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? 

[markieboy7]

Update on my story, wife got her bill today, did exactly as I did, phone off and sim out since London. Korean SIM fitted and switched on in Seoul. Apparently she ran up £26 in roaming charges on the day we arrived and then miraculously it stopped at £26 as mine did at £6.24 ! Our two grown up kids were with us so anticipating more nonsense. tried talking to someone on 333 and was very nice but just didnt get that its impossible to run up roaming charges when SIM card removed. customer service useless

[apadley1337]

Due to this issue - I moved to SMARTY - a subsidiary of Three. They bill differently in that you can't buy a roaming pass - you have to PAYG outside Europe to make / receive calls. By adding a Third Party eSIM by a Canadian Company called aloSIM (Referer code TC1L3B7), I was able to use data overseas and at the same time, by adding an Overseas credit to my SMARTY SIM, I could still receive calls in an emergency (in US for example, it's 5p/min to receive calls, but 50p/min to make them - so use something like Skype if you need to call landlines / mobiles a lot - this goes over your data eSIM. If you subscribe to Office 365, you get 60 mins of free Skype calls a month (which Microsoft don't advertise very well). I checked my data log in SMARTY and no charges while overseas - so this issue seems like either a Three specific one or SMARTY are filtering out small data system calls.

[jkasab]

*Ask what your credit limit is set to - mine was £150!**

Three is 100% deceiving customers. I am sorry you have had this experience, I have had ongoing issues since Feb with wrongful data roaming charges - despite having my spent cap set to £0, mobile data and roaming disabled and each individual app turned off in mobile data settings (IPhone 13). On all occasions I have either turned my phone off and on or it it has died and when charged I received a daily roaming charge text.  In some instances, I have incurred these charges at 2am or later when I have been asleep! These times have appeared on my bill as 0.0009MB which I am sure isn't even enough to access an app or the internet?!

I have escalated this numerous times on Three live chat, asking if there is anything else I or they can do to prevent this charges, each time I have been assured there is nothing to do/I can do & will not be charged. 

I wasn't until late March that I was informed my credit limit was to set to £150, not visible from what I can see in the App. Very deceiving from Three, with the occasional credit of £2 or £5 credited hours into the chat, it does not come close to what I have been wrongfully charged. It takes hours of communicating to be told this credit is in "goodwill' or 'just for you, a loyal Three customer'. They say they cannot do this more than once - despite this being a justified refund for incorrect charges!

Appalling. I've since looked into early termination of my contract - of course that wouldn't be simple. I have been given three different amounts for my early termination fee, differs via email, text & live chat.

Best of luck!

[IBR17XVII]

So you still got charged even when you had your cap set to zero?

Three are 100% robbing customers here & won't accept any responsibility.

Any comment on this @JonathanB ?

[jkasab]

Yes! Spend cap was set to £0 as still incurred charges. Since my credit limit has been set to £1, I haven’t received additional thus far. Hopefully that’s the end of it.

[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.