Billpay

[Ziggy50]

I am currently on my holidays in France but I travelled through Switzerland to get here and when I was in Geneva airport, Three managed to charge me 48.70€ for 6.7 megabytes of data. That is similar to what it would take to load an image or very small webpage. Unfortunately I am with Bill pay so I had no control of my limits. I have tried to lower them before but somehow with Bill pay the lowest limit you can set is 75€! I don't know who would ever want to spend that much on 6 megabytes on data.

The biggest problem for me is trying to get a Three staff to help me sort this out. It has pretty much ruined my holiday as this is the most expensive cost on my holiday so far. I just want to get it sorted out.

The worst thing for me was that the only indicator I got of the charges was when 80% of my allowance was spent (minutes after leaving the plane). I was shocked to see this as I had not used my phone at all. I received no message when I entered Switzerland to let me know about these extortion charges. Also, before the trip I searched online for three roaming charges to Switzerland which had said that there was free roaming there like the EU however I have only found out that those charges were shown on three.co.uk which is different to three.ie.

I am so frustrated with this as every time I try to contact the staff they do not try to help me or give advice. I wish that I could get in contact with a helpful member of staff who could understand my situation. If I can't get this sorted out I will be switching network as this deceitful charge feels unfair to me and I think that most networks would be understanding of this and value my loyalty to their network. I hope that someone can help me with this problem or give advice of what to do as 50€ is just too much for me to pay for no reason. I have tried to call but I am unable to in France. 

Please help! Thanks (and sorry for the rant)

[Three_Mairead · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ziggy50 Can you send a private message with your details such as your mobile number, name, address and date of birth? You can find the link to do this in my signature. You can also go to your inbox by clicking Private Messages at the top of the page, where you can see received and sent messages, and compose a new message 👍 

[Michael_Mick]

Hey! That's expensive for so little data alright. Unfortunately, a connection means it was used (by your phone) I'm sure you didn't use the internet or anything from your post bit your Sim must have connected and because it's not in the EU then the charge is high. Honestly, the only way to prevent that from happening is to turn off data in your settings before you leave the EU and responsibility is on the person that owns the phone. Sorry to be the bearer of not so good news.

[Ziggy50]

Thanks for your response but I would have turned my days off if I had received a message informing me of the data roaming rates which I did not. Here's a section from the terms and conditions:

When you roam outside of the EU, you will also receive an SMS advising you of the maximum charges that you will be charged for voice, SMS and data services.

I did not receive any such message.

[Mac_n_cheese]

I'm pretty sure the mods can check that for you to see if a message was sent but you knew you were outside of the EU though. It's happened to me a few times, luckily there's a cap!

[Ziggy50]

I hope they can check because I one hundred percent did not receive a message. I have not had a problem with this before as I have always gotten a message. And also as a side note, when I didn't receive a message when I arrived in Switzerland, I turned on my roaming for a few minutes to see if that would make a difference. When I did this, I had no signal so it was not connected to the internet. I had a few bars but there was nothing coming up for 3g/4g. While I was watching the bars on my phone I got a message saying that 80% of my roaming limit was reached. The reason I was charged 48.70€ instead of the limit of 75€ was because I turned off the data after that. I feel like this wasn't my fault as I was fully aware that I was supposed to receive a message informing me of the charges in advance. Hopefully a mod will have a look at this forum soon as it is really annoying me while on my holidays and all I want to do is get it sorted. Thanks

[billbond4]

I think as Switzerland is outside of the eu roaming agreement any actions on your plan will incur charges on your account. You can use send the mods a pm with all your details

[Ziggy50]

I'm not sure how to pm them a message. I thought that one of them would see this and tell me to contact them. Also, my brother received a message when we arrived saying that he was free to roam there and he is with Vodafone. That is why I was waiting to get a message. I just want to make it clear that I did not use any data and while I had my data turned on it was not connected to any network. I only turned it on to see if it would make me receive the message. I think I just need a mod to have a look and this for me. Thanks for your inputs, I appreciate it.

[Three_Mairead · Accepted solution]

Hi @Ziggy50 Can you send a private message with your details such as your mobile number, name, address and date of birth? You can find the link to do this in my signature. You can also go to your inbox by clicking Private Messages at the top of the page, where you can see received and sent messages, and compose a new message 👍