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? 

[ScottC]

I had similar response that there was no billing errors.  But I forced them to open a technical ticket instead because data roaming was not active.  Still have not heard back.

Even though Three did give me a credit but this is not sustainable as I have to travel abroad often and the issue will continue to come up.  Unfortunately, I am locked in a contract for another year.  Otherwise, I would switch to O2 with free data roaming (also saving me money having to get local eSIM).  Three!  Are you listening???

[atommyk]

Yeah I'm getting the same. Have opened a case but nobody is actually reading the complaints and just providing lectures on how the charges are accurate. 

[LisaJH]

After my initial comment on this thread, I put a formal complaint in. When I downloaded my full bill it was glaringly obvious that Three had charged me for roaming on the days they'd sent me a text to advise what roaming charges would be....IF I were roaming. It was clear from the bill that the only usage corresponded to the receipt of messages sent by Three. So basically, £5 per text message they sent me whilst I was in the US! I received a phone call from Three within a few days. They tried to talk their way out of it but then offered me a 50% refund on the charges. I said that wasn't good enough and they escalated to a supervisor who then removed all the roaming charges. What I was also told is that when I first spoke to someone and they told me that putting a zero spend cap on my account would stop me incurring roaming charges it wasn't correct and the only way to avoid the roaming charges was to leave the phone in flight mode or remove the sim. I will be leaving Three when my contract is up. 

[slbarron23]

I’ve just checked and this is exactly when my charges were from - when they sent me a text! I’ve left Three now and gone to o2 with the free roaming!

[danielshanahan]

Hi everyone

I too have an iPhone. I’m on a Three Sim Only plan (Adv SIM 30GB Data Unlim Min24M). I seem to have incurred the same issue: 0.0009MB or 0.0019 MB of data being transmitted whist Data Roaming is off (yes, it was definitely off prior to leaving the UK each time)! Interestingly though, for me, charges have only happened with Go Roam in Europe destinations, not Go Roam in the Rest of the World. However, with Go Roam in the Rest of the World, the data usage is still showing, but no daily pass has been billed. I was wondering if there’s some kind of configuration on Three’s billing for Go Roam in Europe that’s causing the issue, however having seen previous posts I can see that others have been charged the £5 daily rate in Rest of the World destinations too for the minimal data usage.

Whilst I was in Latvia (Go Roam in Europe) I was billed once (I was only there 2 days):

Whilst I was in Egypt for a week (Go Roam in the Rest of the World) it shows data transmission on three dates but no daily pass has been billed. When I was there I bought a local sim card so these dates will correspond to me putting my Three SIM back in my phone to check for any texts on my Three number whilst abroad:

Then, in Morocco (Go Roam in the Rest of the World) it shows data transmission, but no daily pass has been billed. Again I bought a local sim in Morocco so this would have been me putting my Three Sim in my phone on one day only to check for messages:

Then, in Portugal (Go Roam in Europe) I was billed twice again during the four days I was there. What’s even more weird about this is I was charged a daily pass on 24/2 and 25/2 but not on 26/2 or 27/2 which both show 0.0009MB of data transmission:

Then, in Albania (Go Roam in the Rest of the World) it shows data transmission but no daily pass has been billed. I was there for three days and again bought a local Sim so these dates will have corresponded to me putting my Three Sim in my phone)

Then, in Switzerland (Go Roam in Europe) I’ve been charged again and these are about to appear on my next bill:

The only solution now is for me to just remove my SIM whilst abroad to stop this from happening. As others have mentioned, this is not ideal as my Three number is the only way to receive calls/texts from places like work or hospitals (or wherever) when I’m abroad, as these places will not message/call me on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or any other app like my friends/family would be able to.

I’ve been with Three for 10+ years now and have always liked using them. However, once my contract is up in October I’m likely to move to Smarty or another ‘piggyback’ provider as their monthly charges are much less and most include EU roaming for free. I even used to be able to use my Three sim in the USA for free. It’s probably a product of Brexit, but unfortunately the perks of roaming on Three, something that set them apart several years ago, have very much gone downhill and with this billing issue on top I’m very much likely to jump ship in October.

I hope that someone can find a resolution to this. I haven’t yet asked for the charges to be credited but am intending on doing so.

I hope that my examples above can assist with sorting this problem out. If anyone from Three @JonathanB (??!) would like to contact me to discuss in more detail, I’m more than happy to help as I hate to think of the amount of people that are being unnecessarily charged, regardless of whether this is an Apple or a Three issue. 

[nat_de]

Same issue here. I travel a lot and I’ve only just found the time to go back to months of billing where I’ve been charged yet my data roaming is always turned off. Seems goi g to customer services is pointless and will be raising a formal complaint 

[atommyk]

On the back of all of this, I have submitted yet another complaint to Three online. I’m waiting to hear but have requested early termination of my contract without early termination fees. I’ll let you know how I get on. Have already bookmarked the Ombudsman to escalate. Sadly Three has gone from being a cost effective network to one that’s just littered with technical issues that waste hours of customers’ time. 

[markieboy7]

I think I posted my story a week ago when got charged £7.24 for roaming in South Korea even though sim removed and phone off when we arrived, then put in Korean SIM for 2 weeks. they refunded me but still said I had used data ? today wife bill shows £26.88 roaming the day we arrived. Two grown up kids with us but not billed yet so that should be interesting. all our phones had sims removed and off. Cant actually speak to someone in the UK to make sense of this just get someone in an Indian call centre that has no idea what to say. Even more confusing is why my roaming supposedly cut off at £7.24 but my wife went on until £26.88 ? if we had our three sims in and roaming on this would have continued until it reached our limit? cant believe the number of similar issues on here and the fact this is still happening.

[apadley1337]

This is a very different issue. Most of the posters here are saying they had their SIM in their phone but the settings were such that roaming was turned off; so it's physically possible for there to be a bug in the iPhone software that overwrites this and/or is sending messages some other way.

In your case, there is no physical SIM in your phone so 1) How does 3 know you are in South Korea 2) How is it physically possible to send a message from your phone with no SIM in it.

I think your issue is very different to the other posters.

[markieboy7]

exactly right, how does three know im in South Korea when the sim is removed. do you mean three send me a message? we used a Korean SIM for 2 weeks data only for navigation and what app to keep in touch with each other when we were separated. three can see there was zero use of our sims for those entire 2 weeks. no idea why the strange and different amounts for roaming but more importantly how on earth can they charge anything with no sim installed and phone off.