O2 Travel Charges even for days when I did not use the service

[Frumentarious]

My wife and I recently returned from a 13 day holiday in the USA. We both had Data Roaming turned off our iphone 7 handsets before we travelled. While there my wife sent one text message and I sent none.  Nor did we use the phone or voicemail.  The only communications connections or downloading we did was via WiFi in hotels, Shopping Malls or on our tour bus.  Upon our return my wife recieved her next bill and there was an extra charge of £24.96 under "Things you've bought" which was for 6 days when she had apparently purchased O2 travel @ £4.160 per day.  I checked my own bill the same day and found a similar charge of £24.96, also for 6 days use of O2 travel but for DIFFERENT days of our holiday from those that were charged my wife.  I tried an on-line chat with O2 and was told my phone had connected to the network on those days even with data roaming turned off.  They said I should always switch it to Flight Mode when abroad as I could still use hotel WiFi (not true).  I eventually phoned O2 direct and a very helpful lady credited both our accounts for the extra amount we'd been charged, less one text message for my wife. I was extreemly pleased with their response and the helpful way they solved the problem.  However, she did say that the phone had definitely connected to the system on the days in question and when I asked why she said it was a handset problem (on both iphones presumably).  I'll now try to get them checked (they are each 18 months old) but am struggling to understand why it happended on two different phones on exactly the same number of days but on different dates!!

[EducatedDevice]

If you connected to wifi i would ensure wifi assist is turned off on the iphone.

[MI5]

It should be mobile data completely off, not just roaming data and you can enable airplane mode and then turn on WiFi, which is by far the safest method short of removing your sim completely.

[gmarkj]

Turning your phone on and off results in a very minor amount of data being sent/received but will result in a charge (iPhone registering iMessaging).
As previously mentioned, turn airplane mode on then turn on WiFi to avoid it.

[darrengf]

@Frumentarious

Hello.

I'm afraid this happens not just with Apple devices, but has also been known with some Android.

when your phone is first switched on, it talks to the network.  Like a back ground check.  Checks things like where you are, is time correct and if your roaming.

however just turning roaming off doesn’t stop the phone from first checking where it is before activating it.

Let me describe it another way.

Your blindfolded.  You’ve then been put in a room. there is a sign saying sit down on this chair. But you don’t know that as your blindfolded. 

When you take the blind fold off you, you need to check where you are.  This is the phone checking where it is.  Then you read the sign. The phone is checking ur settings.

You then sit down, your phone then turns of roaming.

Hope that makes sense and you like my analogy lol.😁

now in the iphone there is other settings.  One of them is turn of data completely.

So for this the phone does not care at all if your roaming or not,  you said to the phone don’t use data at all. Full stop.

but again when u turn on the phone the phone checks it’s settings and even tho it shouldn’t it could still send odd bits of data.  I’ve been to US many times and I always had data turned off and never once In 10 visits ever been charged.

the 2Nd one as mentioned is leaving the iPhone is flight mode,

people don’t know this but even in flight mode, you can still turn Wi-fi and Bluetooth on.

rememeber some airlines have inbuilt wifi.  But you must turn phone into flight mode.  So the manufactures still allow you to control Wi-fi and Bluetooth separately .

really hope this helps. 

[Marjo]

Hi @Frumentarious welcome to our community! Good to see all the helpful responses above from our other members - please do let us know if this was helpful and if you have any further questions? Thanks also for your feedback on Customer Service, good to hear that you were pleased with the service when you called. 

[jezza1234]

You said in your post tha you connected to the WiFi on your tour bus. As with most cross chaannel ferry services, this will incur a charge as on bus Wifi will use a mobile network to connect so in real terms your 'phones will still have connected via a mobile network.

As others have said turning off data roaming will not prevent your 'phone from briefly connecting when you first turn it on epsecially if you have location services turned on in F.,B etc. 

As stated the the best thing to do in the future is to turn off mobile data completely and then your 'phone will not connect to the data network at all. 

All this of course is bolting the stable door after the horse is halfway down the road and eating apples from someone's garden...... as you are now home.

Also £4 odd per day to use ones phone abroad is good value really and I tend to use it a lot given  the cost of "standard Roaming"