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

[markieboy7]

Three shop advised phoning 333 and pressing leave contract option. Wife did this yesterday and basically the women looked at the usage and basically repeated my wife had used roaming in South Korea and offered partial refund. My wife told her she wasnt here to negotiate and demanded a full refund. after speaking to her supervisor she got it refunded. Still got 2 kids bills to come so may have the same to do again. absolute waste of time when I went to so much effort to have three SIM cards removed and phone switched off before arriving and somehow we still got roaming charges, how is that even possible ?

[IBR17XVII]

3 clearly don't care about this situation.

3 are doing nothing to resolve this situation.

Even their representative @JonathanB has disappeared from the forum.

Not good enough.

[portobello]

That says it all

[JonathanB]

Hi @IBR17XVII,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience of and complaint in relation to this issue. I appreciate your frustration. I review every post on this community, and I do pass on the feedback we're receiving, even if I've not publicly responded to every individual.

This particular issue with roaming specific to iOS devices has been proving particularly complex to investigate and resolve, but it is being worked on, and I'm hopeful there'll be more that I can share soon.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[IBR17XVII]

Jonathan, I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me I really do but honestly, that's not good enough.

As I'm sure you are aware this issue has been going on for months & months with no resolution in sight.

I wouldn't mind so much if your colleagues in your support & complaints department acknowledged this issue but even when you point them to this thread they either ignore it or don't take any responsibility & blame the user for not switching off roaming.

I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get a refund & I certainly shouldn't have to threaten to go to the ombudsman before they will take me seriously. It's a load of hassle that I frankly haven't got the time for & shouldn't have to do in the 1st place.

I am going on holiday in 5 weeks time & I would appreciate your advice as to what I'm supposed to do? My roaming will be off, my spend cap is zero & I have asked to have international roaming removed from my account (which basically renders my phone useless in an emergency) but I still have no confidence at all that I won't be charged.

I will be taking a SIM from another network to use in an emergency but why should I have to do that? Why should I be second guessing all the time if I will be charged?

I've been with Three for a long time & always been satisfied which is why I've never moved networks but if this isn't solved in the very near future & if I get any kind of charge when I am on holiday I will absolutely be leaving.

[markieboy7]

Have been with 3 for years and family now as well. never had an issue and great service. Went to South Korea end of march for 2 weeks and knew roaming charges were huge so bought Korean sims for the 4 of us  to collect at Seoul airport. even printed out the invoice and collection details as I told the family not to switch on their phones until Korean SIM installed. Three SIM cards removed in Munich where we stopped off from London then flew onto Seoul. installed Korean SIM and had 2 weeks of travel. on returning I got my bill and £7.24 added for roaming in korea on the day I arrived then today wife had her bill with £26.88 added for roaming in korea on the day we arrived. Kids so far havent received their bill but expecting the same. All iOS. I had mine refunded but chat said I had used services which isnt true. Your customer service people try to be helpful but clearly have no idea how to deal with this. why different amounts and why stop at 7.24 and 26.88 when we did nothing our end? Very surprised when I found so many in a similar position. this needs to be addressed very quickly. off to Japan soon so really dont want this to happen again

[Dovey21]

I have just received a £57 bill for roaming by 3. My roaming is definitely switched off..I use a travel eSIM. I received no text from 3 regarding usage abroad. I phoned them and have been given a £21 goodwill reduced action but..I didn’t use data! They state they have evidence but when asked where and when they used the data they can not answer. I’m perplexed by this and bitterly disappointed by it when I know roaming is turned off.  

[LeM]

Same issue here - we returned from the US two days ago to find extra charges on our bills for data use (which triggered the Daily Pass). The amounts of data were tiny 0.0009MB etc. Both of us are using iphones but had mobile data and data roaming switched off for the entire two weeks and were using only wifi. Three's agent on chat could not explain it, so I've escalated the complaint. I also checked with Apple (in case I'd left something'on' which should have been 'off') and was assured that our phones cannot have used data. 
In March I got a text from Three saying that "due to a system error, you may have been charged Daily Roaming Charges for using your domestic plan allowances in our GO Roam destinations". It didn't apply to me so I ignored it, but it looks like they've fixed one tech issue by creating another. Do Three's tech team actually understand what they are doing?

[LeM]

Correction "due to a system error, you may NOT have been charged Daily Roaming Charges for using your domestic plan allowances in our GO Roam destinations". Still irrelavant to me but shows they've got problems with Data Roaming charges