Charged for roaming outside the EU even though both mobile data and roaming data were off

[occitanprince]

I have been charged by O2 a whopping £42 for allegedly using 13Mb of data in Serbia on my iPhone 12 mini. We were on holiday in Romania then drove into Serbia but I turned off my roaming data and my mobile data as a whole.

I have called 202 to complain about this but was told that the data is recorded correctly. It is a scam! I did not use any data in Serbia, my wife was there with me and saw that my phone was not connected to the internet the whole day. The customer support assistant tried to bribe me on the phone by offering me a £20 discount rather instead of talking to his manager – very dodgy! I think their systems are misrecording data usage (hopefully not on purpose).

What can I do about this? Who can I reach out to so this is investigated and I don't have leave my phone at home every time I travel and pay extortionate roaming charges?

[madasaf1sh · Accepted solution]

@occitanprince 

The data usage is sent to o2 by the Serbian Network, who will have recorded your device and sim card have connected to data, and if you want this investigating you will need to persuade o2 to contact the roaming network..

O2 dont just make up charges, only pass on what they get from the roaming partner.

This is normally an app on your device overriding the mobile data roaming been off, usual suspects are imessage, whatsapp, facebook and many many more... or Wifi assist kicking in when the wifi you are connected to drops.

I would check the permissions your give to apps and ensure none have nothing that allows it to use Mobile Data. 

If o2 CS cant do anything then your only recourse it to contact the complaints team, but be warned depending on the competence of the roaming partner you may be waiting a while (I remember a filipino network taking 6 months to get back to o2 about one of my numbers).  

https://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain

[occitanprince]

@madasaf1sh It cannot be a Serbian problem because the same happened in Tanzania in May, although only a couple of pounds. Also, this never happened with EE, so I doubt it is a phone issue.

In any case, how do I change these app permissions you talk about that override data roaming settings?

[madasaf1sh]

@occitanprince 

Depends on your phone... go into App Setttings and go through each app.. 

I have seen this on EE, Voda, and Three, through testing of these networks in various countries in the EU and Asia