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? 

[Sim5]

Hi,

I am currently having this issue on my trip to Albania.

Is this a ongoing issue? Can I please be added, too? 

[HD1983]

I don't think there's a way to add you on as such 😞 I just dispute each charge with Three - again and again and again. They know what's right and will do the right think - we just have to perservere. I don;t experience this issue on my Voda or o2 line. Long term I'm planning to relegate the Three line to Data only - as clearly - Three is great for value and personal service - but in terms of getting things resolved and complex issues - the understanding just isn't there. We shouldn't have to prove where there network is failing - the onus is for them to prove their billing is correct. With the number of people complaining in different regions, with different devices - this is what I see as a known issue that Three is trying to manage on a case by case basis. They need to be more open about this now.

[Clegsr]

I had the exact same experience iPhone 12pro, iOS 16.6 was on a 2 week trip to USA with an esim (Airalo). Data roaming off on the Three sim but got charged 6 days roaming charges for 0.0009 mb of data

[JonathanB]

Hey @Clegsr,

I'm sorry to hear that you've also had this issue. I've sent you the same details as the others on PM. Please have a chat with the team so that they can add your info to the investigation.

To view your private messages on the community, click on your avatar image in the top right of any community page, then "Messages".

Thanks,
Jonathan

[slbarron23]

Please can I be added too - I have now left Three due to this issue but customer services won’t do anything about the bill!

[HelenG]

Hi JonathanB, please could you also add me to the resolution chat - I'm having the same issues fro Switzerland. Thanks.

[MZone]

Using iPhone 14 Pro Max on latest iOS in July 23 with data roaming switched off. 

Day 1 0.0019 MB

Day 2 0.0009 MB

Day 3 0.0019 MB

Day 4 0.0019 MB

[Gurj]

Thanks for sharing. It is listed on the Three bill as 0.0009MB of data rather than a txt message. Perhaps it gets sent as an iMessage or its a USSD message, either way sounds wrong to charge for it.

I wonder why more people aren't complaining about this?

I've been use an Airalo eSIM on trips when this happened too, though not sure if that gets the iPhone confused about data being on or off.

[atommyk]

That's exactly what I did in Austria. Arrived on the first day, used the initial charge to buy an Airalo eSIM and switched off roaming on the Three SIM. Kept getting charged until I was close to running out of data on the Airalo SIM about one week later, at which point I decided to pay for the Three 7-day package for £10 within the EU. That made the texts and charges stop, of course. Not without getting an alert a few days later that I had used more than 80% of my fair usage data, which was clearly not true as I had only used about 3-4 GB of my monthly data all together.

[apadley1337]

One of my phones has an eSIM. The other doesnt. Both got charged.