Some iPhone users are being hit with roaming charges, even if they've turned data roaming off, reports Money Saving Expert.
The site reports that its own reporter was "hit with charges... immediately after switching his phone from airplane mode to normal mode."
We suspect user error may be the problem in this case, but it's not easy to switch data roaming on accidentally. Data roaming is turned off by default on iPhones, and you have to wade a couple of levels into the settings menu to turn it on again.
O2, which is the network used by most iPhones in the UK, says it's "investigating these reports with Apple," but it won't confirm there's a problem with the phone.
There's a precedent for the iPhone going AWOL (airtime without leave) abroad. Last August, Apple released a software update to fix a bug that caused the iPhone to connect to the data network when sending an MMS, even when roaming.
We're waiting for a comment from Apple on the kerfuffle, but in the meantime, let us know in the comments if you've seen any freaky charges after your summer forays abroad. And if you do have unexpected bills, we suggest you contact your network and insist on a refund.
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Anonymous 26 July, 2010 12:25
Yes, I've had charges accumulate whilst in the Channel Islands seeing family. I had 3G and data roaming turned off on the iPhone. I spoke to Orange about this, and they said it was due to another option called "cellular data" which appeared in the iOS 4 update. This also needs to be turned off, which I did not do as I didn't know what it was for.
Orange said that it was not their responsibility to inform customers of any changes to the software which may affect the way they use the phone or charges incurred.
So you have to turn "cellular data" off as well as 3G and data roaming. Personally, I'd be more tempted to get a rubbish phone and stick the SIM card in that whilst away. Avoids the hassle.
Anonymous 26 July, 2010 12:57
Another setback once again for Apple it will be interesting to see what's next in the news regarding iPhone issues (antenna, manufacturing and service charges) and their steps to refund cases won’t make up for the iPhone 4's lack of function over form.
It's a shame to see so many issues with the iPhone 4 after so many people waited for it's release. What's more of a shame is that it seems Apple knew about some of these issues already, such as the problem with reception.
But Apple have created such a loyal following that people may just put up with what issues there are for the sake of owning the latest Apple product.
Personally, I'd be happier with an older iPhone - at least then the issues are all ironed out.
However, it's also interesting to see how much excitement new technologies can bring. New technology and innovation is important for new business, illustrated by entrepreneurship grants and new business competitions like http://www.ukesnc.com.
Guess it's not all bad!
Anonymous 26 July, 2010 14:41
Another way to rack up charges with Roaming turned off is as follows:
Connect to an unsecured, but not free WiFi hotspot
Open Safari and you get bounced to the WiFi hotspot's login page
While you're logging in, the iPhone seems to think you're connected to WiFi, so OK to download, but can't actually connect to the Internet via WiFi, so falls back to 3G.
Cost me £6 in Bangkok airport!
Anonymous 26 July, 2010 15:30
I had a similar problem in Qatar. Was well I thought I wasconnected to a wireless network however incurred £8.00 data roaming charges. The 02 advisor said it must have been me. However a second one said it had seen this problem before and iPhones were fomous for it and refunded my charges. The first one basically threatened me. Not a good feeling when you are miles from home and spending a fortune on skype
Anonymous 26 July, 2010 17:02
I have recently returned from Cyprus to a £2800 iphone phone bill, can anyone beat that??? and I did have roaming off. The hotel I stayed in had great wifi access and I never ever reset my roaming off. I have asked orange why they never informed me that the bill was rocketing to that amount, and got a reply that they now were doig this, but it would not apply to my bill!!!
jaam 26 July, 2010 17:51
Android has had a similiar issue with this - due to working in the cloud.
Even with international roaming switched off, and syncing switched off, rebooting the phone causes it to check for contacts etc (often ignoring the above statuses). It's always a good idea to go in and change your APN address - add an extra couple of k's to the end of it - that way it doesn't matter what you forget to switch off (whether your operating system picks it up or not), and it is easy enough to change back when you get back.
1000105421 27 July, 2010 10:06
Yes, I've had my iPhone for 2 years now and can confirm I regularly have roaming internet charges, despite the roaming switch being OFF. I travel a lot for my job, and get his every month with between £0.50 and £10 of internet roaming! I have queried it with o2 and they first said I must have flicked the switch to roaming, WRONG. When it kept on happening, they admitted it may be a problem, but always refused to refund my charges.
Anonymous 28 July, 2010 12:17
Currently in the USA,
£34 roaming in two days, I have roaming completely turned off!!!
Anonymous 28 July, 2010 14:14
I'm in Canada at the moment and have had 7MB of data use in 9 days, despite Data Roaming turned off on my iPhone 4. I thought it must be an error, but after reading this post, wonder if something else is going on...
Anonymous 2 August, 2010 18:06
Eek - Tesco phone came back from Croatia with over £600 of charges. Tesco say there has been an error, and it will be reduced -but are slow getting back to us.
