Credit disappearing from Pay and Go balance while roaming in the EU ?

[Anonymous]

Having tried unsuccessfully to get to the bottom of this with O2 chat online, I thought I'd try the forum, so here goes:

I am on O2 Pay and Go with a Samsung Galaxy Note. I have just returned from a holiday in the EU. I travelled to France, Spain and Portugal on a cruise ship. During days when the ship was in port, and when my phone connected to a local network, I purchased 25Mb of data per day, for which I was charged £1.99 by O2. On these days, I was notified by O2 when I was near the end of my daily allowance. I never purchased a second 25Mb for the same day. During days when the ship was at sea - out of contact with land based cell phone networks - my phone connected with the service provided by the cruise ship. This was, I believe, Wireless Maritime Services - http://www.cellularatsea.com/.
On at least two occasions, with no warning whatsoever, large amounts of credit disappeared from my Pay and and Go balance. I estimate that the amount lost was at least £20. This only happened when the phone was connected to the WMS network - not when it was connected to one of the continental networks. A further observation, which may or may not be connected to this is as follows: I received several unsolicited texts from a company marketing Payment Protection claims. Unfortunately I deleted their texts, so have no record of the number. I also received a voice call from an unrecognised number - 00447585971671 - the caller hung up as soon as I answered. I spoke to staff on the cruise ship about the disappearance of credit on my phone. They said that the cell phone service provided by the cruise line (Celebrity Cruises) could not have charged my phone, as there is no mechanism for charging - it is simply a service provided for the benefit of passengers

Now let me make this quite clear. I disabled all auto updates, my phone has a data usage counter, and I know exactly which apps have been using data. The system for buying 25Mb of data works very well, and I know when I am getting near the daily allowance. I never agreed to purchase a second 25Mb for a day. What happens when credit disappears is something entirely different. On one occasion, I had nearly £10 of credit, which all disappeared overnight. My account topped up automatically with another £10, and that all disappeared too. During this time, I received no data, and my phone was not doing anything I did not know about.

It seems to me that either one of O2's roaming partners are making unspecified charges without notifying me, or possibly there is a virus on the phone which is stealing credit from my Pay and Go account. I do, of course have a security app on the phone (TrustGo) and when a scan is run, it tells me there are no threats.

Does anybody have any ideas as to why this might have happened? Thanks in advance.

[adamtemp64]

I have asked on twitter for the actual costs

[macblank]

I remember when working for bt back in the 90s airline and marine calls were the most expensive upto £20a minute 😞 thus was for those that used their bt card to charge calls to their landline. was a good idea.pre mobile days. it was used in phoneboxes etc

personally without reading the book ur given I wouldn't do anything. lol

hindsight is a great thing!!!

[jonsie]

Cruise ship rates are here, anyone wanting the link just ask.

[adamtemp64]

@jonsie

Yes please can you pm the link. none of my old ones work 😞

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting that. It doesn't say what the data charges are though, and I notice that Wireless Maritime Services is not listed as one of the cruise ship partners. I can't find anything relating to cruise ships on the current O2 pages.

[perksie]

O2 is included according to the page here:

http://www.cellularatsea.com/roaming.htm

[Anonymous]

Yes, thanks perksie, so they are.

I have mailed the O2 Complaints review staff, as follows:

I have tried, and failed, to get information on this matter through O2 chat online.

My O2 Pay and Go phone number is xxxxxxxxxx and the number printed on the sim card is 89yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I have just returned from a holiday in the EU. I travelled to France, Spain and Portugal on a cruise ship. During days when the ship was in port, and when my phone (a Samsung Galaxy Note) connected to a local network, I purchased 25Mb of data per day, for which I was charged £1.99 by O2. On these days, I was notified by O2 when I was near the end of my daily allowance. I never purchased a second 25Mb for the same day. During days when the ship was at sea - out of contact with land based cell phone networks - my phone connected with the service provided by the cruise ship. This was, I believe, Wireless Maritime Services - http://www.cellularatsea.com/. However, the service at sea was so bad that it did not appear as if I had received any data at all.
On at least two occasions, with no warning whatsoever, large amounts of credit disappeared from my Pay and and Go balance. I estimate that the total amount lost was between £20 and £25. This only happened when the phone was connected to the WMS network - not when it was connected to one of the continental networks. I had disabled all auto updates, my phone has a data usage counter, and I know exactly which apps have been using data. The system for buying 25Mb of data in the EU works very well, and I know when I am getting near the daily allowance. What happens when credit disappeared is something entirely different. On one occasion, I had nearly £10 of credit, which all disappeared overnight. My account topped up automatically with another £10, and that all disappeared too. During this time, I received little or no data, and my phone was not doing anything I did not know about.

As I mentioned above, your staff on the web chat facility were unable to help me understand why so much of my credit had disappeared, so I appealed for help on the O2 community forum. The discussion has led me to think that data when connected to a network provided by a cruise ship is, in fact, charged at the international world rate of £6.00 per Mb, regardless of where the ship is geographically.

Can you please confirm whether or not this is the charge applied?

If I am correct about this, then I must register the strongest possible complaint. I cannot find anything related to this subject on the O2 web pages, Support, Terms & Conditions etc. To switch from a data charge of £1.99 per 25 Mb to one of £6 per Mb - a 75-fold increase - with no warnings whatsoever - is quite outrageous, and is the sort of thing which gives your industry a bad name.

Please be assured that if I get no satisfactory response from you, I will pursue this issue up to CEO level if necessary.

[Anonymous]

I've finally got O2 to confirm that data would have been charged at £6 per Mb if my phone connected to the ship's network. My complaint is still outstanding, and I will report the result of it when I get a reply

[jonsie]

Good luck with it:smileyhappy:

[Anonymous]

I've had a response from O2 now, as follows:

Thanks for your email. I’m sorry to hear that you credit has been used when you weren’t connected to the internet. I can appreciate your concern. I understand that you’ve had an online chat and also discussed the issue in an O2 forum which state you might be charged at a different rate. I confirm that when your data is switched on you’ll be charged for data every time your phone updates, as you’ve mentioned this can be through Apps that also use data. When you use your phone on a ship, you can connect to the host network, however, you can also pick up any network of countries you may be travelling through or near. As a goodwill gesture I’ve added a credit of £35 to your account. You can use this immediately. 

I hope this information helps. If you have any further questions, please get in touch. Our office is open weekdays until 6.30pm.

Obviously, I'm pleased with the more than reasonable goodwill gesture, but disappointed that the thrust of my complaint has been misunderstood. I feel that there is a need to protect customers who might fall victim to this pricing anomaly in the future. This could be by making specific reference to the cost of data provided by cruise ship networks on the O2 web pages. Alternatively, as there are only two major companies which provide cell phone networks at sea, I'm sure it would be technically possible to generate a warning text sent to the phones of customers before any connection was made. 

Any comments?