Beware EE phantom Data Roaming charges in USA

citizen_cane

TLDR: Visiting America? Look out for multiple USA Data Roaming daily charges on your next EE bill, even when you've had Data Roaming turned off on your phone.

Full story below:

My wife and I each have an iPhone, both on the same EE account. We have visited the USA many times. We religiously keep Data Roaming turned off by default, (and Background App Refresh turned to 'WiFi only') and have consequently never had an unexpected bill for data used whilst there.


On this trip, we did exactly the same thing. We had ONE occasion, early on in the 20 days we were in the US, when we needed to connect, so turned on Data Roaming, on my phone only (and turned it off again afterwards). So I was expecting one daily £4.80 charge to appear on my bill.

When the bill arrived however, there were 13 separate daily connection charges listed (8 on my wife's phone, 5 on mine) at a cost of £62.40. My wife's data 'usage' over her 8 supposed connections totalled a microscopic 53kb, so this was clearly a case of the phone just repeatedly 'hand-shaking' with the US system thus triggering the daily charges.

Of course I phoned EE to query this, but was stone-walled by their rep. The explanation he gave was that their systems are infallible, "There's no such thing as a phantom connection", we must have connected ourselves, and that's that. He promised to send an email detailing the times and dates of the connections (not detailed on our bill), but this never arrived.

Today, after 6 days and no further discussion, we received a text from EE stating that the matter was now "resolved", and we'd be billed for the full amount. Of course I phoned again. I explained that we are not novices at taking mobiles abroad, and that this had never happened on numerous previous visits to the US - even providing dates so they could check, which they did.

The rep this time was much more receptive and helpful, and after several visits to her Team Leader agreed to remove the charge from the bill.

Notably lacking though was any explanation of how this could have happened (and so many times) on this one USA trip, but never on numerous others. As far as the rep and her supervisors were concerned, the whole business was a complete mystery. There obviously IS a reason, but their response comes down to "our systems are infallible. You pay". It was made clear, in so many words, that the removal of the sum from the bill was a goodwill gesture, not an acknowledgement that we had been incorrectly charged.

If you're taking an EE phone to the USA, be aware of this potentially expensive glitch in their system!

Jon_01

You realize that it's not a glitch in the EE systems? You're not on EE in the US, you're on whatever US network you're roaming on.

EE can only bill you based on the info that the US network supply them with. The billing info is sent through from the roaming network every night, but the more detailed info (the TAP file) can take months to be sent by the roaming network. That's the thing that would show where the error came from.

The CSR's can only take the roaming info at face value as they get many, many calls from people that have been overseas, use their phones and then claim not have used xyx minutes/data/texts ect.

pmduk

Jon_01 wrote: »

you're on whatever US network you're roaming on.

OP, perhaps next time, use manual network search to choose a different US network to roam on. Or, better still, get EE to turn off data roaming before leaving!