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me and mrs expunk are on three network, usually have a few holidays abroad, and never have any issues, three have a number of countries on their 'whitelist' for using calls and data from your allowance.
in greece at present and my wife finds out shes incurred £30 of charges so far (mines a couple of quid). she rang them up and it all seems a bit confusing. very helpful chap on the phone, but a foreign call centre so very hard to understand. what we seemed to get from the call tho was that we have to ring Three a couple of days before we fly to tell them we're going to be abroad, then switch the phone off and on, and change settings for no roaming. he did cancel the charges tho which was good of him.
we've never had to do this before, never had any charges, and are confused as to what we're actually supposed to do to not get fleeced. ive looked on my phone (htc m8) and cant see any options for data roaming.
could anyone explain what the process is please for using phones abroad these days?
thanks
In the EU there shouldn’t be any charge at all.
Calls, SMS and data should all be included in EU roaming. Picture messaging might not be. Calls to local numbers (in Greece) will still be charged as an international call.
First see if the country you are going to is included. Some networks give a simple list, others seem to make this tricky. Its not just a case of eu/non eu. If you are going outside your inclusive minutes area then turn roaming off on your phone. On android its in settings/data usage/... menu although some phones have their own modified os
Greece (including Crete , Corfu and the islands) all included in the “feel at home” destinations on 3 network.
Should be able to use your standard inclusive minutes/data/texts there.
Something not quite right going on.
There is some option on the three website to switch on data abroad which seems pretty silly for the feel at home countries where there isn’t usually a reason to not have it switched on. I’ve never had a problem with several trips once I worked out how to do it (currently in the US).
There may also be limits on the cheap data usage.
In the EU there shouldn’t be any charge at all.
Greece (including Crete , Corfu and the islands) all included in the “feel at home” destinations on 3 network.
Should be able to use your standard inclusive minutes/data/texts there.
Something not quite right going on.
we're in kos. turkeys just over the water and someone else at the hotel said you have to watch that it doesnt connect to turkish network instead. sounds feasible but thatd be the same for anyone who lives on the island which'd be a bit of a faff.
just remembered, the chappy on the phone also said data is used in the actual travelling, in the air. that sounds rubbish as our phones are switched off, but when we stated that, we didnt understand his answer....
There is some option on the three website to switch on data abroad which seems pretty silly for the feel at home countries where there isn’t usually a reason to not have it switched on.
that does indeed seem silly, ill have a look on the website see if i can find anything. as i mentioned before, we've never had to alter anything previously, and never had any charges, which should be the default youd think.
If you are going outside your inclusive minutes area then turn roaming off on your phone. On android its in settings/data usage/… menu although some phones have their own modified os
i dont see anything about roaming in my data usage settings, only settings for limiting data, and 'use my data plan when wi-fi isnt available'.
EDIT: this is a screenshot of my data usage page.......
thanks
You’ve not been on, or near a ferry have you? Did the phone join to a network cslled marinet or similar?
You’ve not been on, or near a ferry have you? Did the phone join to a network cslled marinet or similar?
nope, stayed on the island so far, nowhere near a ferry and havent seen that pop up on my screen. thanks
EDIT: just found roaming settings under mobile data. it was ticked so i unticked it to be safe. however, it then disconnected my mobile data and i cant access the internet, so ive had to tick it again. im confused as to whether im actually 'roaming' or not if i use my data in a 'feel at home' or eu country.....
i dont see anything about roaming in my data usage settings,
Anything in the three dot menu (top right) on that page?
The “picked up a Turkish network” theory is a good one. Our phones used to do that in Ireland and jump between Eircom and O2 at great expense. Mobile signals travel a long way over water.
Does the SIM have "feel at home"? I'm pretty sure that mine doesn't. Don't know if you need it for Europe though..
Anything in the three dot menu (top right) on that page?
sorry, i edited my post above, probably as you were typing your reply......
just found roaming settings under mobile data. it was ticked so i unticked it to be safe. however, it then disconnected my mobile data and i cant access the internet, so ive had to tick it again. im confused as to whether im actually ‘roaming’ or not if i use my data in a ‘feel at home’ or eu country…..
Yes you will be roaming in a "feel at home" country, it'll just come out if your inclusive package. As far as I know there is no way of distinguishing between countries that are included and not. You need to know and turn roaming off when you are outside the zone. Its a rubbish system. My network has a cap option so I can't spend more than a preset amount within a month although I still can set it to zero, £5 is the minimum
The “picked up a Turkish network” theory is a good one. Our phones used to do that in Ireland and jump between Eircom and O2 at great expense. Mobile signals travel a long way over water.
We had had a painter we were using down in Kerry and if I rang him from there on my uk Virgin mobile the network used to charge me as though I was calling a satellite phone at about forty quid a minute.
we’re in kos. turkeys just over the water and someone else at the hotel said you have to watch that it doesnt connect to turkish network instead. sounds feasible but thatd be the same for anyone who lives on the island which’d be a bit of a faff.
My in-laws live on Anglesey. On the west coast I often find my phone thinks it's in Ireland, and that's a lot further away than Turkey is from Kos
we’re in kos. turkeys just over the water and someone else at the hotel said you have to watch that it doesnt connect to turkish network instead. sounds feasible but thatd be the same for anyone who lives on the island which’d be a bit of a faff.
Sounds like your most plausible theory. It happens, you have to be careful. Mostly by not allowing automatic network selection.
I'd put in a complaint to 3, tell them that your phone was only ever used in Greece and so you should not have been charged. If they come back and tell you that your phone was used in Turkey, explain where you were an hope for a goodwill gesture.
I’ve skimmed through the posts, but I’m not seeing what you/wife used your phones for, OP. Have you actually made calls or received calls; used the internet much? There are fees per MB once your normal UK allowance runs out.
One phone call from me, the rest is this site, bit of facebook and tripadvisor reviews, nothing excessive. I'm also streaming deezer but it was my wife who was hit hardest, almost certainly all facebook pictures of meals, sunsets, beaches, you know the score 🙂
Either way, we both get 4gb data and never get anywhere near maxing it.
Thanks
We had had a painter we were using down in Kerry and if I rang him from there on my uk Virgin mobile the network used to charge me as though I was calling a satellite phone at about forty quid a minute.
Seems odd, as Virgin (where ) T-mobile, and they never charged anything like that in the UK..
Sorry for the hijack but ...
I'd like to get a SIM for data for my iPad but the o2 website says I can't get roaming outside the UK. Anyone got a concrete idea where else to look?
Turkey network thing happened to a customer when I used to work at a Telco. Poor chap streamed (audio) of his football team's game and he got billed several hundred pounds. He hasn't noticed that he's jumped to a Turkish network. His team lost as well.....
we’re in kos. turkeys just over the water and someone else at the hotel said you have to watch that it doesnt connect to turkish network instead. sounds feasible but thatd be the same for anyone who lives on the island which’d be a bit of a faff
Had this down at Tarifa in Spain. We were warned we'll probably pick up Moroccan networks and sure enough we did. Turning off data will sort it out and be careful if you want to use data to check what network you're on, or use wifi if you can. Or you can go into phone network settings and manually pick the network to pick the local one.
back now and been chatting to three about it. yes apparently the charges were from data used when we were at the top end of the island (kos town) nearest to turkey. i also checked my texts and there was one saying welcome to turkey.
theyve been good about it and cancelled the charges, and also given advice on how to stop it happening again. we need to switch off automatic networks when we go abroad so it wont search for the best one, just select the local network manually. then when back in uk switch back to automatic.
lesson learned 🙂