Charges for connecting to "maritime" networks without consent - how do they get away with this?

Bricks

daverett said:

I was stung by a £45 charge for taking a ferry.  Three network, all inclusive plan including data and roaming for £27pcm.

I boarded the ferry, went to bed in my cabin and woke up in France to some incomprehensible SMS about reaching data limits (on an unlimited roaming contract) plus a whopping £45 + VAT charge incurred whilst asleep.

Not happy!

Be ready for other contributors to this thread telling you it's all your own fault for not knowing about something you were never warned about! And if there was a tiny warning sign somewhere on the ferry it's your own fault for not having happened to have walked past it!

The £45 is apparently the default cap on "out-of-allowance" spending. Even with an unlimited roaming contract, these maritime networks aren't included. Doesn't matter if the origin and destination countries are both covered by your contract - the maritime network is excluded and they can charge you up to £45 for being unaware of it.

So (as I have learnt) the only way you can protect yourself from this is to set a zero spend cap on your contract or switch off data roaming whenever you aren't standing on solid ground.

If you are with three, I reckon if you call up and complain they'll refund you. You might have to persist a bit (my experience was that initially they tried to claim it was some kind of international roaming charge in my destination country) but I think they will do it.

Would be interested to hear if you are successful.

I think the reason they will refund, is because they know it's an unfair charge.

zagfles

Bricks said:

daverett said:

I was stung by a £45 charge for taking a ferry.  Three network, all inclusive plan including data and roaming for £27pcm.

I boarded the ferry, went to bed in my cabin and woke up in France to some incomprehensible SMS about reaching data limits (on an unlimited roaming contract) plus a whopping £45 + VAT charge incurred whilst asleep.

Not happy!

Be ready for other contributors to this thread telling you it's all your own fault for not knowing about something you were never warned about! And if there was a tiny warning sign somewhere on the ferry it's your own fault for not having happened to have walked past it!

The £45 is apparently the default cap on "out-of-allowance" spending. Even with an unlimited roaming contract, these maritime networks aren't included. Doesn't matter if the origin and destination countries are both covered by your contract - the maritime network is excluded and they can charge you up to £45 for being unaware of it.

So (as I have learnt) the only way you can protect yourself from this is to set a zero spend cap on your contract or switch off data roaming whenever you aren't standing on solid ground.

If you are with three, I reckon if you call up and complain they'll refund you. You might have to persist a bit (my experience was that initially they tried to claim it was some kind of international roaming charge in my destination country) but I think they will do it.

Would be interested to hear if you are successful.

I think the reason they will refund, is because they know it's an unfair charge.

I've travelled on ferries & cruises a lot and we've had Vodafone, EE and 1pmobile, we've never turned roaming off, yet none have connected to maritime networks for data, although they have for calls. It seems some networks have barred ridiculously expensive maritime data since that could lead to big bills unknowingly, yet still allowed calls & texts, since they are far easier to control. With an inside cabin we could tell when we'd got into port, as it connected to the foreign network and the phones started ping'ing with whatsapp updates

So looks like some networks do the right thing and prevent data usage on maritime networks. If on a ferry/cruise and you want data, you'll be able to buy the ship's wifi (usually expensive but far cheaper than maritime), so for the vast majority there's no need to allow maritime data usage. For those who may need it eg on a private boat maybe should get a specialised contract.

bubblesthefish6

So the way i see this all after travelling on ferries. Telenor Maritime wasn't available until we were off shore, there was an audible announcement on the ship that it was now live and that international roaming rates would apply. Three sent me a text from Rate Advice as they always do when you connect to a foreign network detailing the charges. I connected to the free 'Internet@Sea' WiFi and switched on airplane mode. My phone connected to Three WiFi Call and i could ring & text over the wifi for free.

No matter what carrier you are using, they will ALWAYS text when roaming. Mostly a case people just don't look at their texts. Long story short, if you get stung by maritime roaming charges, it's usually your own fault for not looking closely enough at all the massive great big warning signs it costs a fair few (Audible announcements, text messages and 'Telenor Maritime' being your mobile network.

Always keep a bill cap no matter what.

Troytempest

We are just about to depart on our first cruise.  No problem turning roaming off whilst at sea.

Should roaming be off when the ship is in port?
Also when we disembark in the various ports and want roaming back on (free roaming as in Europe with O2) should we be well away from the ship to avoid any chance of picking up the ships satellite service.

Thank you. 

kt01

Troytempest said:

We are just about to depart on our first cruise.  No problem turning roaming off whilst at sea.

Should roaming be off when the ship is in port?
Also when we disembark in the various ports and want roaming back on (free roaming as in Europe with O2) should we be well away from the ship to avoid any chance of picking up the ships satellite service.

Thank you. 

Best way to stop accidental roaming charges is set your bill cap with O2 to £0. This will prevent any accidental chargable activity.

You will have to turn on data roaming on your phone in the port to get data, no way around that. Without a bill cap set you will have to just very carefully check the operator your phone is connected to is a land based one, not the ship's maritime service.

Bricks

No matter what carrier you are using, they will ALWAYS text when roaming. Mostly a case people just don't look at their texts.

Even if you check your phone for texts every ten minutes - in that ten minutes your phone might have been downloading data for something or the other, and the rates are so high that you might already have clocked up a considerable expense.

kt01

Bricks said:

No matter what carrier you are using, they will ALWAYS text when roaming. Mostly a case people just don't look at their texts.

