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]

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.

[ycantyoufix]

The issue is the frontline staff don’t understand the problem - and I have no idea who the more technical staff are that could fix this. Needless to say when I get the chance I'm ending my nearly 20 years with three.

[IBR17XVII]

Is anyone getting anywhere with their complaints about this? I'm certainly not.

"I understand that you’re looking for more information relating to the bill and the Daily Roaming Charge that you have been charged.
 

I have reviewed your account and can see that 

. This credit is applied as per the daily roaming charge applied in the last bill which is from 3rd Feb till 10th Feb 2024. 

. As per the roaming policy, customer will be charged £2 per day for Go Roam in Europe destinations, and £5 per day in Go Roam Around the World destinations to unlock the allowances. 

. This is a business decision and cannot be changed. Hence the charges reflecting in your last bill are correct because your phone was switched on also connected to the network hence the daily roaming charge got triggered.

. If you do not want to get any charge in future while roaming, we request you to call us to remove the international roaming facility permanently. If you want to keep the Roaming facility available for emergency, then you have to make sure that the phone is switched OFF or on flight mode and use only local wifi. As soon as you your phone will get connected to international network, it will trigger a charge.

. We also identified that the same issue was raised from your side in September 2023 and waiver was applied at that time also and clear explanation was provided.

. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any further credits for the Roaming charge incurred in October and November 2023.

To resolve the issue, we request you to use the services abroad only when required or in emergency as we will not be able to offer any more waivers for the Roaming charges."

[IBR17XVII]

As per earlier in the thread I wouldn’t even bother raising the issue with livechat, just go straight to the complaints procedure.

My livechat resulted in a referral to the relevant department for “investigation” but was completed within a few hours saying the charge was correct as I’d used data. This was despite me linking them to this thread. 

Absolutely laughable. 

[MZone]

@JonathanB Has there been any update/solution to this issue after you requested several examples from members including myself that have been passed up to the tech team to look into further. 

[Natalie01]

Hi all

I’ve recently returned from Peru and Ecuador. Whilst in Peru I received these ‘daily roaming charges’. 0.0009mb for each text received from Three £5 charge. 
I was refunded half the costs incurred (7.50£) Thanks for the explanation from free3 as this makes a lot of sense about the complexities of systems using data outside of toggle being off for roaming and WiFi calling.
Strange that this is only for Three customers though and does not affect their other partners like Smarty. 
I will be monitoring this thread for any solutions to the issue or Three being able to investigate their end and being able to see if something can be worked out without having to disable the three sim completely. Which is a safety issue when wanting to make calls (911/999 for example). 
I won’t be using Three outside of Europe again whilst this is ongoing and won’t be renewing my contract at end period either as I want to prioritise roaming abroad.