Roaming charges so high with O2 bill pay?

[Anonymous]

A colleague and I have travelled to Ireland to work for 1 week. My colleague is a Vodafone bill pay customer and I am a O2 bill pay customer. We both have unlimited calls and texts on our tariffs, just different networks.

My colleague availed of Vodafone Euro traveller - Take your minutes, texts and internet abroad for £3 a day max.

I called O2 to get a similar deal and I was very disappointed to be told that the only option I have is;

-  £1.99 for the days that you use data in Europe (daily allowance of 15MB)

- When I make or receive calls there’s a connection charge of 50p, then it’s free to talk for up to 60 minutes.

As I work in the events industry, I will be receiving and making around 30 short 2 minute calls per day (guestimate). As it will be suppliers, my UK office and people onsite asking quick questions. So I made out the spend of my colleague and I to compare;

COLLEAGUE: Vodafone - £3 per day (Including all calls & internet)

ME: O2 - £15 (Based on 30 answered and received calls) + £1.99 internet = £16.99 per day

I think that this is outrageous value for money. There is a clear difference. I wish that I had known this before I signed up to O2 as I am a Irish person living in the UK and I go home quite regularly. 

Where is the value for money O2??? The is daylight robbery!!!!

When I spoke to O2 customer service representatives about this, all they could say to me to justify the cost was that I could talk for 60mins per call!! I don't know many people that make 60min calls on a daily basis.  

As an alternative, I am using a sim from a different network in a spare phone. This has kept the costs way down for me. It is a pity that I have had to resort to this when I really need my Iphone 5 for work! 😞

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately this is something you should have looked into before signing the contract with O2 if you knew you would be making so many European calls/trips.

It sounds as though you have had the O2 Travel bolt-on added to your tariff (as it is with most people.) However you can opt out of this and just use the O2 International pricing:

If you don't want O2 Travel, you can choose to pay our European rates by simply sending us a text:

• Just text NOTRAVEL to 23336
• If you want to move back to O2 Travel at a later date, please call Customer Services on 202 from your mobile.

Charges:

• Calls back to the UK and within Europe - 24p per minute.
• Receiving calls in Europe - 6p per minute.
• Texts sent to the UK and Europe – 7p (free to receive).
• Sending a media message – Same as your UK tariff.
• Data is 46p / MB.

We'll stop charging you for data if your usage reaches £40 and you'll be able to use up to 100MB without any additional charges. If you reach 100MB, your data service will stop. If you want to use more you'll need to increase your spending limit to £120 (300MB allowance) by texting DATALIMIT200 to 23336

[Anonymous]

Thanks Papadug, but your reply unfortunately does not answer my question, nor does it offer any explanation as to why O2 are charging this extortionate amount to their customers when their main competitor is offering way better value for money?

As far as I can see, O2 aren't even trying to compete in the international calling charges market. They are simply ripping there loyal consumers off. Even if I take off the O2 Travel, as you suggested, my calls will still be more expense than Vodafone and that is based only on making 1 min calls. If my calls are 2 mins in length, it will be the same as the O2 travel on but my data will be really expensive. Can't win!

O2 should reconsider what they are offering their customers in this area and give them more fair and competitive roaming charges. O2 is a great network, but customers will feel left down and ripped off by these revelations. All I am saying is O2 need to think more about customer loyalty & consumer fairness and not what they can squeeze out their customers when they go abroad!

[perksie]

It's up to you which network you use, if they all charged the same they would fall foul of the competition rules.

All networks will have their advantages and disadvantages for the services you might need.

None of the charges are hidden or hard to find so there's nothing devious going on here.

[jonsie]

To be honest, all the networks could making roaming competitive by introducing such schemes but are unlikely to. Due to the European directive on roaming charges the networks are quite happy to get their lost revenue back by overcharging for data use.

[Anonymous]

In relation to this, can anyone tell me how much text messages are on the o2 travel?

[jonsie]

http://www.o2.co.uk/support/internationalandtravel

[Anonymous]

I think I'm being blonde! I can see that it costs 7p to send texts when using the normal rates but not how much on the O2 travel, it only mentions about data and calls as far as I can see.

[jonsie]

Where are you travelling to?

[Anonymous]

Greece