Charged to email a picture

[Anonymous]

Having just spoke to a very helpful woman at O2, I queried a question regarding the Media Messaging service and what is actually included in this; I was a bit surprised at the response.

On my latest bill (and for a few months prior) I have been charged the odd couple of 'MMS' messages here and there, but over the course of the last month I have been a bit trigger happy with my picture sending.  This included 3 messages that I sent from my iPhone 5 to my laptop, via the built-in apple Mail app...

I work as a designer, so on the odd occasion, its quicker to take a quick snap with your phone while on the move.  Then get back to the office, send the picture to my email and collect it on my laptop for me to use.

I am hooked onto the wifi on both devices, so to send a picture message from my phone I presume this would do the following (apologies I am not too technical in the networking department):

iPhone >> Modem/Router >> somehow arriving at Gmail, then returns back to >> Modem/Router >> Macbook

Why, in this passage, would I be charged by O2 to get this message which was transferred solely on the wifi?

In the same respect, if I was on the wifi and my girlfriend who also owns an iPhone, was on here home wifi also.  Why would I be charged to send her a picture message on the native apple messaging app when the wifi would be doing all the data transfer for free? I would understand if one of us was on 3G at the time, then O2 would need to use some of its own network to move the message onwards.

I know there are countless other ways of doing this for free (ie: dropbox, whatsapp, etc.), but was just interested to know if anyone else have been affected by this or am I being a plum and missing a way of doing this for free on my iPhone using the native built-in apps? I'm a sucker for minimalism!

Thanks in advance,

RichTea 

[Liquid]

How are you sending the picture?

Going from your camera roll and selecting the send via email option?

[Anonymous]

Hey Liquid!

yep, thats exactly what I'm doing? I have a wierd feeling that I should be opening the mail app first and then attaching a picture to it.  But that seems like two paths leading to the same point.  An email with an picture attachement being sent by my iPhone.

[Anonymous]

I have been charged 58p for sending 2 pictures by email.

There are not dates or times on my bill for media messaging and the Live Chat is down, so over a year after first person posted message and did not receive a response, I am trying again.

I have never noticed this charge before, but have moved to a new tariff and wonder if this is the problem?

[MI5]

Some older tariff's included 20 free MMS messages whilst some even older tariff's too 4 standard text's from your allowance. Either way you would not be charged.
Since March 2012, no MMS have been included unless you buy a bolt on, so this may be why.
Note that any MMS requires data (cannot be sent over wifi) so even if you are connected to wifi you will still see the data charge.