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? 

[MZone]

I had the same issue. Data roaming switched off but tiny amounts of data shown as been used and got charged 2 days of £2 EU roaming charges. I went on live chat and they opened up a case and l was refunded. Think I did get 1 message to say my 24 hours has started and that’s what prompted me to check my bill. 

[SimonL]

I had the same thing.  Had definitely turned off data roaming on my Three SIM before I left the UK but on arriving in Luxembourg got a text welcoming me to the country and describing data usage costs.  Wasn't clear whether I was being charged or not so the next day I 'turned off' the Three SIM as I was using an eSim for travelling. 

My bill has just arrived and shows data usage of 0.0009Mb on the first 2 days and a single Daily Roaming Charge of £1.67 + VAT.

Not a lot of money but clearly something is wrong with Three's roaming and billing system if they're charging when roaming is disabled on the phone.  0.0009Mb is a tiny amount of data, maybe that's needed for the phone to connect to the foreign network and confirm roaming is turned off.  If that's the case then that small amount of data needs to be free.

[Gurj]

Had the same issue while roaming with Data Roaming always off.

Several daily charges in USA during business and leisure trips in last few months and also on business trip to Germany. I turned Data roamign off on my iPhone 14 Pro Max, but didn't turn the primary SIM off since I wanted to receive (but not send) texts, since many services use text for login auth codes.
Before a few months ago I wasn't seeing this issue.
It has also happened on my wifes and 2 x grown up kids phones for our latest holiday in the USA we just returned from.

Three online chat support was not useful and just re-iterated Billing system is correct, so I asked them to raise a support request 9which will take 48 hrs to respond).

I've worked in mobile comms as a SW architect and the like for many years so am confident about phone settings but wonder if iPhone software might be an issue here, since in each case I was noted as using 0.9KB for the entire day of a roaming data charge only. I wonder if there is some message being sent by the iPhone over data  periodically which bypasses the roaming setting (i.e. uses the wrong data path).

What phones have other being using when seeing this issue?

Once I get a response to the support case I'll share the update here.

[atommyk]

iPhone 14 pro over here. Maybe similar issue on recent trip to Portugal but definitely now happening in Austria. Data as you’ve said about 1kb, once a day between 02:40-02:50 am (definitely asleep then) and data usage from GPRS so I do wonder also whether this is iPhone software or three SIM checking in only. 

[LeavingThree]

Same thing happened to me. Raised a case. Got a text saying no error. Case closed. That was the extent of it.

[Gurj]

The support case was immediately closed with text:
"closing case as there were no billing error found please manage customer expectations as per the notes mentioned in the interaction."

This actually feels quite rude and there was no opportunity for me to challenge, re-open or respond other than getting back in touch with Three Support. I'll do that again when I have enough time to go through the process.

[Gurj]

One other additional interesting fact is that my daughters iPhone 14 Pro didn't show this issue although my wife and son's did like my phone. We all have Three SIMs on the same monthly contract and all turned off data roaming in the USA.

[atommyk]

That is indeed bizarre. I think Three's system itself doesn't really know what it's doing - my latest interrogation of the data usage shows some of these GPRS snippets as included and some not. 

[Gurj]

I have confirmed with my daughter that she didn't upgrade to iOS17 until the 19th Sept and then she also started getting the text messages about roaming charges after that date, while we were still in Florida.
This suggests the issue might be more to do with iOS17 bugs. I have raised an Apple support ticket and not sure if it will ever get looked at (my last one wasn't) but it's done.