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? 

[apadley1337]

No need to shout. I've already left 3 because of this issue and taken my three other family members with me. Was actually quite quick - but get your PAC code via text - don't bother calling. Hopefully 3 will get this fixed. Only reason posting is because I quite liked the 3 service over the years, when go-roam was included in the pricing and disliked some of the competitors but markets change and hopefully 3 will too. That being said, I've only moved to SMARTY, which is owned by 3 so they still get my money, but it's a different plan so won't get affected by these issues with legacy 3.

[JonathanB]

Hi @apadley1337,

Thanks for continuing to check in with the community in spite of switching I do appreciate your feedback. From what we're gathering this small amount of data is triggering in the UK too, it's just that it won't be impacting the bills.

Have you noticed the same behaviour on Smarty, or when testing any other SIM out of interest?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[apadley1337]

Not anything specific as I haven't travelled overseas yet. I have been looking at 'Wi-Fi Assist' which is in 'Settings->Mobile Data' and at the bottom is a setting called 'wifi-assist'. If this is on, it automatically uses mobile data when wi-fi is poor'. I checked on my phone and this was set to 'on'. It shouldn't work but unfortunately I'm not able to check it now as I'm not overseas. Perhap others who have been seeing this problem, could see if it's enabled on their phone? 

May be some sort of race condition that the phone can't see wi-fi, switches to cellular before it has a chance to check roaming settings... just speculation here for now.

[JonathanB]

Hi @apadley1337,

Thanks for getting back to me, and though it is speculation, your logic is sound. WiFi assist certainly could cause this. I've seen scenarios in the past where slow Wi-Fi abroad has triggered charges, like the sort of capped connections you get in hotels/public transport for example. So it may be something similar here too.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Gurj]

Out of interest does your partner have WiFi Calling turned off while you have it turned on?
Just wondering if we can narrow this down to s setting we can use to avoid the charge.

It's also possible (perhaps likely) that this is just an issue with Apple software and how it manages network access.

[apadley1337]

In my case, had wifi calling on one phone and off on the other. Had issue on both. 

[JonathanB]

Thanks for confirming this @apadley1337, Wi-Fi calling isn't supported whilst connected to a Wi-Fi network that is outside the UK, but as this is unexpected behaviour definitely good to test every setting that you can.

I'm still trying to narrow down the root cause, but so far it's all iPhones, but as @Mmm mentioned it's not even necessarily all iPhones so it's proving difficult to isolate what triggers the data use.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Mmm]

We have just checked and we had wifi calling both on. I have now switched it off and will see if it'll make any difference. Needless to say none of the three different customer service people I spoke to today were able to resolve (or even understand) my issue. 

My partner has iOS 17.0.1 and I am still on iOS 16.7.2 - upgrading now. 

[Gurj]

Interesting.

How are you determining you have been charged?

Based on "Current Period Roaming Data Usage" count?

[apadley1337]

I get an SMS from Three telling me Ive been charged. Its sent immediately after the phone is powered on while roaming. I can then check my account and see the tiny amount of data.