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

Kim_13

I have never been on a ferry, thankfully, and the worst anyone in the family has had was their SIM only deal coming with a travel bolt on enabled which they hadn’t asked for, hadn’t been explained to them and that they didn’t want. If I recall correctly, I had disabled their mobile data as they wouldn’t know how to switch roaming on/off despite being shown several times. They sent a handful of texts, but were charged something like £4.50 a day by O2, as this bolt on took a daily fee on days that the phone was used rather than charging by the minute/text (which would have been £2 tops for the whole trip.) O2 completely ignored the complaint they received as a result.

Another family member doesn’t have the internet at all, so when they wanted a camera phone, mobile data was of course disabled. It’s an older phone where it would be pretty difficult for them to turn it on by accident, with the data setting buried in the menu. Much easier to accidentally switch it on on newer phones, with all the shortcuts that come with them if you aren’t technical and literally have the phone to call and text and are forced to upgrade because of the 2G/3G switch off.

If anyone wants or needs to use their phone abroad or at sea at high cost, they would know how to opt in to make this possible. Those who don’t are more likely not to know that this can even happen or how to stop it, and are then forced to foot the bill for something they didn’t ask for. It isn’t illegal, because no law has been introduced prohibiting it, but it is immoral.

The text received by one poster on this thread, saying to check their website for costs, is the absolute worst. You’d have run up a significant bill if you did as they advised, which is even worse than incurring it by accident. 

kt01

mrr1 said:

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. 

All UK operators provide the facility to prevent bill shock by setting a bill cap. But you didn't set it...

It's more akin to you ordering a drink without checking the price (as most of us don't in a pub) and then getting shocked when it cost more than you expected...

Bricks

A bill cap isn't really a good enough solution when the basic problem is charging people for things they didn't ask for and didn't even know they were using.

If someone's unfairly charged for something then it's better to be charged £30 than £300, but it's still not on to be charged for the £30.

kt01

Bricks said:

A bill cap isn't really a good enough solution when the basic problem is charging people for things they didn't ask for and didn't even know they were using.

If someone's unfairly charged for something then it's better to be charged £30 than £300, but it's still not on to be charged for the £30.

Ofcom rules now require a text to be sent on roaming starting.

I am only giving practical advice. You're welcome to campaign to networks to do better but the only solution at the moment is a bill cap, or switching off roaming entirely.

35har1old

Bricks said:

Recently whilst on a ferry from the UK to Ireland I received a data roaming charge, which turned out to be due to my phone connecting to a maritime satellite network whilst at sea. I had my data roaming turned on, because I was on the way to Ireland.

Luckily it was capped at £10 because I have a spending cap on my account (with 3UK).

A bit of googling shows this is not a new problem.

As far as I can see this is effectively a scam - allow people's phones to automatically connect to an extremely expensive network, without asking or notifying them, and then charge as much as you can.

I don't see any reasonable justification for this. There is no-one who would want to connect to such a network without explicit consent. If it's possible for my network provider to cap my spending at a certain amount, there must be a mechanism for them to say to the maritime network provider, stop connecting to & charging this phone. So they should be able to stop it outright.

Has it ever been challenged, legally or otherwise?

You must have stopped text notifications then if you didn't receive a message detailing  the cost

35har1old

Bricks said:

A bill cap isn't really a good enough solution when the basic problem is charging people for things they didn't ask for and didn't even know they were using.

If someone's unfairly charged for something then it's better to be charged £30 than £300, but it's still not on to be charged for the £30.

Set the bill cap to zero

35har1old

Kim_13 said:

I have never been on a ferry, thankfully, and the worst anyone in the family has had was their SIM only deal coming with a travel bolt on enabled which they hadn’t asked for, hadn’t been explained to them and that they didn’t want. If I recall correctly, I had disabled their mobile data as they wouldn’t know how to switch roaming on/off despite being shown several times. They sent a handful of texts, but were charged something like £4.50 a day by O2, as this bolt on took a daily fee on days that the phone was used rather than charging by the minute/text (which would have been £2 tops for the whole trip.) O2 completely ignored the complaint they received as a result.

Another family member doesn’t have the internet at all, so when they wanted a camera phone, mobile data was of course disabled. It’s an older phone where it would be pretty difficult for them to turn it on by accident, with the data setting buried in the menu. Much easier to accidentally switch it on on newer phones, with all the shortcuts that come with them if you aren’t technical and literally have the phone to call and text and are forced to upgrade because of the 2G/3G switch off.

If anyone wants or needs to use their phone abroad or at sea at high cost, they would know how to opt in to make this possible. Those who don’t are more likely not to know that this can even happen or how to stop it, and are then forced to foot the bill for something they didn’t ask for. It isn’t illegal, because no law has been introduced prohibiting it, but it is immoral.

