Roaming charges whilst data roaming turned off

[bcracknell]

I was on holiday in the US last month and had data roaming turned off before I even left the UK. At no point did I turn my data roaming on. Three texted me randomly at 3 points during my trip saying hello and welcome to the USA, outlining the costs associated with using my phone whilst in the USA. These texts were not telling me I was using my data, just letting me know I could. I've just received my bill to find I've been charged 3x £5 plus VAT for roaming services whilst in the USA. I can see on my bill that these supposed usages were really tiny amounts of data, <10MB. When I tried to dispute these charges, stating that I had my date roaming turned off the entire time,  I was told there was no way the system could be incorrect. However, clearly, the system is wrong if I can be charged tiny amounts of data usage whilst my data roaming is turned off. Please can you advise what I can do in this situation? 

[atommyk]

iPhone 14 pro over here. Maybe similar issue on recent trip to Portugal but definitely now happening in Austria. Data as you’ve said about 1kb, once a day between 02:40-02:50 am (definitely asleep then) and data usage from GPRS so I do wonder also whether this is iPhone software or three SIM checking in only. 

[SimonL]

I had the same thing.  Had definitely turned off data roaming on my Three SIM before I left the UK but on arriving in Luxembourg got a text welcoming me to the country and describing data usage costs.  Wasn't clear whether I was being charged or not so the next day I 'turned off' the Three SIM as I was using an eSim for travelling. 

My bill has just arrived and shows data usage of 0.0009Mb on the first 2 days and a single Daily Roaming Charge of £1.67 + VAT.

Not a lot of money but clearly something is wrong with Three's roaming and billing system if they're charging when roaming is disabled on the phone.  0.0009Mb is a tiny amount of data, maybe that's needed for the phone to connect to the foreign network and confirm roaming is turned off.  If that's the case then that small amount of data needs to be free.

[MZone]

I had the same issue. Data roaming switched off but tiny amounts of data shown as been used and got charged 2 days of £2 EU roaming charges. I went on live chat and they opened up a case and l was refunded. Think I did get 1 message to say my 24 hours has started and that’s what prompted me to check my bill.