Even if you check your phone for texts every ten minutes - in that ten minutes your phone might have been downloading data for something or the other, and the rates are so high that you might already have clocked up a considerable expense.

Exactly, relying on a roaming SMS is useless - there is lots of reasons you won't see the text or it takes a while to get through whilst your phone has been using data in the background.

There's currently no requirement for networks to do this anyway. Previously it was an EU requirement, it carried over initially into UK law, but in their wisdom it was decided this was unneeded "red tape" and they let it expire in July 2022 when they could have retained it. Ofcom then had to reconsult and is only re-requiring these from October 2024. 

Several networks do not provide detailed information. Eg I briefly used Talk Home, this is the only information in the roaming "welcome" message (in this case, I was only in countries in the EU with free roaming, and on a prepaid plan anyway where was no possibilty of running up my bill - but this message tells me nothing about costs or where I even am!):

Similarly these messages can just be plain wrong. My main network is Lebara who use Vodafone, but when roaming in certain places I don't even get the correct roaming information text, or two contradictory messages, eg in Switzerland. On maratime networks, I get nothing at all from Lebara but a somewhat confused message from Vodafone...:

  

Many networks caveat their roaming messages by saying they will make "best endevours" or similar to send a message. This is far from a commitment that you will definitely get it. Even the new Ofcom regulations leave room for a delay, with measures such as "notification without undue delay" - sometimes there could be a "due delay" to many factors - network congesiton etc.

It also won't be required for networks to send an alert at every single network change (under EU rules it was a 7 day rule, but under the new Ofcom regs it is more flexible, although they appear to want them more than every 7 days) and they don't require a message every single time you connect to a different network. This is particularly key when on a cruise ship - your phone could easily switch between the cruise ship network and the land-based network multiple times in a day, and you would not get a notification every single time this happens.

Overall it is just a bad idea to rely on SMS alerts and users really need to be proactive about managing roaming charges. The easiest way to do this is by setting a bill cap...

vacheron

kt01 said:

Troytempest said:

We are just about to depart on our first cruise.  No problem turning roaming off whilst at sea.

Should roaming be off when the ship is in port?
Also when we disembark in the various ports and want roaming back on (free roaming as in Europe with O2) should we be well away from the ship to avoid any chance of picking up the ships satellite service.

Thank you. 

Best way to stop accidental roaming charges is set your bill cap with O2 to £0. This will prevent any accidental chargable activity.

You will have to turn on data roaming on your phone in the port to get data, no way around that. Without a bill cap set you will have to just very carefully check the operator your phone is connected to is a land based one, not the ship's maritime service.

This is a good idea. Though I prefer to keep ours at a fiver or somethong just for emergencies.

My wife is currently in Russia so I have the cap set to £15 as roaming calls are £4 per minute and I'd assume we would need at least a few minutes in the event of a problem. Data is also £4.50 per MEGAbyte, so roaming date is most definately switched off! 

Another option is to set the mobile network selection from "automatic" to "manual". That way you can see a list of all the mobile operators and select the one you know is a national network provider. You may have the inconvenience of having to manually switch networks if you move to a location where the first provider has poor service, but at least then you would know to avoid the "superexpensivemarine" option on the list. 

We did this in Kos and Rhodes where you are only a couple of km from the Turkish mainland and connecting to their network is very easy and very expensive as it is not included in EU roaming packages.

International eSIMs are another good option as you can switch them on and off as you need them, and they are prepaid, cheap, virtually instant electronic delivery and will only connect to the national networks of the countries it covers so no scary bills!

kt01

vacheron said:

This is a good idea. Though I prefer to keep ours at a fiver or somethong just for emergencies.

International eSIMs are another good option as you can switch them on and off as you need them, and they are prepaid, cheap, virtually instant electronic delivery and will only connect to the national networks of the countries it covers so no scary bills!

To be fair I always have some sort of local or other eSIM when travelling anyway so I'm not bothered about a bill cap being 0 as anything I do while away should be via that (or it's included on my home SIM).

The network selection trick is fine but you have to be careful your phone isn't one that will revert to automatic or similar. Setting something at network level is far more reliable and means the network can't argue about any charges! But obviously I do understand this can be problematic for some people, as it will mean as you say your phone won't be usable without getting into your account to change it.

I mention this because there is apparently an issue with iPhones (possibly only on Three?) sapping a small amount of data even with data roaming switched off - and has been ongoing since last year: https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Network/Roaming-charges-whilst-data-roaming-turned-off/td-p/17979/page/16

I've experienced this on my mother's phone with iD where a small trickle of data has gone through for no reason at all while transiting in places and ran up to the bill cap, even with data roaming off... They've always refunded it but it has taken a backward-forward. Now I just make sure it's set to 0 before any trips.

Regardless, I think it's important people set some level of cap, even if it's not 0, at £5 or £10, which means if it does happen and the network refuses to budge the loss is not massive!

mrr1

I appear to have just been caught out by Three with this trick. I assumed (naively) that after going to lengths to invite me to pay roaming charges at £2 a day they would do something similar in relation to maritime charges. I had no idea about this scam. 

This is akin to agreeing to pay £5 for a pint of beer in a pub but then finding out the pub has taken an extra £50 out of your account because you chose to drink your pint by the window. 


utter scam. I can't think of another situation where a business is allowed to charge pretty much whatever they like without having some form of up front agreement with the customer about costs.