02 charging me for media messages I did not send

[Anonymous]

New Years eve, I wrote and sent text messages wishing Happy New Year to 34 of my friends ( all saved on my contact list) The message contained no special characters ( not even a smiley) and it was just PLAIN TEXT. Last week I had the shock of my life when the bill was issued for £59.50 for what they say 204 picture messages I had sent on New years eve. I had sent only 34 messages ( well within my text allowance) but dont know how the number came to 204 messages and also dont know how all this got converted to picture messages. I contacted O2 and they said it was because I was using iPhone and that my contacts were synced with facebook. So if the contacts had email address saved, automatically my handset would convert all the messages to picture message. How was I suppose to know that? I had sent similar messages in the past but I was not charged for it. So why this time? I was told that this was due to some update done by Apple in December. Now , I, an 02 customer for more than 7 years, is being charged for something that i thought i was doing free within my allowance , becuase of a technical issue between 02 and Apple. As a gesture of goodwill 02 offered to waive half of the charge- yes, I appreciate the guesture, but I still think it is unfair to charge me £30 for 34 messages I sent and got converted to multiple picture messages ( my friends told me they recieved like 6 messages from me that night, but i had only sent one !!) due to no fault of mine. What do you think?

[MI5]

The problem is O2 cannot modify iOS in the same way that they can modify android firmware. Even if it was in the phone manual, how many would read it...?

[Liquid]

About as many that read the T&Cs

It's a shame apple doesn't sort this out I can't imagine the benefit it has to process txts in this way.

[Anonymous]

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@MI5 wrote:
The problem is O2 cannot modify iOS in the same way that they can modify android firmware. Even if it was in the phone manual, how many would read it...?

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they couldnt as the apple manual is too small for most people to read

[adamtemp64]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@MI5 wrote:
The problem is O2 cannot modify iOS in the same way that they can modify android firmware. Even if it was in the phone manual, how many would read it...?

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they couldnt as the apple manual is too small for most people to read

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The apple manual is not small it is a monster document http://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone/ some 13.5mb 156 pages or the ibook version 555 pages on an iphone 4s

[Anonymous]

It was a group text and there is no where that is mentioned that texts would be converted into MMS . I did not even go above character limit. Dont know whether this is an O2 issue nor Apple issue, but we as customers should not be charged for it

[Liquid]

All group txts above 5 recipients get converted to mms:(

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE?New,Kb=Companion,question=ref%28User%29:str%28Bro...

[Anonymous]

I have been with 02 as a pay and go customer for years. I recently became a pay monthly customer and to my shock i am being now charged for sending picture messages. I get unlimited texts and calls so why am i being charged for picture messages,,, pictures in texts. I cant even get through to 02 to ask them about this. Can anyone explain

Thanks

[jonsie · Accepted solution]

Picture messages are charged at 35p oer message on all tariffs whether P&G or pay monthly since the new tariffs where introduced in March 2012.

[Anonymous]

That link doesn't say anything about converting a group to MMS, it just says you'll charged for the number of texts you send.  I just got my bill for Dec-Jan which included a charge of £11.97 for my group text to 44 people over New Year.  Not happy, chatted to agent, I was told that "If you send a text of more then 640 characters its been counted as a Media Message. Even if you send a text to more then 20 people in a group its been counted as a Media Message".  I asked to see the small print, he said it's not in the T&Cs "as I said its not included in your terms and conditions. It depends on the phone you've got".  I said (several times) that unless they could show me where it said more than 20 messages would be charged as Media Message I would persue it and he gave me a credit for the £11.97. YMMV

[adamtemp64]

see here from the bulitin posted on the support pages http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/srvs/cgi-bin/webcgi.exe?New,KB=Companion,T=guruCase,VARSET_COBJID=52283,P...)

Edit

Yet another link that cannot be c&p into the forum ?????