If I opt OUT of roam-further £5/day, how much do calls and texts to the UK cost?

[clairenw]

I believe I can opt out, and since I only text once every few days whilst I'm away, I won't want to spend £5 a go to do that!  If I make a phone call it's because it's unavoidable, and would only last a few seconds.  I've searched for call/text charges but can't find them anywhere.  I just keep getting bombarded by the new roam-further £5/day charges.  Can anyone help please?

[Getafix]

Why don't you ask your family to call you everyday?

Receiving is free. Ask your Father to call you several times a day and that would be better then a text.

Whenever I am travelling, I tell my family to call me and can chat for a while then what I would say on text.

[hardyhq]

Yep. Just back from 11 days in Jamaica and hit with £10 charge on husbands phone (1 text and 1 phone call) and £25 charge on mine (9 texts on 5 separate days). Didn't realise we were part of roam further as you'd previously had to opt in to World Traveller. We didn't switch on our data roaming and did everything else on the phone via wifi apps. When I have just read the welcome text that you receive when landing at your holiday destination it says " welcome to **** you're in one of our roam further destinations so you can use the minutes texts and data from your plan for just £5 a day.  You'll only pay on the days you use your phone and the charge is on top of your plan. For terms and conditions see voda web site." This message is very similar to the one voda previously sent out before the summer, with the exception that it asked the customer to telephone to opt in. The way the current message is worded suggests you have an option and instead of saying 'so you can use the minutes', it should be worded 'when you use any minutes texts and data'.

 Vodafone should be more transparent and upfront by making it clear to all us infrequent users of our call and data plans in the welcome message in roam further countries, by starting it with a warning that only 1 text will trigger the £5 charge each day and a reminder that this is not an opt in service.  

I have just spent 2 hours in a web chat complaining about the £10 and £25 disproportionate charges which are now on my account for 10 texts and 1 phone call and been given a £20 reduction as a gesture of goodwill. So, instead of each text/call costing me on average £3.18 voda are charging me £1.36 per tx. The call handler constantly referred me to voda's terms and conditions and told me the pricing structure changed as too many people were being landed with high charges as they did not understand the policy. Now all those frequent users of mobile texts calls and data are protected, yet those of us who use very little data etc are now penalised. Come on voda, what are you going to do about your unclear wording and disproportionate charges?

[drgee]

One text while I was away in Australia & New Zealand cost me £5! I'd opted out of this racket but now see that it's compulsory and there's nothing I can do about it. It's a bloody rip off and if the only way to escape it is to leave Vodafone then that is exactly what I'll do. Who the hell sends £5 worth of text messages every day? Wife is on PAYG and was charged a reasonable rate of a few pence.

Seems that those of us that don't use data or texting much while overseas are being penalised and are subsidising high use customers.

Why can't we still opt out of this sharp practice?

[63johnw]

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@drgee wrote:

One text while I was away in Australia & New Zealand cost me £5! I'd opted out of this racket but now see that it's compulsory and there's nothing I can do about it. It's a bloody rip off and if the only way to escape it is to leave Vodafone then that is exactly what I'll do. Who the hell sends £5 worth of text messages every day? Wife is on PAYG and was charged a reasonable rate of a few pence.

Seems that those of us that don't use data or texting much while overseas are being penalised and are subsidising high use customers.

Why can't we still opt out of this sharp practice?

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Hi @drgee this is something that has been asked of vodafone many times and they have stated its their new policy which benefits more customers than the old method. I agree there should be an opt out with the oportunity to send the odd text for a reasonable price.

[Annie_N]

I can't understand the logic of the new policy, as it clearly disadvantages a fair number of customers, even if it's a smaller group. In the past you had to opt in to World Traveller, but apparently customers failed to do so, which could cost them a great deal of money in roaming charges.

All Vodafone had to do, when introducing Roam Further, was to opt customers in by default. This would have served perfectly well to protect the customers for whom opting in was 'difficult' in some way, but those who didn't want to find themselves paying £5 for a text of two could have opted out. For the latter group there might have been a certain amount of "bill shock" on the first trip abroad, but once they had realised the change and opted out, the problem would have been resolved for future trips.

Hard to see the benefit to Vodafone of alienating a group of previously loyal customers.

[donnyguy]

To flip this one on it's had a little, I agree that very light users can be considerably worse off but on the flip side, there are others who do benefit and these are the ones who use data.

I travelled recently to Morocco and was gutted to find that this wasn't a Roam Further destination. Basically meant that I was restriced to wi-fi (which wasn't that great) as the data was 60p per MB. So bascially 10MB of data which is absolutely nothing would equal the Roam Further daily charge. Or 5 minutes of calls.

Before flat rate roaming came along, I used to buy local sim cards when I travelled. In fact I'm travelling to the UAE in a couple of months and I'm not impressed that it's no longer a Roam Futher destination as it means I'll have to sign up with Etisalat on arrival.

BUT... for others, it's a case of ensuring you use it to make it work for you. So firstly, data well and truely off so you're not stung. And agree with people back home that you'll miss call them so they can call you back. So long as they (or their voicemail) doesn't answer then you'll be fine. 

[Annie_N]

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@donnyguy wrote:

And agree with people back home that you'll miss call them so they can call you back. So long as they (or their voicemail) doesn't answer then you'll be fine.

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But first, make sure you are in a Roam Further destination! If you're in UAE, well 72p per minute to receive calls is better than the £1.20 per minute to make them, but still something of a pain in the wallet if the call runs on for too long.

[donnyguy]

Yup - exactly why I'll be signing up with Etisalat on arrival!

Can't afford the regular roaming prices.

[Getafix]

The best bit for me on Roam Further is Free Call Receiving. My close Family will call me two or three times a day. In recent times, I probably use it once or twice at the most per trip.

I did miss it a bit in UAE this summer, but had my Family with me.

I am back in UAE in January for a week and will definitely be getting a Local SIM.

I agree there should be an opt out options, but then you pay for Receiving Calls too.