I've just returned from 10 days in Europe.
A few days in to my trip, despite (to the best of my knowledge) having used nowhere near the 12GB "fair use" allowance, I got two texts in rapid succession, one advising that I'd used up 80% and then one saying 100% of my allowance. In the middle of trying to make some ticket purchases online, while on the move, I panic-bought a roaming add-on, but as far as I could tell this was not necessary because in fact I'd not used my allowance up at all.
I could see that I'm not the only one to experience this - the same problem is mentioned in multiple other threads on here, eg.
https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Account-and-services/Incorrect-Go-Roam-12GB-Limit-Texts/m-p/15842
https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Account-and-services/12GB-Fair-Usage-Limit-Data-Roaming/m-p/14179
https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Network/Three-text-notifications-vs-three-app-logistics/m-p/14965
https://community.three.co.uk/t5/Account-and-services/Data-Roaming-in-EU/m-p/13952
So, 3 ought to have been aware for some time that there is some kind of malfunction here.
A contact with support via live chat was not very satisfactory, although I did manage to get the unnecessary add-on cancelled. I was given wrong information about how much data allowance I had used, and the basic problem (the erroneous messages) was not ackowledged. So I was not left feeling very confident that further problems would not arise. But contacting support, on my phone, via hotel wifi, while on the move is not very convenient so I gave up pursuing things further.
A few days later, my access to networks became blocked completely. Again, to the best of my knowledge, I'd still used nowhere near the data limit. A notification led me to an information page that told me a spending limit had been reached and could not be altered.
Again I contacted support, on german rail station wifi, in between changing trains. But again the basic problem was not addressed. I was told that if my chat session got broken, they would revert to me. It did, and they didn't. For the remainder of my trip it didn't seem worth spending ages trying to resolve things during the limited times I had access to wifi networks, so I gave up and had no access to any mobile networks until arriving back into the UK.
The horribly messy and confusing Three app and account details webpage don't make it very clear at all, what allowances I have or haven't used, or what I might be billed for. There appears to be some indication that I have been charged for data access in the EU - why, I don't know.
Anyway, if you are planning a trip to the EU, don't rely too much on Three being able to provide you with a functional mobile service. Of course, reliable access to mobile data is increasingly important, now that this is how many things like travel tickets can be accessed and paid for. So when it all stops working, with no clear indication of what's happened or how to resolve things, it's rather stressful and unwelcome.
This experience has certainly prompted me to start looking at moving to a different network.
