Why is my phone automatically sending media messages without my knowledge?

[Anonymous]

I'm very careful to only send text messages, yet my latest bill shows that I've paid over £60 on 'media messages'.

I don't understand how this can be - certainly I keep every text that I send so I can see that I haven't sent photos to the people on the calls list.

So what's going on? Why is my phone randomly deciding to send expensive media messages when it feels like it, and without my consent? Can any one help?

[Anonymous]

Have you sent any messages containing emotions as these are charged as mms also very long messages can be charged as mms

[perksie]

You may need to make a few checks this may help:

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/srvs/cgi-bin/webcgi.exe?New,KB=Companion,T=guruCase,VARSET_COBJID=52283,P...

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your replies. I don't send emoticons (except crappy homemade ones like this: 🙂 ) 

Long messages: well that's possible. I'll have to check every text! But I can't imagine that I've been sending £60+ worth of long messages in a month...!

Will also check that link.

thanks, folks. 

🙂

[Anonymous]

Ok, I've checked the link and it looks like it's most likely down to sending long messages, though I haven't yet checked my bill records against the saved copy of the messages yet.

But annoyingly, my phone sometimes shows the character counter and sometimes not. Grr. I shall have to look into this.

[perksie]

Let us know what you come up with.

[Anonymous]

It sometimes also converts to MMS if you add a subject to a text or send it to multiple people. You can turn the subject heading off in the messages settings menu.

Must admit i nearly do this a lot myself but keep an eye on it converting so just delete a bit and send in a 2nd text.

[Anonymous]

Let us know how you get on it's worth giving O2 a ring if it's the first time you've been caught out you never know they might just credit you some or all of it back if you don't ask you never know

[Anonymous]

I'm inclined to think that you may have inadvertantly entered text into the Subject field in Messages, I've nearly done this before. Entering text in the Subject field instantly turns a standard text message into a MMS (Media message).

I have used Emoji (emoticons) many times and I've never received a MMS charge.

I've also sent extremely long text messages and I've never been charged a MMS charge.

I've also sent the same text to over 6 people at once on many occasions and I never received a MMS charge.

I made this video guide that shows how to turn off the Subject field, which then stops the possibility of inadvertantly entering text into the Subject field and thus turning the standard message into a Media (MMS) message.

Although this video guide is for iOS 6, the instructions are the same for iOS 7.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

But annoyingly, my phone sometimes shows the character counter and sometimes not. Grr. I shall have to look into this.

---

If you go into Settings/Messages/ then scroll down you will see Character Count, switch this on and it will show you the amount of characters typed.

But nowadays there is no 160 character limit for text messages, so a Character Count is pretty much of no use now, other than for curiosity sake, to show how many characters have been typed.