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? 

[GordonP]

I’ve also been charges for bill ending 23/12/2023 for 2 days roaming when roaming is switched off.

I will open a complaint.

[GordonP]

Judging by the text messages on those days I will be charged in my next bill as well.

Very frustrating when you are so careful to put all of the right settings and you still get charged.

[atommyk]

What really grinds me is that there is seemingly no way out of this mess. A recent example - parts I have previously reported: I travelled to Austria in Sept/Oct. At the beginning, switched off roaming and used an eSIM. Received daily notifications of roaming use despite this (sub-1kB data usage overnight as outlined before), so when the eSIM ran out, I bought a Go Roam Pass for 7 days. After a subsequent complaint, my roaming charges were dropped for the first week - as a 'goodwill gesture'. It's very obvious that I didn't 'use' any data as the charges were triggered by once daily <1kB data transfers - so you wonder why Three tech support can't filter for that adequately.

Fast forward, beginning of December. I arrive in Austria on 03/12 for 6 days - daily roaming charge triggered on arrival. I try to purchase a Go roam pass but can't as one is active on my account. I contact Three support via chat, and the support agent states 1) he can see the Go Roam pass being active 2) I should not worry despite receiving daily texts regarding the charges, this would be sorted out prior to issuing the next bill - and if it wasn't, I should contact them and it would be rectified.

Late December, I visit Portugal for 5d, and the same texts arrive regarding charges. Again, I try to purchase a Go Roam pass but not available as the previous one is active.

My bill arrives 28/12 - no surprises, daily roaming charges present on the bill amounting to >£15. I contact Three customer support, and I am told I was 'informed about the charges via phone' (referring to the texts I can only assume). After another 'good-will gesture' of £10 being on offer, I got rather angry as I had proof in writing that this should be sorted out as per Three customer services. Eventually, the £15 are waived, but I'm put in touch with customer relations to escalate my complaint. They offer a further more generous discount, but the upshot is that all that Three can recommend is to set the spend cap to £0 to avoid further charges in future, and if I can't purchase a Go Roam Pass I ought to contact them to reset the account. Apparently the spend cap will still allow me to make phone calls - I feel uncomfortable not having the ability to make phone calls in case of emergencies (even if that was construed as a 'rather odd situation' by customer support) but we will see how this all pans out.

Logging into my account right now, I still cannot purchase a new Go Roam Pass. When removing the allegedly 'active' one, the app crashes and won't allow me to proceed. I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I next travel. On the whole a rather unhappy situation still - I appreciate that Three really is the discount network out there, but the sheer challenges encountered every time I travel make me want to leave and join e.g. O2, just so that the whole roaming issues go away.

[ZoeM]

I too have got this problem. Went away a month ago at end of November 2023 to USA. Before I departed the UK, I switched off data roaming on my phone - iPhone SE 2022, iOS 16.6.1 - and also switched off mobile data on the Three SIM. This is because I would be using an American e-SIM (Maya Mobile) for mobile data roaming for the duration of my stay, which I had uploaded and activated whilst still in the UK.

On arrival in the USA, my American e-SIM worked perfectly, I could see I was using data on that e-SIM and I had no text message from Three saying 'Welcome to the USA', so I assumed everything was fine and my Three SIM was not data roaming. However, 36 hours later - at 01:37AM - a text message from Three arrived saying "Your daily roaming charge is £4.17 excluding VAT..." and that I could use my "plan's allowances for 24 hours at no extra charge". I couldn't understand why data roaming had kicked in, when it was switched off (I checked, and took screenshots) and I was using the e-SIM for mobile data.

Because I didn't want to get further incorrect roaming charges added to my Three bill, I immediately switched off my Three SIM. This solved the issue of any further texts and roaming charges being applied, but meant I wasn't able to get phone calls for the rest of my week-long trip and had to inform all my friends, family and colleagues to only message me via Whatsapp (ie. using data, not the phone network). I should not have had to do this, but I didn't want to return to a huge roaming bill, when I wasn't even using Three data!

On checking my bill which arrived a couple of days ago, I can see that on the night I was charged the £5 roaming fee, 0.0009 MB of data was apparently used "for Data usage while roaming outside EU" - but clearly this is an error, as I hadn't connected to the phone network once, had data roaming off, and was using an e-SIM for mobile data. A Google search led me here, so I am adding my experience to this forum post to ensure this matter is fully investigated and solved. I want this charge removed immediately, can anyone advise how best I should go about this? (I'm going to copy/paste this comment to Jonathan from Three above, in the hope that he will come back to me swiftly. Thanks.)

ZM

[atommyk]

You'll have to contact Three support either via phone or via chat. I don't think that Jonathan will be able to help you with issues regarding the bill. When I have the same issue in September, I successfully contested my bill with the three support and while that took some discussion, they eventually refunded me the extra charges. 

[ZoeM]

Thanks, I will do so - and point them towards this forum post if they try to deny responsibility...

[GordonP]

For my 2 days of roaming charges while I had roaming switched off on my iPhone 15 pro max I was given £5 credit for the £4 roaming charges. They said it was a good will guesture as I didn’t know about the charges. I clearly told them that I knew about roaming charges and that is why I had roaming switched of from before I entered Spain and to after I had left. And I told them about this forum. Still the response was that I had used roaming abroad and they would waiver the charge this time with the £5 credit. Not very honest from my point of view, but got charges back. Will have to do the same for next months charges, which is frustrating.

[free3]

I've been following this subject for a while - since this issue started happening to me around August/September - and after hours of discussions with Three customer services and Apple here's the conclusion:

1. It only happens when I have my Three SIM in an iPhone (regardless of the iOS version, I have 2 iPhones, one on iOS16 another on iOS17) 
2. Same SIM in a Pixel phone doesn't trigger any unwanted charges

Now the best bit:
3. In iOS, the "Mobile data" aka "Cellular data" switch IS NOT a hard switch, i.e. it disables mobile data for the user side of things only, IT DOESN'T disable mobile data for services running in the background (i.e. System Services). This is the key, there are 2 sources of mobile data consumption:
- USER (which can be disabled through the "Mobile data" aka "Cellular data" settings) and
- SYSTEM (which can't be disabled, unless you switch off the line/SIM completely).
So in essence the "Mobile data" OFF switch in iOS is just a partial LIMITER not a real OFF button. 
4. In iOS "Data roaming" switch IS NOT a hard switch either, it is a SUGGESTION to the network carrier. For Three at least, disabling data roaming seems to restrict USER data to within Three's network and region which they specify. It doesn't seem to restrict/limit the SYSTEM side of data consumption.
5. Three triggers data roaming abroad whenever mobile data is consumed, regardless if it's USER or SYSTEM triggered data, and because you can't control the SYSTEM side of consumption (see points 3 and 4), whenever SYSTEM connects in the background to mobile data this will trigger mobile data roaming when abroad.

[stewjoin]

Thanks. So there only seems to be 2 options change phone or change network provider in order to stop these charges.

[atommyk]

Quite. I’m back in the EU and not getting charged as long as spend cap is on 0. As soon as I increase that I’ll get charged. However, without an increase in the spend cap I can also not make any calls to the UK - so, one is a bit stuck really. I’ll aim to change away from three with broadband, smartwatch and iPhone contract as soon as I’m able to (Feb 2025 at the latest).