aware and careful. Unlike your £2000 coffee metaphor, they do publish their rates, and some roaming advice.

It sounds like you're conceding that networks charge ridiculous rates for roaming, that many customers are unaware of roaming fees, and that your only objection is fact that (for some reason) laws can't be made.

There's no good reason at all why people can't have much more control over their mobile spending. There are all sorts of ways that network operators could prevent insanely high bills.

Here's an easy change that would cost almost nothing:

We could have a law requiring multiple caps, each of which needs to be disabled in order to be exceeded. Instead of having a single £50 cap, why not have multiple caps at £50, £200, £500, £1000, £5000 etc.

Would this lady have disabled the £500+ caps...? If not, her bill would have been a fraction of what it actually was.

And there are ways that networks could be updated to transmit real-time billing data, and ways that phones could display the current bill on-screen, perhaps with built-in alerts when soft caps had been exceeded... Much like the system we now have with gas/electric smart meters.

I get the impression that people who think the charge was deserved are just being spiteful and congratulating themselves on the fact that they are clever enough to avoid ludicrous bills.

Or they relish the fact that some people are victims. They don't care what happens to other people, so long as their phone bills are subsidised by these "big spenders".

But how many of them have completely avoided network use when abroad, not because they were unhappy to pay the charges, but because they had no idea what that charge would be and so just avoided using the network at all...?

ballyblack

They don't care what happens to other people, so long as their phone bills are subsidised by these "big spenders".

Eh...........Thats me!

phillw

redux wrote: »

But this customer didn't do it.

No they didn't & it's unreasonable to expect anyone to do it.

You can contact your provider before you leave the UK and ask for roaming to be enabled or disabled on your SIM. It should also be possible to ask for them to enable EU roaming and disable world wide roaming.

Although UW now claim they have evidence she was staying in Turkey anyway, so the plot thickens.

boatman

phillw wrote: »

No they didn't & it's unreasonable to expect anyone to do it.

You can contact your provider before you leave the UK and ask for roaming to be enabled or disabled on your SIM. It should also be possible to ask for them to enable EU roaming and disable world wide roaming.

Although UW now claim they have evidence she was staying in Turkey anyway, so the plot thickens.

But by enabling EU roaming would that not include for example the mobile network on a channel ferry? You would need to be able to choose to accept or reject those as well. At the moment as has been said the only way is to select manual and choose networks as you move around.

LKRR

Update is that the Ombudsman has now concluded their 2nd investigation and upheld all areas of the complaint against Utility Warehouse.
Only through the Ombudsman’s detailed Phase 2 investigation have Utility Warehouse had to identify the real cause and location of the charges and they did not involve Greece, Turkey, boats or satellites.
An explanation from Utility Warehouse is awaited.
It turns out you can generate roaming charges even if roaming is turned off on your phone. Beware of the Network Settings over-riding the handset option to turn roaming off, and if you have an iPhone - turn off wifi assist if you are not in your home country.
In this case all charges have been deemed invalid by the Ombudsman.
:T

LKRR

Plot concludes as UW billed for the wrong country on the wrong date and all charges were deemed invalid by the Ombudsman.

Doc_N

LKRR wrote: »

........It turns out you can generate roaming charges even if roaming is turned off on your phone. Beware of the Network Settings over-riding the handset option to turn roaming off..........

:T

Really? How is that possible? Surely if data roaming is disabled, it's disabled, with no possibility of roaming charges?

LKRR

When the phone turns on network level roaming is usually on and charges can be incurred while it goes through normal background processes, there’s a delay before the device settings over-rule that. At non-eu rates that uses up €50 pretty quickly. Once that happens only way to restore service is remove the cap as Utility Warehouse only have the one cap, can’t set another to replace it.

LKRR

WiFi assist is a setting you might not know you have on an iPhone, great at home but abroad it seems your phone thinks it’s still on WiFi so any background activity set for ‘on WiFi only’ may happen but your actually roaming.
Safest option is have WiFi assist turned off outside of your home country.

zagfles

LKRR wrote: »

When the phone turns on network level roaming is usually on and charges can be incurred while it goes through normal background processes, there’s a delay before the device settings over-rule that. At non-eu rates that uses up €50 pretty quickly. Once that happens only way to restore service is remove the cap as Utility Warehouse only have the one cap, can’t set another to replace it.

What kind of rubbish phone is this then? Just so I avoid ever owning one.

If I turn roaming/mobile data off I expect it to stay off until I turn it on!