"Value added service"

[Anonymous]

I was on holiday in Europe recently and accidentally turned on date roaming one day while trying to brighten the screen (they're next to each other and I couldn't see what I was doing properly due to reflections - hence the need to brighten it).  I turned it off immediately, but not before the phone had downloaded a tiny bit of data.  I knew I'd be charged £1.99 for it, and sure enough, it's on my bill, itemised for the day in question as £1.66 (which comes to £1.99 with VAT). It's itemised as "O2 travel data" as you'd expect. So far, so good.

But there's a second chage on my bill of £1.66 (£1.99 inc VAT).  It's in a different section of the bill headed "Other charges and credits" and is simply described as "value added service" with no further clue as to what it relates to. I only turned on data roaming that one time, so it can't be that, as it's already itemised in the bill (£1.99 is the flat daily rate)- and  in any event, if the charge related to O2 travel, I'd expect it to be shown as that, with details of the date, as it was with the other £1.66 charge.

Has anyone else had this?  I should only have to pay the £1.99 once for the O2 travel, as I only used it (accidentally) on one day.  It wasn't late in the evening, so it didn't straddle two days.  I'm not too happy about paying for something without knowing what it is.

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

Well, it turns out that it's shown on the PDF bill as O2 travel, with the date, so goodness knows why it's not shown as that if you look at the bill breakdown on line, which is what I was doing.  At least I have the answer now. 

[MI5]

It had to be that really - Nothing else would have made any sense......

[jonsie]

So were you charged just the once?

[Anonymous]

No I was charged twice - apparently for two different dates.  I do think the inconsistency in the way the informatioin is displayed is confusing. There was no mention at all in the electronic bill breakdown of the second charge being anything to do with O2 travel.  If one of them was described as O2 travel, I'd have expected the other one to be too - after all, it was apparently for exactly the same thing - roaming data access.  "Value added service" with no further information isn't the most helpful description.

[Cleoriff]

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@Anonymous wrote:

No I was charged twice - apparently for two different dates.  I do think the inconsistency in the way the informatioin is displayed is confusing. There was no mention at all in the electronic bill breakdown of the second charge being anything to do with O2 travel.  If one of them was described as O2 travel, I'd have expected the other one to be too - after all, it was apparently for exactly the same thing - roaming data access.  "Value added service" with no further information isn't the most helpful description.

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Totally agree with your comments above @Anonymous Anything relating to O2 travel should always be under that heading in your bill. I would also have been confused... (and I travel abroad a lot):smileysad:

[jonsie]

Sometimes it even appears under 'things I have bought' which is even more confusing...

[MI5]

Completely crazy 

[Anonymous]

I see you say that you were charged twice but only turned data on once. Did O2 give you any explnation for this?

I am abroad at the moment and used data twice at the start of October which I have no issue paying for. I then have 7 Value added Services on my bill for different days. I've queried this and been told it was European data. I know that my data roaming was turned off on the days mentioned. Also the ammounts of data used is around the 10kb mark so not huge amnounts. I've looked back through other bills and can see similar amounts of data being used whilst abroad (again data roaming off) and I haven't been charged for these.

Customer service have said they will carry out a network investigation which I am waitng to hear about. My only concern is I am due to be away until middle Decemeber and can't be doing with checking for these charges each month. I check my O2 app frwuently to make sure there are no charges that I am not aware of. The current charges didn't show on my app but then did on my bill when that arrived!

I'm using an iPhone 5s - is it an issue with the phone?

Thanks

Andy

[MI5]

There is an issue that was supposed to be addressed in iOS8 whereby receiving an SMS could open up a data connection, so that might explain the small amounts being billed ?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

The small amounts started in June when I came to Sweden and are still occuring now. I upgraded to IOS 8 when it was released and have also upgraded to IOS 8.0.2

It's strange that I get charged for some but not others!