Unauthorised SMS while abroad

[Anonymous]

I'm hoping that someone can assist with this. I have an iPhone6S and a monthly contract with O2 in the UK. I am currently living and working abroad but have kept my phone as I travel back to the UK frequently and will be returning permanently in 18 months, so want to keep my number. Although I had international roaming enabled on my O2 account, I kept it permanently disabled on my phone, only using wifi. I had sent the occasional SMS, but noticed that I was being charged a lot of international roaming charges (£4.99) per day and when I queried this with O2 in early October, I was told that even sending just 1 SMS would trigger the £4.99 daily charge. I was horrified, but despite the fact that this is daylight robbery, I accepted that I should have understood the Ts&Cs in this regard. From that point on I never sent another SMS, the last having been sent on 30 September 2017. Despite this I am repeatedly being charged for SMS's that I haven't sent. This has happened around 3 times per month for the last 3 months. I have been back to O2 and they have investigated and their answer is simply that I have sent these. They have offered to refund some money - reluctantly after I threatened to move my account - but only as a customer service gesture if I basically admit that I sent the SMS's, but am objecting to the amount of the charge (rather than disputing I sent them). They won't budge on this position and I won't lie just to get a refund - primarily because that doesn't get to the root cause of the issue, hence I have no way of knowing it won't happen again. They have given me details of SMS's sent on 3 days in December. Two of these were sent on the same day at the same time to 2 different UK mobile numbers, a further 2 were sent also on the same day and the same time to a number 9011 and the last just has a number (no number) of HN Delivery (who sent me SMSs on the day in question, but I definitely did not text them back). 

I have spoken to O2 Customer Services at length on the phone twice now and they tell me that they have investigated and there is nothing more they can do, but I am not going to be fobbed off that easily, particuarly given this could conitnue happening at random and I have no control over it.

Has anyone experienced anything similar or have any insights into what the issue is?

[MI5]

The 9011 number is the iMessage, voicemail and facetime authorisation codes.
If you turn phone off it will re-authorise the services when you turn it back on again.

[Anonymous]

Thanks - would be good to understand the other numbers, but that's a good starting point. You were able to answer that very quickly, yet O2 themselves couldn't provide that explanation after 2 calls of 30 minutes each and an investigation. You seem to be a real guru - do you think O2 should have been able to tell me that? And is there any way I can stop it happening? Is my service provider allowed to charge for those messages? It feels like I can't be the only O2 customer who has been burnt by exhorbitant charges for the same thing.

[MI5]

I'm not sure why they couldn't tell you.
The only explanation is that you spoke to someone with no idea what they were talking about.
The text messages would usually be free but because you are abroad they trigger the charge. I believe this to be an issue with the way O2 have the system set up but I'm not an expert on that aspect of the network.
Also, you aren't the only one to be caught out by it and I would always advise any customer to call to have the charges refunded, esp if it triggers a daily travel charge!

[Marjo]

Welcome to our forum @Anonymous! Sorry to hear you've had unexpected charges. 😞 Please do let us know how you get on with this and if you have any progress with customer service?

Cheers @MI5 

[Anonymous]

Hi Marjo, do you work for O2? No, I haven't resolved this, insofar as following two lengthy phone calls and an 'investigation', I have been told only that these SMSs originated from my phone. I absolutely dispute that I have sent any SMSs since 30 September. I have been offered a partial refund as a gesture of goodwill, which I have refused as I want to get to the root cause of the issue - that's the idea of complaint handling, not just to fob a customer off. I really don't have much faith in this so called investigation, given that MI5 was able to readily explain at least one of the charges (which clearly was not a SMS that I sent), yet O2 cannot. I have now had no choice but to switch international roaming off my phone, which is very inconvenient as I travel a lot and will now have to ring O2 to activate it every time I do. My only recourse now is to raise a formal written complaint and will escalate to Ofcom if necessary.

[Marjo]

Hi @Anonymous thanks for coming back to update on your issue, sorry you're still struggling with it. I'll drop you a quick PM (private message here on the forum) shortly to get a few additional details to see if we can help in any way!

[beenhereawhile]

I have experienced a similar issue; my bill when in australia recently is showing 41p SMS charges for almost every day I was there over a month, despite my having roaming and data switched off and sending no SMS or MMS or anything like that. I only used wifi when available 😞 I don't know what has happened and 02 just tell me that the charges are valid as they originated from my SIM card. I absolutley have sent nothing and my SMS section of the phone shows nothing, I even went back through my google activity timeline to see if any app was doing anything weird but could find nothing. Also, data being turned off I picked up about 10p's worth of charges - despite being miniscule amount I'm not sure how this can happen as it is all supposed to be turned off? Any help appreciated, thanks

PS the number the messages are sending to on the bill shows up as 09017 - o2 couldn't explain what this was and said they couldnt see where the messages had been going to as messages sent from abroad are first sent to a data centre which send them on (maybe this is the data centre number then?) - doesnt make much sense to me.. 

[gmarkj]

Got an iPhone?
Turned it off/on?
It will register on the network each time by sending a text for iMessage...

[Martin-O2]

Hey @beenhereawhile we can get someone to look into this one for you. I'll need some details so I'll send you a message.