The text received by one poster on this thread, saying to check their website for costs, is the absolute worst. You’d have run up a significant bill if you did as they advised, which is even worse than incurring it by accident. 

Are you saying that all calls should be included  in the inclusive minutes?

Bricks

35har1old said:

Bricks said:

A bill cap isn't really a good enough solution when the basic problem is charging people for things they didn't ask for and didn't even know they were using.

If someone's unfairly charged for something then it's better to be charged £30 than £300, but it's still not on to be charged for the £30.

Set the bill cap to zero

That's no good if there are some add-ons that you do want to use. For example, Three charges £2 per day for international roaming. So if I'm going abroad, I need to have a cap that allows that £2 per day to be spent for the duration of my trip. You don't pay for it in advance, it just gets taken automatically each day.

Bricks

35har1old said:

Kim_13 said:

I have never been on a ferry, thankfully, and the worst anyone in the family has had was their SIM only deal coming with a travel bolt on enabled which they hadn’t asked for, hadn’t been explained to them and that they didn’t want. If I recall correctly, I had disabled their mobile data as they wouldn’t know how to switch roaming on/off despite being shown several times. They sent a handful of texts, but were charged something like £4.50 a day by O2, as this bolt on took a daily fee on days that the phone was used rather than charging by the minute/text (which would have been £2 tops for the whole trip.) O2 completely ignored the complaint they received as a result.

Another family member doesn’t have the internet at all, so when they wanted a camera phone, mobile data was of course disabled. It’s an older phone where it would be pretty difficult for them to turn it on by accident, with the data setting buried in the menu. Much easier to accidentally switch it on on newer phones, with all the shortcuts that come with them if you aren’t technical and literally have the phone to call and text and are forced to upgrade because of the 2G/3G switch off.

If anyone wants or needs to use their phone abroad or at sea at high cost, they would know how to opt in to make this possible. Those who don’t are more likely not to know that this can even happen or how to stop it, and are then forced to foot the bill for something they didn’t ask for. It isn’t illegal, because no law has been introduced prohibiting it, but it is immoral.

The text received by one poster on this thread, saying to check their website for costs, is the absolute worst. You’d have run up a significant bill if you did as they advised, which is even worse than incurring it by accident. 

Are you saying that all calls should be included  in the inclusive minutes?

Seems fairly clear that they aren't saying anything should or shouldn't be included in inclusive minutes - they are saying that these very high-cost services should be opt-in rather than opt-out, which I agree with.

Kim_13

35har1old said:

Kim_13 said:

I have never been on a ferry, thankfully, and the worst anyone in the family has had was their SIM only deal coming with a travel bolt on enabled which they hadn’t asked for, hadn’t been explained to them and that they didn’t want. If I recall correctly, I had disabled their mobile data as they wouldn’t know how to switch roaming on/off despite being shown several times. They sent a handful of texts, but were charged something like £4.50 a day by O2, as this bolt on took a daily fee on days that the phone was used rather than charging by the minute/text (which would have been £2 tops for the whole trip.) O2 completely ignored the complaint they received as a result.

Another family member doesn’t have the internet at all, so when they wanted a camera phone, mobile data was of course disabled. It’s an older phone where it would be pretty difficult for them to turn it on by accident, with the data setting buried in the menu. Much easier to accidentally switch it on on newer phones, with all the shortcuts that come with them if you aren’t technical and literally have the phone to call and text and are forced to upgrade because of the 2G/3G switch off.

If anyone wants or needs to use their phone abroad or at sea at high cost, they would know how to opt in to make this possible. Those who don’t are more likely not to know that this can even happen or how to stop it, and are then forced to foot the bill for something they didn’t ask for. It isn’t illegal, because no law has been introduced prohibiting it, but it is immoral.

The text received by one poster on this thread, saying to check their website for costs, is the absolute worst. You’d have run up a significant bill if you did as they advised, which is even worse than incurring it by accident. 

Are you saying that all calls should be included  in the inclusive minutes?

Of course not, but it would be reasonable for them to charge per minute/text at whatever the rate for use in that country is, rather than charging a flat fee per day on top of the usual tariff cost. This is what people would be expecting, rather than catching them out and the bill being higher as a result. The person in question had deliberately limited their phone use, knowing that it would not be inclusive, only to be billed on an all you can eat basis due to O2 having enabled it without the informed consent of the customer. (This was pre the free roaming they offer now.)

It works both ways and some people would pay £4.50 when they might use multiples of that per day, and O2 obviously operated this way at the time so that low users would cross subsidise higher users, but it doesn’t make it right. Everyone should make an informed decision as to which basis they wish to be billed on, including explicitly agreeing to maritime use or accepting that the phone may not work at sea.