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?

[Anonymous]

That link just gives me " No relevant solutions were found based on your input.
Try using a query to locate the information you need: " Not the easiest website....

[adamtemp64]

just click support at the top of this page then link from the buletin to the left of lucy

[Anonymous]

Interesting stuff, and contradictory too, one of those sections says more than 25 receipients rather than the 20 I was told...  Anyway, for the iPhone section:

How can I stop my text messages being sent as a MMS (picture message) on my iPhone?

Below is a list of reasons why a text message is sent as a MMS (picture message) and how you can avoid this.

1. Text messages to email addresses - Don’t use an email address in the ‘To’ box when creating a text message.

I don't think I did that.

2. Text messages sent to multiple contacts which include email addresses and mobile numbers – Send to mobile numbers only. If you need to send to an email address send it separately.

I think it only went to mobiles.

3. Using subject headers – Don’t use subject headers

I didn't do that.

4. Contact cards – Don’t send contact cards

I didn't do that.

5. Attachments (pictures, videos, sounds, music, drawings and locations) – Don’t add any attachments to the text message.

I didn't do that.

Note – Your phone will tell you if it is changing your message to an MMS (picture message). Keep your eye out for it and don’t ignore it.

If my phone DID do that it did it in a way that I totally failed to see, as I recall it just sent the text like it always does.  If it had said "I'm changing this to MMS, do you want to continue", I would have noticed that....

All a bit unclear, IMHO.

[adamtemp64]

do you have facebook iapp and allowed access to your contacts ?

[Anonymous]

Yes, but on that occasion when the phone offered me more than one option for an individual I made sure I was using the mobile number, not the facebook/email/home number

[adamtemp64]

All I can sugest is that you talk to o2 202 about the issue and say the website contradicts what you have been told etc.

This is happening across os platforms so must be either a new o2 glitch or a new glitch that facebook has created.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, but as I said, they agreed to credit me back so I'm cool. I just thought it worth posting my experience. Cheers.