Vodafone Global Roaming £6 a day charge for 0.56MB of data usage? Seriously?

[harry66]

I should have read the small print but there you go....

My wife and I spent 2 weeks abroad recently in a non-EU country - we did originally try to use a local SIM but after issues with topping up etc we deciding to  stick with the  Vodafone Global Roaming option.

I wrongly assumed that the £6 daily charge was a cap and if I only used the phone for say a single text message or a short phone call, then I would only be charged for that single message or short phone call at international rates (besides I was not even sure how to turn this Global Roaming off whilst I was abroad).

The above assumption seems fair and reasonable right? How wrong was I?

So, we now have this situation where we have been charged a total of £138 for Global Roaming made up of £6 for each day either of us used our phones.

This includes days where only two SMS were sent, or less than two minutes of calls were made or only 0.56MB of data was used. So we got charged £6 for a two SMS on one day, £6 for less than two minutes of phone call on one day and £6 one day for 0.56MB of Data!!!

How on earth can you justify charging £6 for 0.56MB of data? Seriously?

And the stupidest thing is they blocked my wife's SIM whilst we were still in the country - without telling her or me - because she had spent too much that month! She recevied the text when we got back to the UK telling here SIM had been blocked due to overspending.

Seriously, you charge £6 a day for 0.56MB of data and then block her SIM because she has spent too much?

Complete rip-off merchants - taking advantage of your customers - and then you pretend to care about your customers - more like you just care about how much money you can fleece out of them!

[hrym]

It's always advisable to check the cost of using your phone abroad before you go.   That way, you can avoid unexpected charges and maybe mitigate those you will incur.  The Global Roaming charge is indeed £6 per day and it's advisable to turn the Roaming Data option off on a smartphone, as it will use data automatically in background.  That way, you can stick to wifi whenever possible and only turn mobile data on when you absolutely need it.

Networks are now obliged to have a spending cap to stop the serious bill shocks that have occurred in the past and this generally works well.  However, the cap is set quite low and less than a fortnight of daily roaming charges can easily trigger it.  The only way to release the account is to pay the bill, but a system that allows you to do this easily is looking more than a little desirable.

[harry66]

So, basically what you are saying is if you go to a non-EU / free roaming country and you are on PayMonthly then you have to turn roaming off - otherwise you will be charged £6 for even the tiniest use of data?

LOL - very customer friendly that is!

Likewise if you want to send a single SMS or make a quick phone call then expect to pay £6 for the privilege.

I just found the following answer on the  Vodafone help center Can I cancel Vodafone Global Roaming?

It looks like you cannot even opt out of Global Roaming - so they have you by the short and curlies.

Let the Vodafone coffers fill on up!

[hrym]

Sadly, yes.  The best thing you can do is limit your use by saving up all the things you can't do on wifi and combining them in a single day so that you only pay one £6 charge (or, at least, fewer than one every day youlre away).

It would be good if it was possible to opt out of the Global Roaming daily charge, although the bill cap would still apply and you'd still need to monitor your usage carefully, as  roaming charges per item (call, SMS, mb of data) can be high.  In fact, you might find that combining use into only a few days worked out cheaper overall.

[harry66]

hrym - thanks for your replies - I know you are just trying to be helpful - but your advise is not practical.

When abroad I will only use my phone when absolutely essential - for a quick call or SMS - so I cant combine them into a single day etc.

I have lodged a complain with Vodafone- as they cannot justify this £6 charge - especially if you cannot even opt out and choose to just pay 'Standard' roaming charges on a per use basis. I probably would have saved myself at least £50-60 given how few SMS we sent, how little data we used and how short our phone calls were.

[donnyguy]

I do get why 

I do get why you'd be unhappy with being charged £6 for such a small amount of data but to be fair, the welcome message makes it clear of the costs meaning when you arrived in the country you visited, they'd have notified you.

I spent a lot of time going between Oman, Thailand and Malaysia in August and I initially decided I was going to buy a local SIM but in the end, the messing around with the sim, top ups and also the fact that the network throttles data speed made me think again so I used my Vodafone sim (and ironically was roaming on the same network that was throttling speed for the local sims but I was getting full 4G on Vodafone).

For me, even though I do think that £6 is painful (especially this month when I'm paying my bill), I do like the fact that they make it clear how much it costs and also makes clear that I can use my phone with no extra charges.

We can't deny that it's a commerical decision (after all, Vodafone prepay offers data in Thailand for 12p per MB instead of the flat rate) but I do think compared to some of the other networks out there, this isn't a bad deal. 

But if this is a showstopper then I suppose customers will vote with their feet.

[harry66]

I agree with most of your points - but the biggest problem is you cannot opt out or disable this £6 Global Roaming feature.

Basically Vodafone are forcing its customers to pay £6 a day - even if you only want to send a single text or make a 1 minute phone call or use 1MB of data. Total ripoff for those of us who are not glued to their phones and just want to keep in touch with those back home or send a quick text etc

There should be a choice - either pay £6 a day or pay standard global rates for every minute or text you send - being fully aware that you risk a huge phone bill if you get carried away with on the standard global rates.

[jeffkinn]

There is a choice of sorts - use internet based apps for sending messages or making calls and using them on Wifi. If you have an iPhone it's iMessage to another iPhone or Whatsapp is device agnostic. You can also make calls using Whatsapp or something like BT Smart Talk.

Even though I enjoy the ability to use my phone as normal when I'm away (and the £6 a day cost is negligible compared to the cost of the holiday) I whole heartedly agree that the inability to opt out is a major flaw in Vodafone's offering and we've told them that on countless occasions.

[harry66]

Choice of sorts? Seriously - when you have access to Wifi? 

What in earth has that got to do with Vodafone giving me a choice to enable or disable the Global Roaming feature? If a cafe or a hotel provides Wifi - then that is because I am paying for the hotel or spending some money in the cafe?

How on earth is that Vodafone giving me a choice - by letting me use someone elses Wifi to send a whatsapp message or make a Whatsapp call?

Seriously, I do have to wonder about this forum sometimes - there seems to be so many posters on here who seem to try and defend / justify / make Vodafone look better, under the guise of being helpful..

[jeffkinn]

When did i say that it was vodafone giving you a choice? I didn't. I also said that it was wrong of the network not to allow customers to opt out.