Data Roaming Off, Still Charged

[sammyh25]

Using a Samsung S7 Edge.

I travel to World for business and always have data roaming off, unless I wish to turn it on in a World Traveller zone. I recently landed into Tehran, Iran and when the mobile picked up the local network various notifications and apps obviously had a data connection as they updated for a few seconds.

Before I had a chance to double check my settings the usual "data roaming disabled" message appeared and no further data was flowing until I accessed wifi.

There seems to have been an issue with either the mobile and/or the local network recognising that data roaming was off, and as a result I have charged £6 for 1.02 Mb of data. (29/01 at 10:19).

I'm hoping not to visit "Iran" again in the near future and whilst I have never came across this issue on my travels before I'd be greatful if someone could come up with a reason as to why this issue occurred in the first place and possibly advise how I can get the charges refunded.

regards.

[Annie_N]

I've been a little unnerved to notice my latest handset connecting briefly to wifi on start-up, although wifi was definitely off when I switched off the phone the night before. I suspect that there's something slightly amiss with the handset or the firmware, but hadn't got around to having it checked out when I went to Morocco last month. I made sure that both mobile data and data roaming were off (on the phone) but didn't touch the settings on my account.

I didn't incur any data charges, but the business with the wifi connection made me realise that phones aren't always as 'obedient' as I'd like.

[Wombleuk]

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@63johnw wrote:

Hi @Wombleuk did you also have mobile data turned off ? 

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Yes I did.

[AnnS]

Hi @Wombleuk

If the phone downloaded any data, you would automically have be charged the mandatory £5.00 daily roam further charge.  This would have enabled you to use your UK allowance without any further data charges.

The best thing to do is to log into your online account and go through the itemised billing, this will let you know the reason for the charge and give you something to go on.  If you have any questions, live chat will be able clarify the charges.

[Wombleuk]

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@AnnS wrote:

Hi @Wombleuk

If the phone downloaded any data, you would automically have be charged the mandatory £5.00 daily World Traveller charge.  This would have enabled you to use your UK allowance without any further data charges.

The best thing to do is to log into your online account and go through the itemised billing, this will let you know the reason for the charge and give you something to go on.  If you have any questions, live chat will be able clarify the charges.

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That's all very well, but I didn't want to use data in the first place.

And the best that customer services could do was tell me that I'd used data.

[AnnS]

Hi @Wombleuk

If you had data roaming and mobile data turned off, it won't be data.  Presumably, you have been through your itemised online billing.

You haven't mentioned how much the charge was for, what does your online billing say?

[Wombleuk]

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@AnnS wrote:

Hi @Wombleuk

If you had data roaming and mobile data turned off, it won't be data.  Presumably, you have been through your itemised online billing.

You haven't mentioned how much the charge was for, what does your online billing say?

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The charge was £5 a day and the data used was 0.151, 0.154 and 0.071MB.

[AnnS]

Hi @Wombleuk

If you have been charged £5.00 per day, as mentioned earlier, it will be the roam further daily mandatory charge only charged when you use your phone for outgoing activity. Unfortunately, even the making a connection to the internet and downloading a small amount of data would incur the charge. There is further information on this charge below.

Vodafone Global Roaming

The best thing to do is to wait for the forum team to get to the thread, access your account and find how it was possible to access the internet and incur the roam further charge when you had mobile data and data roaming turned off.

[Wombleuk]

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@AnnS wrote:

Hi @Wombleuk

If you have been charged £5.00 per day, as mentioned earlier, it will be the roam further daily mandatory charge only charged when you use your phone for outgoing activity. Unfortunately, even the making a connection to the internet and downloading a small amount of data would incur the charge. There is further information on this charge below.

Vodafone Global Roaming

The best thing to do is to wait for the forum team to get to the thread, access your account and find how it was possible to access the internet and incur the roam further charge when you had mobile data and data roaming turned off.

Thanks, but I did know all that.

And it does bring us back to my original post inasmuch as I suddenly incurred charges when no settings had changed other than turning airplane mode off.

I would very much like to get to the root of the problem, but the best customer services could do was send me a copy of my bill and tell me that I must have used data.

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[Annie_N]

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@Wombleuk wrote:

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And it does bring us back to my original post inasmuch as I suddenly incurred charges when no settings had changed other than turning airplane mode off.

I would very much like to get to the root of the problem, but the best customer services could do was send me a copy of my bill and tell me that I must have used data. 

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@Wombleuk I guess it could be your account for some reason seeing usage that wasn't there, but I'd be more inclined to suspect some very temporary malfunction of the phone after you had turned off flight mode - as if it tried to make a data connection before "realising" that the relevant data settings were off. I see that @donnyguy suggests much the same thing.

I doubt whether your account would be able to see that your phone had made a data connection "against instructions" - I think it would simply see that you had made a connection and used data.

I was going to suggest a bit of experimentation now that you are safely back in the UK, and accidental data usage isn't going to cost you £5, but I realise that your phone has since been repaired and factory reset. I'd hope that the repair/reset would have fixed a problem of that sort, but it might still be worth experimenting, to avoid such charges in future. Make sure that both wifi and mobile data are off, then put the phone into flight mode, take it out again, and watch the notification bar very closely for any indication of a connection being made. I can set my data monitor for a display update rate as short as 1 minute, and it measures to the nearest 0.1MB, so I'd expect to see at least the first two of the amounts you mention reflected promptly in my usage totals.

If you do see any indications of your phone making connections despite its settings, then either you'd need to take it up with the manufacturer, or turn off data at account level when roaming, to be sure of avoiding the daily roaming charge. Though the latter isn't a very desirable situation, as you'd then be stuck if you needed to make emergency use of data - which I had to do once after getting lost in backwoods USA, and needing Google Maps to get me out of there!

[John]

@Wombleuk So we can take a look into this further, I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch.