O2 loophole/con to charge customers for sending emoji's

[Anonymous]

Did you know that emoji's are classed as pictures and each is charged at 50p.

I didn't know this until I started noticing a spike in my bill. Even though o2's terms and conditions state that the pay monthly tariff doesn't include mms it doesn't specify that emoji's are part of this charge.

So customers, beware that even when  you type a smiley face like ':-)' and it gets drawn as a picture O2 will charge you..

A while back 4 text msgs used to get converted to one picture msg but then how would o2 make money if they are offering unlimited text msgs in their tariff? Therefore, someone in their company came up with this genius idea of firstly not including mms in the tariff but the real genius is in charging for emoji's and the unsuspecting customers don't realize what they are paying for until you get told about it!!!

Sound familiar? This is exactly what happened when premium msg services started and the ill infitmed customers didn't know what was  happening to their bills until the regulations changed and customers knew how to stop premium charges!!!

Hopefully, this msg is useful to unsuspecting customers like me who don't realize unless specifically abd directly nformed about updates and changes exploiting loopholes. 

Well done, o2.

[Martin-O2]

Hey guys I have received some clarification on emoji's and MMS's. Please see below. 

Some devices (particularly older ones) will automatically convert an SMS to an MMS if you insert an emoji. To be clear, it’s the phone that converts it – not the network. There are options to disable this from happening, however. On newer devices, they general support symbols and smileys remaining part of an SMS and not being converted.

If an SMS does get converted to an MMS, the device should display some sort of message or pop-up explaining what’s happened, so it’s down to the user whether they proceed or not – they should effectively get a warning, though.

This help resource explains things quite well: https://www.o2.co.uk/help/account-and-billing/text-and-picture-messaging

[MI5]

Thanks for the confirmation of what we have explained Martin.

[jonsie]

Yes it's all in the guide so nothing has changed from how we advise people  😉

[Martin-O2]

Yes you guys were spot on but its always nice to have that official confirmation.