Anonymous 13 August, 2010 17:56
I had a 35 pound charge in one hit in Greece and the time on the bill said it was 0200hrs which I can assure everyone one I was asleep. Data roaming was turned off as always...Did Five weeks and 14 countries with an Iphone 3 with no data charges...Did one week in Greece and got £35...Rang O2 and was polite and after being put on hold for 5 minutes they refunded my money
Anonymous 16 August, 2010 10:50
I have just got back from a trip to Dublin and after switching my iPhone 4 on and off one evening, when it restarted it started downloading all my emails, even though my phone is set to disable data roaming abroad. Definitely a bug in the OS!!!
Anonymous 21 August, 2010 11:13
I confirm as well, I was in italy and I've never turned the roaming on!! Here is my bill, I was suspicious when I received emails on my phone while I was there.... Strangely just after updating my iPhone to IOS 4, before I've never had any problem.
07 Jul 10 01:55:33 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 37 0.093
07 Jul 10 15:24:44 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 271 0.678
09 Jul 10 00:45:24 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 732 1.830
10 Jul 10 15:05:41 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 287 0.718
12 Jul 10 10:47:33 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 218 0.545
14 Jul 10 01:27:00 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 720 1.800
17 Jul 10 23:34:17 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 577 1.443
18 Jul 10 00:00:18 idata.o2.co.uk ITA 781 1.953
Anonymous 21 August, 2010 19:51
Just returned from Turkey, data roaming, 3G, WiFi all OFF & never turned on, but whilst there my account was suspended and i was unable to contact Orange to find out why and had to wait until i arrived home today. I have now discovered £291 charges over two consecutive days and when i queried this Orange came up with the reason being that i was reading my i books (which i downloaded in the UK before i left) which causes the data roaming to turn itself on without alerting you! Has anyone else heard of this or am i being fobbed off?
Anonymous 25 August, 2010 14:51
I was hit with a £10 data bill for using my iPhone in Thailand & Malaysia where I paid for access to a private wifi network and ensured data roaming was switched off, queried it with O2 who told me that they would investigate but it was unlikely that it was their fault. I got a call today to say that it is a common fault with iPhones even when data roaming is off and that they would refund me in full.
That almost makes up for the £35 bill for a 15 minute call!
Anonymous 25 August, 2010 22:25
Yes - I got hit with a £90 bill from use in Barcelona. Data roaming was definitely off (as it always is when I travel) and I appeared to be connected to a free wi-fi network according to the icon on the top bar. I also had emails download the moment I turned my phone on in Germany, again with data roaming disabled. In the case of the £90 I was let off. It's good to see others are having similar issues and it's not me being daft!
Anonymous 26 August, 2010 15:27
I've been travelling through south and central America for a few months now and had this problem ever single month with charges upto £40. After emailing o2 customer support they have always refunded me fully for the charges and admit there is a fault which they are currently investigating with Apple.
Anonymous 30 September, 2010 18:22
Orange are b******ds. We took an iphone3g to turkey in July. Only just got it and had never heard of data roaming. We barely used the phone but left it on most of the day, then got back after 2 weeks to a bill from Orange for £690. They are playing hard and tell us it is our fault and we must have turned it on and bad luck we should have known better. If anyone can suggest a way forward with Orange would be pleased to know.
Anonymous 8 October, 2010 15:33
I got hit with over £3K!!! from Orange. Data was off for most of the time. They didnt bother to inform me of the problem. Common sense should have alerted them to the problem but they just out to grab a buck out of other peoples ignorance and exploit the problems with iphones and data roaming. Im currently speaking to OFCOM to see what I can do before I pay up. Any advice welcome, as I really cant afford this, Looks like im going to be selling the car!
anonymous 16 January, 2011 16:03
I was charged for roaming while in Munich , though i was definitely connected on WiFi network.
My iphone was indicating that i was on a WiFi network. Burger's king was the place as i can recall?. Then after downloading some data i was prompted by the carrier that i am over the limit of 60 MB cause there is a limit in Europe for roaming
anonymous 16 January, 2011 16:04
I was charged for roaming while in Munich , though i was definitely connected on WiFi network.
My iphone was indicating that i was on a WiFi network. Burger's king was the place as i can recall?. Then after downloading some data i was prompted by the carrier that i am over the limit of 60 MB cause there is a limit in Europe for roaming
Anonymous 27 January, 2011 14:18
I have a similar issue with Orange - was in Lanzarote before christmas and have received 2 bills for roaming totalling £590. I have been in touch with Orange today and they are looking into it. I said i want a thorough breakdown of all data emailed over.
Has anyone actually received a refund from their service provider for this?
I had data roaming on and my daughter was on facebook some of the time but the rest we paid for wifi at the apartment.
Anonymous 10 March, 2011 17:48
Same problem - just got back from South Africa. Blackberry on O2 used 667kb of data, Ipad on Orange used over £650 of roaming charges for the same email, few webpages and google maps – works out to about £10 p/minute. Orange can't give me a detailed bill and insisted I pay the excess charges. Ipad data showed a lot less data sent & received versus what Orange is charging me. Spend a couple of hours researching this, seems Orange is synonymous with bad service and excessive charges.
