EU call charges

mrsshep

I have recently escaped Spain after spending nearly three months there.  My mobile contract is with Giffgaff which provides two months free roaming/calls while out of the UK so, to avoid extra costs, I purchased a Spanish SIM (which included international calls) and used that for the last couple of weeks - when, of course, the phone was used often because of the CV crisis.   My daughter (my main contact in the UK) has a contract with EE and has found this morning that she has been charged both for receiving and making calls to my Spanish number, c£100.   She has queried this and has been told that the charges have been applied because the UK has now left the EU and therefore calls to and from Spain are classed as international calls.   At no point, until this morning, was she aware of charges being incurred.   I thought the UK was in a transition period in its move from the EU and therefore charges would remain unchanged until the end of this year.   Have I misunderstood?

Ian011

The "free roaming" applied to using your mobile phone outside your home country with calls to EU landlines and EU mobiles from your UK mobile phone being used in Spain charged the same as would happen for calling UK numbers from your UK mobile phone when being used in the UK.

While you were using your UK mobile phone in Spain, for any callers calling you from the UK using a UK landline or UK mobile phone, they were simply calling a UK mobile number from another UK number and it was irrelevant that you were abroad.

Calling abroad from a UK mobile number in the UK to a Spanish mobile number in Spain is not roaming. Those are international calls and are capped at a maximum of 19p per minute by a different set of EU rules. 

While we have left the EU, we are in a "transition period" where EU rules still apply.

EE told you a half truth but failed to tell you the real reason for the charges for the calls that were made from the UK to Spain.

However, if using a UK mobile phone in the UK there should be NO charges for receiving calls. There should have been no charge for receiving your calls from Spain. That must be checked again.

chistery

Too late now, but if on EE, it's always good to add the free add-on now for cheaper calls in case you ever need it.
https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/roaming-and-international/calling-and-texting-abroad-from-the-uk/free-call-abroad-from-the-uk-add-on
that said, for most people, use whatsapp, imessage, facetime, etc and don't pay anything.

eDicky

It's not possible that your daughter was charged for receiving your calls from Spain (or from anywhere), but her calls to your Spanish number were international calls and charged accordingly, as they always would have been regardless EU membership.