Being charged for emoticons (smiley faces) as MMS/picture messages

[Anonymous]

I have had a good look through the forum but can not see anything like this problem.

A friend of mine had a large bill come through this month and contacted 02 customer service.

Basically she was told her bill was so high because she had used above and beyond her MMS/picture message qouta which she refused to except but was told that a Emoticon (smiley face) counted as a MMS/picture message.

Has anybody encountered this or confirm or decline this??

Thanks in advance

[a_hcir]

Someone else mentioned that on Android phones there is usally a setting in the messages app to prevent conversion to MMS or warn you when a message is converted to MMS.  When you turn on these features, you can clearly see that some non-standard smilies (hearts, smilies with party hats etc.) force the message to go MMS mode. 

One other thing to always check before sending a message is that in SMS mode the app will display number of characters and the number of messages (eg. 200/2 - 200 chars, 2 messages).  When in MMS mode, the app will display the size of the message in kilobytes (eg. 2KB)

[Anonymous]

The reason why you get a variable answer from O2 is that different phones have an influence on whether smilies go out by MMS or not.  Because of that, there's not a 'one size fits all' answer to the question.

[MI5]

True, however nearly all phones have the option in settings to either turn off MMS creation or warn before converting to MMS.
If users learnt some of even the basic features of their phones problems wouldn't happen.

[a_hcir]

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@MI5 wrote:
If users learnt some of even the basic features of their phones problems wouldn't happen.

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I think that's a bit harsh.  I think the phone manufacturers and operators should both take a little of the blame.  Phones by default make the assumption that the user want's to get the most from their services (MMS by default with a smiley, connect to data services), but they very rarely ask the user if they know what they're doing - the MMS warning on my Note 3 is turned off, by default, and even when it enables all it does is pop up a little toast message which is gone in the blink of an eye.

The operators (not just o2) don't seem to be educating their users to turn these features off/look out for these behaviours, all it would take is a few sheets of A4 with every phone sold with a banner reading "READ THIS OR YOU MAY SPEND MORE ON CREDIT!" with a few tips.

Most people buying smartphones (and even dumbphones have sent MMS messages for years) aren't enthusiasts.  They turn on their devices and use them without knowledge of the technologies behind them - it's poor customer service to let them waste money and then tell them it's their own fault afterwards.  

[MI5]

Entirely reasonable opinion, just different to mine....
Everyone these days looks for someone else to blame when something goes wrong rather than looking to see if they could have done something differently themselves first

[perksie]

How is it that people find the forum to complain when this happens but rarely come here to ask for that advice?

A simple Google search for help finds this page with the same advice that we have been telling people for years here:

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/srvs/cgi-bin/webcgi.exe?New,KB=Companion,T=guruCase,VARSET_COBJID=52283,P...

Also O2 can have no way of knowing which services you will be using on your phone and where charges will arise.

Somethings you just gave to do for yourself.

[Anonymous]

If you've been sending SMS for years with emoticons included, and these have always been accepted as part of your free text allowance, then why would you think that doing exactly the same messages would now suddenly cost you 35p a time, just because you've got a newer (but still android) phone?

It's certainly not one of the features i'd read about as one of the 'advantages' of upgrading to KitKat!

I've just received a mail from O2 with the first bill for my sister's new S4, and 118 messages are classified as MMS (she has unlimited texts), and the bill is £50 more than expected!  She clearly was not aware this was the case, or wouldn't have sent them...  She's just upgraded from Gingerbread to KK, i've been on ICS for a year on a Huawei G300, and never had a single MMS charge, but I use emoticons regularly...very frustrating!

In the past, I might have thought it could be her sending picture messages, but I know she uses Whatsapp for that... so I guess I need to call O2 and see what they say - and if they are trying to fleece customers as it seems, i'll just have to move my own contract elsewhere, and spread the word to friends to be very careful if taking out O2 contracts in future... very underhand on O2 (or the phone manufacturers) part...

Really annoyed and disappointed though, having been with O2 for about 12 years, and had the chance to get the phone on Vodafone for a little less, but stuck with O2 out of misplaced loyalty... still, by cancelling the family group and moving my contract elsewhere, that's about £30 a month O2 won't get off me in future 😞

[Anonymous]

Hi

This is NOT an o2 issue and has been discussed on other threads.

On the S4 keypad next to the Sym button is a new button with colour emoticons. This is a software upgrade from Samsung and they are small pictures so the S4 picks them up as mms.

[Anonymous]

However when sending a text, instead of using the coloured emoticons, click in the button to the left of the home button and a drop down list of old style emoticons appears. Select the one you want.

These are not pictures and are not charged as mms. This is how I do it and I have not been charged.

[Anonymous]

For the record if you had changed to Vodafone exactly the same would have happened. It is a handset software change NOT a network operator issue.