BE WARNED - There's Another Manx Telecom Roaming Charges Rip-Off!

[notwell]

I've lost track of it. I have the line with them and mobile/broadband with Sure.

 

Sure seem to charge roaming for taking a call in the UK? I don't remember MT charging for that.

[swoopy2110]

It's an Android issue. Every time I go to the UK I was getting charged 3 / 4p a day for data I was not using.

MT have been looking into the issue for me

 

The only thing they have advised me to do is to create a 'fake' access point name (I've just called it 'Roaming'). And then activate it when I go to the UK / Further afield. My phone is now unable to connect to data no matter what it tries, and I've not had a further charge since doing this.

 

Doesn't seem to a MT problem. They are only charging you for what the network in the UK you are connected to is reporting to them you have used. Not really MT's fault

[Ham_N_Eggs]

It's an Android issue. Every time I go to the UK I was getting charged 3 / 4p a day for data I was not using.

MT have been looking into the issue for me

 

The only thing they have advised me to do is to create a 'fake' access point name (I've just called it 'Roaming'). And then activate it when I go to the UK / Further afield. My phone is now unable to connect to data no matter what it tries, and I've not had a further charge since doing this.

 

Doesn't seem to a MT problem. They are only charging you for what the network in the UK you are connected to is reporting to them you have used. Not really MT's fault

I've just been getting them to suspend my data when I go away but this is a far neater solution.

[mokebatcher]

On 17/04/2017 at 0:13 PM, Bellefield said:

who sold you the phone? was it MT, in which case they should owe you a duty of care about what your phone can and cannot do.

Absolute rubbish. You'd hardly expect Waltons to come and explain to you that using catch up services on your shiny new Smart TV might cause you to reach the cap on your broadband.

Common sense about technology falls with the customer. 

[Mr Bear]

Yes, but you'd also not expect your new smart TV to run up a bill of £1000 in a week because you didn't disable some random and transparent feature hidden deeply in a sub menu several layers deep.

Or to be given another bill for £1000 because the option you disabled was re-enabled automatically without your knowledge because of a new billing structure.

The majority of elderly people with smartphones don't know or care about some random function it might have that would normally be enabled at no extra cost with any modern company, but has to be disabled with a select few pension-heavy telecoms companies because they are clutching at every source of income they can find whether it be ethical or not.

[trmpton]

You get a text when roaming as soon as you run up any sort of data bill.

 

i think you then get others as it racks up.

 

if people are too stupid to deal with it when alerted what more can the phone company do?

[hboy]

5 hours ago, mokebatcher said:

Absolute rubbish. You'd hardly expect Waltons to come and explain to you that using catch up services on your shiny new Smart TV might cause you to reach the cap on your broadband.

Common sense about technology falls with the customer. 

I don't think it does anymore. I was talking to a phone industry diehard the other month about all the tricks in the roaming trade and how they basically often default your phone to search for the most expensive options. If the consumers ever found out the phone companies would be lynched. Most of the phone companies are scumbag businesses who are getting away with murder. You can't blame the users as they aren't pre programming the presets on their phones (or sending out the default signals that herd traffic to a desired service or provider) that the average person is supposed to know how to override. 

 

[ans]

That's complete fabrication sorry. Your "phone industry diehard" is an idiot. I bet he tells you about chemtrails too. 

[Mr Bear]

Well when I had my mobile phone with Manx Telecom they put a chemtrail in it and it cost me fifty-pee.  Now I'm with Sure I've not had a single chemtrail affect my phone at all.

[joeyconcrete]

To be fair to hboy, his statement is not strictly incorrect. 

I know US carriers/CDMA networks use PRL (Preferred Roaming List) which the phone uses to decide what networks to roam onto. In the 3G/4G world, the equivalent term is known as OPLMNwACT - which is a list of networks programmed into the SIM. ( Disclaimer - this is not my area of expertise!)

Obviously a mobile carrier would favour networks that (a) Offer a better quality experience, (b) Have roaming agreements; and (c) Keep the costs down, and margins up.

A cynical perspective would be that with Automatic Network Selection the operators would favour those networks that make the most sense commercially. That could be 'best value' to the customer, or 'least cost / maximum profits' to the carrier.

[Mr Bear]

One of the best ways to avoid huge rogue bills is to ditch any contract that has access to your bank account (direct debit) and use a pay-as-you-go SIM instead.  That way you can actively cap how much they charge you because the money simply isn't there for them to take.  It also gives you a fast warning that something is wrong when you get the message telling you your credit's low.  Like when Sure suddenly started using £1 credit per hour for a reason I never fully fathomed.  (I had to turn off all data completely.)  Fortunately that issue now seems to be resolved.