One website suggest requesting a technical investigation, another an Orange representative actually replied to take details for investigating the matter. Not impressed has to be said!
Anonymous 8 June, 2011 12:54
Ive just come back from a trip to Turkey for a week with a £600 bill for roaming! My roaming wasn't switched on all the time and was used a small amount, has anyeone had any success with Orange in getting a refund, is it worth contacting Ofcom. Feel I've been robbed as at no point have they tried to let me know prior to this that roaming on the iphone is different than the charges on other phones I've had nor did they try to contact me while my bill was dramatically building up!
Anonymous 2 July, 2011 18:27
I have just returned from America and have £2000 bill for roaming charges with Orange!!! I am absolutely going to refuse to pay this bill and they can take me to court and I will fight it there. I dont care what they come up with I didnt have the phone turned on for long enough to run up these bills. I do have the update ios4 and Im still reading up as to weather it could have been a problem with that. I have emailed and called orange who are saying the bill is valid and I must pay. Exactly the same as previous post. If my charges were accumilating at such a rate why wasnt the phone blocked or any text messages sent? I was told on the phone by orange that "i phone users receive regular updates when abroad regarding roaming charges. This is rubbish and they will only get money from me by getting a court order.
Anonymous 4 July, 2011 19:23
Orange will refund this to you based on their new roaming policy that if you ask they will calculate your bill based on if you had purchased a bundle before you went. For a £2000 bill thats 250MB so at least £1900 will be refunded back to you. I know this as I work for them and have had training on it. Speak to someone in UK be nice but escalate if needed.
anonymous 3 September, 2011 21:34
Thank you so much for comment dated 4.7.11 regarding excessive roaming charges. I have just returned from a week's holiday to Turkey and my estimated next bill is showing almost £1500 mainly due to data. The breakdown equates to approximately £70, so no where near the estimated bill. I have contacted Orange who suggest I wait until the next bill is generated but this is such a shock when my average bill is £45 a month. I'm sure I turned off the data roaming and at no point did Orange contact to say I was exceeding my limit. Very frustrating that I must wait at least 2 weeks to begin to sort this.
anonymous 12 September, 2011 16:23
Similar with T.Mobile, 2 weeks in Turkey £ 685.00 bill, They seem quite happy to charge and say it's my fault for not turning the roaming off every day. I am taking advice on whether they are at fault for not exercising their responsibility of customer care . Don't think I will get anywhere though.
anonymous 16 September, 2011 18:30
Thanks 04.07.11, I was told that if i had a bundle it would be £61 so i am asking them to charge me that,!!! fingers crossed!!!!!
anonymous 3 October, 2011 17:27
I have just returned from. UAE dubia to discover iv been charged with a £800.00 roam data charges didnt even use internet or hardly uses my phone all tex calls ect are my average £150,00 and my bill is £950.00 im in shock its just not normal that they do this im oblivious to this i now how to make calls and tex but this data roaming i havnt a clue why didnt orange notifiy me,their quick enough sending us tex's if bill is due but this is unbeliveable they took 1020.58 out of my hubby's account and i had bank to recall it so we had it put back .they can turn us off but im not paying untill i get to the bottom of this who in their right mind would p..s money against the wall like that nobody would and orange knows it . Wrote letter and il have to wait for the out come
anonymous 25 January, 2012 20:09
I went to Turkey last September and received a bill from Orange for £3334.00 from Orange which I am disputing. The offered to reduce it to £1500.00 but that is still a huge amount of money for data that I didn't know my android phone was downloading. They have now suspended my phone even though I am willing to continue to pay my monthly contract of £28. They have never offered to sell me a retrospective bundle. This is a massive rip off. They say it was my responsibility to look into charges such as these. I say they should take the responsibility of warning customers when bills start to rocket with data roaming charges and to put caps on data downloads abroad.
anonymous 2 March, 2012 16:04
Orange are b*********** they give you massive bills, knowing you have not used this data because the roaming was turned off, then they send a massive bill £2,900 which I accquired over 3 days, because of date down loading, which is a load of rubbish, roaming was off, I was in Kuwait at the time, then when you dont pay, they give it to debt collectors. They can take it to court, if they think they wll win. Why dont we all get together on this and put all our case to the court.
anonymous 12 March, 2012 19:52
I too have recieved a large bill from ORANGE, I had the date roaming turned off for the majority of the time so can not understand this, my bill is £590. I was only aware of this because my phone was cut off this morning, ORANGE said they text me on Saturday (2 days ago), to advise me of high charges, I TOO NEVER RECIEVED THIS TEXT. I have called ORANGE today and was absolutly shocked at the bill, they told me it was my fault and I have to pay the bill. I have no intention of paying however happy to pay a contribtion for my ignorance. I'M FINISHED WITH ORANGE, unless they respond appropiately. CAN ANYONE HELP?