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.
