over charged for roaming

[Simon__]

I went to Croatia, which is long and thin and shares a border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. I got a text saying that croatian roaming was taken out of my UK usage, and another saying that roaming in Bosnia and Herzegovina was going to be very expensive.

Now that I have my bill it looks like o2 thinks i went to Bosnia and Herzegovina, although i did not.

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@Simon__ 

Accidental roaming is when your phone picks up a stronger signal from another country.

O2 will see it as your responsibility to check this as they only see what the phone reports back to them.

You should keep your phone in manual network mode to prevent this.

[Simon__]

this is a very stupid system

[madasaf1sh]

@Simon__ 

Why is it?

o2 don't know where you are, all they know is that your phone has logged onto a network that is pushing a stronger signal than the network in the country you are actually in , so blame the inept Croatian Mobile Networks or Bosnian Networks

At the end of the day its your responsibility to ensure accident roaming doesn't occur, and you can set it yourself by not selecting Automatic Network selection.. 

[Simon__]

@madasaf1sh

genuinely you can't come up with a better solution than that?

they sent me a text saying i'm roaming in bosnia and herzegovina informing me of the charges. it *could* end. with 'to disable this roaming reply 'DISABLE'' and then my phone will be unable to connect to these cell towers, defaulting back to the ones in croatia.

sure, they might have a 'this is all your problem' clause in the contract, but it is much easier for them to prevent it than for me to. Modern phones are not designed to be manually connected. my phone doesn't tell me whether a particular service will incur roaming or not, or how strong the signal is when i'm selecting them from a list. It doesn't notify me if i lose signal, so if i move while using my _mobile_ phone i'll have to check every 5 minutes whether i'm still in signal, rescan, select one, check the signal, guess whether it's going to cost me more money, (i could google it, perhaps, but then it's going to cost me even more money).

what about this seems like a good system to you?

[Enlli]

@Simon__ Best of luck changing things. Way back in 1998 I was charged for roaming in France. I was working at Dover Castle at the time! 

Before EU roaming my relatives in Newry, near the Irish Border, always set their phones to manual!

[madasaf1sh]

@Simon__ 

My phone can be manually connected has as every phone I have owned since my Motorola Timeport, and they notify me when I lose signal, if I have manual selection chosen...

Phones will never tell you if you will incur charges..., as @Enlli  has said this has been something since day dot, with accidental roaming, and people in fringe areas have learnt to use manual selection on their phones, especially in Northern Ireland, Gibraltar, and other countries.. 

I have had this a lot when Gibraltar a  lot where it jumps between Gibtel and the Spanish Networks, was cheaper... 

At the end of the day nothing will change, and its your responsibility to check your roaming status, and a quick read of the manual will tell you how to select manual roaming.. and o2 owe you nowt as well... 

[Enlli]

The standards how phones operate were first laid down in 1991 and subsequently updated as newer technologies like 3G and 4G came along. They have been adapted world wide. So if you want a change you will have to go much higher than O2 and persuade virtually every network operator and every phone manufacturer in the world to change 

I wish you luck in your quest 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM#:~:text=The%20Global%20System%20for%20Mobile,as%20mobile%20phone....

[Simon__]

interesting that an 'accepted solution' has been set for this topic - i feel like this implies that I accepted a solution, which isn't true. Just in case anyone else is confused by the ambiguous wording.