Large O2 'data call' charge

RallyJ
RallyJ Posts: 12 Forumite
in Mobiles
I have 8Gb data with my O2 contract but just received a bill charging me over £100 for "data calls" or "gprs calls" as they are called elsewhere on the bill. I hadn't gone over the 8Gb limit so this is separate to the regular data usage.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how this can happen? I'm coming towards the end of a two-year contract and all of my other bills have been around £15/£20/£25 in total. Now all of a sudden I have a bill of over £100 purely for these data calls.

I checked the days when these 'calls' were incurred and I was at or near home, so I don't think I was doing anything unusual.

Does anyone have any advice?
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Comments

  • Browntoa
    Browntoa Posts: 49,298 Forumite
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    Have you rang them to ask why and how ?
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  • RallyJ
    RallyJ Posts: 12 Forumite
    Would like to get some info about what exactly 'data calls' are before I do!
  • d123
    d123 Posts: 8,621 Forumite
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    RallyJ wrote: »
    Would like to get some info about what exactly 'data calls' are before I do!

    GPRS calls is old fashioned data usage.

    Here's an old thread:

    http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=700245
    ====
  • Forwandert
    Forwandert Posts: 1,211 Forumite
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    If it was normal data 02 usually restrict you when you get to your limit so you buy a bolt on from my experience. Have you tried logging onto the 02 app see If if you can get more information on there?
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
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    Isn't GPRS dial-up access, where you'd get charged per minute, instead of the new always-on connection where you are billed by data use?

    IIRC, dial-up internet access isn't covered by inclusive data allowances and is charged as a phone call (just like dial-up internet on a PC).
  • onomatopoeia99
    onomatopoeia99 Posts: 6,960 Forumite
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    GPRS (often shows as "G" on the phone display) is mobile data that is from before Edge. It is not dialup, it uses GSM band frequencies.

    Why the OP got charged for it is a mystery that I suspect only O2 can solve.
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
  • RallyJ
    RallyJ Posts: 12 Forumite
    OK, here's the explanation...

    I switched from O2 to Vodafone approximately 10 days after my billing date. I had already paid O2 for the full month line rental in advance, as I think most people do.

    When I changed providers, O2 subsequently refunded me for the line rental that I didn't use in that particular month. And because they did that, they also applied a "pro rata" rate to my monthly allowance of 8Gb data. So instead of having 8Gb allowance, they have only permitted me to have something like 3.2Gb. I used 7.5Gb.

    So while they refunded me approx £12 for the line rental I effectively didn't have, they have charged me £110 for the 'extra data' that I used over and above the pro rata 3.2Gb amount.

    Not one bit impressed. I would have switched to Vodafone earlier had I known that would happen. (The Vodafone account started one day into the next month of the O2 contract.) I decided to keep using the O2 account for a week or so as I'd already paid for the monthly line rental in advance and thought I may as well get some use out of it!

    I never expected any sort of refund on the line rental but to automatically refund part of it and then charge me over £100 for using data after calculating the allowance on a pro rata basis is a joke. If they were going to do that, they should have explained that to me when I requested the PAC code.

    O2 has forwarded my query to another department and I've been asked to call them back after five working days...
  • mobilejunkie
    mobilejunkie Posts: 8,460 Forumite
    Nothing unusual or unfair in that. Pro-rata is done at the start and end of every single contract with every single network. It's pretty basic and easily avoided.
  • redux
    redux Posts: 22,976 Forumite
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    Your description sounds like using almost all the monthly allowance in 40% of the time. If you'd stayed and used 20GB the damage might have been even worse.

    It would be about the same if there was an allowance of 500 minutes of calls, and someone about to leave made 450 minutes of calls in 12 days, when the pro rata entitlement would be 200 minutes.

    Let's hope they can make some sort of goodwill reduction, based on you supposedly misunderstanding something, but if they get strictly pedantic about it it's true you've overused the allowance.
  • pmduk
    pmduk Posts: 10,655 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Combo Breaker
    esuhl wrote: »
    Isn't GPRS dial-up access, where you'd get charged per minute, instead of the new always-on connection where you are billed by data use?
    You're confusing WAP with GPRS
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