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? 

[JonathanB]

Hi everyone,

Sorry I've not been able to weigh in on this issue till now. It's definitely something I'd like to get investigated further. I see a lot of you are mentioning iPhone/iOS. Are you all iPhone users, anyone on Android had this issue?

Has everyone been able to check their bills? Is it always between a fraction of, or a couple of KB that shows?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[atommyk]

iPhone 14 Pro, latest iOS (updated to iOS 17 before travelling), mine showed ≤1kB.

[TiffanyMCM]

Hi @bcracknell - I had the exact same issue!  Like yourself, I switched roaming off, but yet Three charged me, so I am going to raise a formal complaint that Three is not respecting the setting of customers’ devices. I am just waiting to receive and review my last 12 months bills (since I travel frequently) but my Three roaming is always off - in fact, I have another network plan overseas which gives me free roaming internationally (so I sometimes don’t even turn it on in the UK) - I’m only really with Three still because I want to keep the number and haven’t gone around to sort that, I used to like the Three products and coverage was decent, but it’s really disappointing with this latest issue and their unreliable coverage (often I don’t have full string signals when in central London).  

I felt compelled write this post/ reply because I am wondering how many other customers are being incorrectly charged by Three.  

@JonathanB @Could Three customer service pls provide an email address I can submit the complaint formally?  
Thanks

[TiffanyMCM]

iPhone 15 pro, iOS 17.0.3

[SimonL]

I've just tested it and it's happened again.

Last time I was in Luxembourg, had Roaming disabled on the 3 SIM but was charged for 0.0019Mb of data (see below)

This time I was visiting the USA.  Before leaving the UK I made certain Roaming was disabled and also turned off the 3 SIM.  I thought the problem might have been the network in Luxembourg so one day while there I turned the 3 SIM on briefly to test and almost straight away got a text from 3 saying I would be charged.  This then appeared on the monthly bill which shows the same 0.0019Mb (this time much more expensive than the EU!)

I'd really like to be able to receive calls whilst away but not be charged for roaming data.

I'm not sure if the problem is with 3 charging for data that wasn't used or a bug in the iPhone (I've a 14 Pro running the latest OS) which means it uses some data even when Roaming is turned off.  I read somewhere that it could be Facetime/iMessage using data to register the phone number as active.

It would be great if Apple could fix the bug or 3 didn't charge for such tiny amounts of data.  Maybe 3 are being charged by the overseas telecoms companies, so it isn't their fault.

Would be good to get to the bottom of this and find a solution that works.

Or 3 could bring back free roaming!!!

[atommyk]

Clearly, something has gone wrong since re-introducing roaming charges to the network. I'm so tempted to move back to IDmobile or another provider where you don't have the roaming issue, simply to not have to worry about the flipping charges for <1kB data usage that seems to occur when the SIM checks in. The only reason I switched back to Three was because the Apple watch pairing required it, but on the face of it, it's maybe more trouble than it's worth.

[Gurj]

Great to see more evidence of issues, though sad to see no solution or acknowledgement by Three or Apple (I raised a ticket they are ignoring) on this.

On my most recent visit to USA I kept the Three SIM off (not just data roaming off) and didn't get any messages about charges this time.

I've got 4 family phones now with these charges totaling >£100 of pointless fraction of a KB data charges now we have been charged for. 

[Gurj]

OK, just went through the long process of explaining the issue to Three Support Chat and again there seemed to be no acknowledgement of this being an issue and no offer to resolve the excess charges I have seen since July across 4 SIM cards, now totally £194 of excess charges.
I have raised a formal complain to Three on their Complaint form here.
It would be great if other could do the same to encourage investigation of this.

https://www.three.co.uk/support/complaints/how-to-complain

I recommend pointing to this thread too.

Even if this isn't at the end of the day a Three issue (which it might be), such issues should be taken more seriously than support staff are taking them.

[apadley1337]

Im in the USA on two iphones, one 17 and other ios 16.7 and got charged twice as soon as I arrived. Seems what is happening is when you arrive, the three SIM sends a carrier SMS message back home, which triggers the charge. Nothing to do with data roaming and nothing to do with user. Only way to stop this is to turn off sim completely via airline mode and then enable wifi. Very shady practice from 3 on this.

I don't know if this is daily for now or just the first time you connect to a new carrier. I'll be keeping an eye on it. 

[Gurj]

Thanks for sharing. It is listed on the Three bill as 0.0009MB of data rather than a txt message. Perhaps it gets sent as an iMessage or its a USSD message, either way sounds wrong to charge for it.

I wonder why more people aren't complaining about this?

I've been use an Airalo eSIM on trips when this happened too, though not sure if that gets the iPhone confused about data being on or off.