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? 

[portobello]

Hi, Thanks for the info, I will set mine to £1, i can live with that. Just resolved my issue by going through the ombudsman and full payment for charges incurred will be repaid, The problem is still there though and i can't see it ending as 3 don't accept there is an issue which is totally their responsibility, The response to my claim was " make sure data roaming is off" which they have been told many times so obviously have no better response

[portobello]

Hi

I did not have my cap set to zero, i did not know about this and never thought it would have mattered after being told three times by Three shop staff that if i had data roaming turned off and ip tracking off i would not get charged or get texts from three, all of this information is wrong so either the shop staff or customer service have no idea what they are doing, probably both i suspect as their advice is worth nothing. I have referred them to the ombudsman

[IBR17XVII]

It seems the only sure fire way of not getting charged is to have them removing international roaming from your account.

Or leave & go to another network that actually is bothered about its customers.

[portobello]

Hi

Yes you are right, I will look into that, I did not know you could remove international roaming.

I wish i could leave but i have a year left on my contract, I will definately be leaving then

[IBR17XVII]

@JonathanB I’d appreciate an update on what 3 are doing about this issue as it’s been going on for months which frankly isn’t good enough. 

[portobello]

My last contract included data roaming but i renewed in august 2023, Since then i have travelled 4 times and each time my roaming is off and also ip tracking is off yet i still get texts from three regarding roaming charges, for 2 of the trips the charges were about £80 which i did get back but the ast 2 short trips totalled about £40 which they are now saying is not their fault, I have raised a compaint, the 3 shop are useless and can offer no suggestion and the three support have no idea why this is happening either, using iphone 15 and previous iphone 10 and older software than ios 17 last year. I have told them and the shop that data roaming is off and they have no idea as to why i am charged and can offer no solution. If data roaming is off why am i getting texts from 3 ? seems like a scam to me

[BlueyVIII]

Has anyone found a resolution to this yet?? 

I’ve been a victim of this whilst being in the USA for the last 15 days! I’m a fairly new customer to 3 and travel to the USA frequently but dont usually need mobile data as I have good access to Wifi while there. 

However, before I left for this trip I added 4 x 3 Day Go Roam ATW passes to my account so I knew I had access to mobile data if I needed it.  Knowing fine well that if I didn’t need it they would carry over to subsequent trips.

Before I left Manchester I turned mobile data off, and turned roaming off. I also reset the mobile data usage statistics on my iPhone settings. However, when I landed I got a txt to say my 3 day pass had been activated, and every 3 days thereafter I got another!  I’ve basically burned through 40 quids worth of passes, and can see that my grand total of mobile data  usage has been 720KB (all system services!).

My first thought was that this must be an iPhone issue, but I’ve used exactly the same phone on previous trips with an EE SIM and this has never happened? Unless EE require more usage to trigger their roaming passes??

I have an IPhone 13 Pro Max running IOS 17.4

[atommyk]

I don't think I've seen a solution anywhere for this, sadly. However, your contribution is extremely valuable as it shows that the same technical setup works with another provider, but not with Three. Sorry to hear about this misery. On my last trip I set my cap to 0; that does then mean you can't even ring back to the uk if required, which renders the phone pretty much useless. 

[ycantyoufix]

Anyone have an update on this? 

im travelling and killing my ability to send texts or make calls if I need to. I got to a dispute end with three but haven’t had the time to go to ombudsmen with my complaint.

everyone at three is clueless and they seem unwilling to fix this issue.

[IBR17XVII]

No update as far as I know.

I have (finally) got a full refund but all they keep saying to me is "switch off data roaming". They take absolutely no responsibility for it whatsoever.