International roaming charging cap query

[Anonymous]

Hi all, 

I was on holiday in the USA during July and shortly after I arrived, I got a friendly text message warning of the costs of turning on data roaming. The text message said very clearly that the maximum charge would be no more than £40 in a single billing period. A bit steep, but fair warning was given. 

My problem is that when I got home I received one bill and a total of £80 was charged. I was expecting the charge to be no more than £40 given that it was a single bill. When my next bill arrived a month later I noted that no international roaming usage was recorded on it, which is as expected since I returned home before the end of the billing period. 

I've raised this with O2 a total of three times, but the people on the live chat are trying hard but they don't seem to understand the problem. I am not contesting paying charges where they are due but I would like to understand why I was sent a text that told me the charges would be capped at £40 and was then charged £80. If the £80 was split across two bills then at least it would suggest that my data usage straddled two billing periods.

[Liquid · Accepted solution]

Omg a real question:)

Hello sorry:)

I can understand your confusion I'm not very sure myself. Your best bet if you have the patience is to ring O2 and discuss it with them live chat isn't very helpful.

I can find other examples of this happening but no one seems to have an answer sorry.

[darrengf]

You beat me too this Liquid lol.

Im affraid o2 chat isnt based in the Uk and many people on hear have complained about the o2 chat facility. I know that its being feeded back as we speak of all the issues.

Like liquid advises, contact o2 direct on 202.

was that £80 however all data charges?, or have you made calls and sms while abroad aswell?

[Liquid]

What can I say. A real question to try and help with was just too much to pass up:)

I must agree about O2 chat I've found it to be rather useless and believe O2 could save a lot of money by writing it off.

Heck when I'm bored give me a VPN and systems access and ill help customers out via chat:)

[darrengf]

Now i like the sound of that. o2 forum chat versus the real o2 chat. mmmmmm

[Liquid]

Probally be a bit more secure using some forum members to do it rather than transferee the data to India and back. But I guess we're not willing to work 20 hours a day haha.

hell they could even incorporate it into a bolt on or a premium membership to get "master" help haha.

anyway completely off topic. Let us know how you get on op:)

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys .. 

So while I was posting this message, the guy on O2 chat said that he would refund £40 on the basis that I hadn't received a proper text message notification while I was away that I had reached the first £40 of usage. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth I thanked him for this and closed the chat, but I'm still wondering why exactly the extra £40 was billed in the first place. 

The live chat is probably just fine for straightforward billing queries but I guess it's not appropriate where something is obviously broken. I spent most of the conversations where the guy at the other end read things off the bill to me. That's fine but I already have the bill in front of me. But what really annoys me is that on two separate occasions now they say "we are investigating this and will notify you when done" and then nothing happens. Hopefully the third time we'll be fine. 

To the question of what exactly I used, between 22 Jul and 1 August I used 19.07MB.