Mobile Phone provider charging for Facetime audio calls

maudgonne

I was notified by my mobile phone company that there is a £220 charge for ringing my son abroad on an international call. I was using Facetime audio at the time over a secure wifi  connection. I have since learned that if the person I am calling WIFI drops I can be charged for an international call on my mobile phone network. The phone company have offered to reduce the bill to £110. I had no idea this was happening and was not even aware that this could occur. I believe this is very unfair charges by the phone company as there is little or no warnings that this is something that you can be charged to your mobile phone bill.  Has anyone else experienced this problem? 

Frozen_up_north

Did you not set a call charge cap on your contract? Three and O2 both have settings to prevent being charged/overcharged on international outgoing calls from the UK. Not sure about other networks 

JJ_Egan

Surely its not the phone company who is responsible for either Facetime or your Wifi nor for your settings .

Dave_T_UK

As Frozen up north has said, check to see if you can Cap your call charges, for future reference I would suggest you turn off your Mobile Data before making the call, then if WIFI is lost , it cannot automatically switch to Mobile Data.

tehone

Caveat- I don't use Facetime
However as far as I can tell FaceTime only uses data connections over either wifi or cellular. It does not appear to use standard voice connections, or offer as Skype does any kind of ability to call the normal PSTN. Hence it can only call Facetime device to Facetime device - given that this was audio, it would use about 2MB per minute - I fail see how you managed to use enough data to warrant a £220 charge (bearing in mind based on what you said you are in the UK, hence normal UK data charges, no roaming).

Carrot007

tehone said:

Caveat- I don't use Facetime
However as far as I can tell FaceTime only uses data connections over either wifi or cellular. It does not appear to use standard voice connections, or offer as Skype does any kind of ability to call the normal PSTN. Hence it can only call Facetime device to Facetime device - given that this was audio, it would use about 2MB per minute - I fail see how you managed to use enough data to warrant a £220 charge (bearing in mind based on what you said you are in the UK, hence normal UK data charges, no roaming).

Indeeed a quick google search says it is only ever data. OP must have very bad out of bundle data charges and ignored or turned off all the reminders of over use. Or in a different country and charged international data rates?

[Deleted User]

Sorry hard to believe a mobile company can do this as FaceTime audio only works over data sounds like the person must have hit the call button by mistake rather than the FaceTime call button 

I speak with a friend in Germany and if the wifi drops on their end the call drops completely 

[Deleted User]

tehone said:

Caveat- I don't use Facetime
However as far as I can tell FaceTime only uses data connections over either wifi or cellular. It does not appear to use standard voice connections, or offer as Skype does any kind of ability to call the normal PSTN. Hence it can only call Facetime device to Facetime device - given that this was audio, it would use about 2MB per minute - I fail see how you managed to use enough data to warrant a £220 charge (bearing in mind based on what you said you are in the UK, hence normal UK data charges, no roaming).

I use around 200mb for a 3 hour call on FaceTime audio so yeah something not adding up with what the OP is saying 

maudgonne

Thank you all for your comments. Yes I will definitely put a cap on my mobile phone cellular usage in future. Just to clarify I did not hit the wrong button. The mobile phone company stated that if the person I am calling wifi drops I can end up with an international call via my phone carrier. It did not use data which would not have created a bill of this size. I am currently in dispute with the mobile phone company and remain curious if this has happened to others. 

GrumpyDil

That makes absolutely no sense so I think you need to ask for that in writing. If the recipient's WiFi or data connection dropped I would expect the call to terminate.

DCFC79

GrumpyDil said:

That makes absolutely no sense so I think you need to ask for that in writing. If the recipient's WiFi or data connection dropped I would expect the call to terminate.

So would I, something doesnt sound right.