i didn't check how much mobile data costs and got a big bill

maximan

I got an iPhone in the states and used it for a day. On my bill at the end of the month i clocked up €180 worth of data charges. A 14 mb download cost me €112. O2 are the biggest rip off carrier ever! Anyone know if there is anything I can do? They won't even tell me what I downloaded because of the Data Protection Act apparently!!

chrislad

This is a common issue. It's your own fault you didn't check the price of a service before using it. Get a data add on and learn from your mistake.

Sam Vimes

you should know that if you don't have a data add on, meteor charge twice the price and vodafone have a crippled offer for 99c a day or proper internet for twice the price of o2. only 3 has a better offer

so in fact o2 are the third worst rip off ever. in future you'll know to check the price of a service before you use it

if you call o2 they might let you off some or most of the charges. but be nice. this is your fault not theirs

pyramuid man

Well they probably dont have what you downloaded available to them.

You probably clocked it up on the net or something.
Data usage is pretty expensive

kmart6

It's your own fault for not knowing the prices,not much point coming on here and ranting about it!

Predhead

Sam Vimes wrote: »

you should know that if you don't have a data add on, meteor charge twice the price and vodafone have a crippled offer for 99c a day or proper internet for twice the price of o2. only 3 has a better offer

so in fact o2 are the third worst rip off ever. in future you'll know to check the price of a service before you use it

if you call o2 they might let you off some or most of the charges. but be nice. this is your fault not theirs

You can use up to 50mb a day for .99c if you access content from the Live! gateway which is pretty good.

You can also avail of a 500mb limit for a 10er a month.

Sam Vimes

Predhead wrote: »

You can use up to 50mb a day for .99c if you access content from the Live! gateway which is pretty good.

this is true. but it often doesn't work properly and a lot of services are blocked.

Predhead wrote: »

You can also avail of a 500mb limit for a 10er a month.

this is true. that's what were suggesting he get

Random

Too many of these threads lately - at least in this one the user has accepted he never looked at the costs!

Ring O2, explain how you didn't understand the rates and see if they'll add a data addon. Ask if they'll bill what you've used based on an available data addon - sometimes they might, sometimes they might not.

Green Hornet

I switched from pay as you go to O2 billpay and got burned as well with my first bill. As stated by other posters I guess it was my own fault. In fairness, O2 offer 5MB for 5 Euro and thats fine for my purposes. Stupid phone is so slow that I dont use it very often anyway. The phone is a Motorolla KRZRK1. Worst pile of junk ever. Slow as the wettest wet week in the wettest winter on record.:mad:

niallb

Sam Vimes wrote: »

you should know that if you don't have a data add on, meteor charge twice the price and vodafone have a crippled offer for 99c a day or proper internet for twice the price of o2. only 3 has a better offer

Actually, seeing as the iPhone doesn't have 3G, you can't really count Vodafone or 3.
3 have no 2G network, and Vodafone don't do EDGE, so you'll be limited to GPRS
at slower than dialup for your iPhone - not fun.

Meteor's data charges are fine. €30 a month gets you 10G downloads,
or €10 gets you 250MB. Sure Vodafone would give you 250MB for €5,
but you'd have to only use it at all on 5 seperate days to qualify.
That's on billpay of course, but I gather you're on billpay with O2 anyway.

Sorry to hear about the bill. That's a nasty surprise.
If you're out of contract, tell O2 you're moving to Meteor
to get a better EDGE plan for your iPhone, and see what
they say. They might come up with some better way of
looking at the data you used.

Patrickof

niallb wrote: »

Meteor's data charges are fine. €30 a month gets you 10G downloads,
or €10 gets you 250MB.

No, they're not fine. Like every Irish operator their data charges are a complete rip off.

(Slight aside - carphone warehouse in the UK have a Nokia 6300 with 600 mins and unlimited txts PLUS a FREE playstation 3 for £35 per month!!!!!)

pyramuid man

TBH you got off lightly.
I used to work for o2 and got people calling in with anything from €50 and €1400 in data charges. Just for surfing the web.

robinph

Patrickof wrote: »

No, they're not fine. Like every Irish operator their data charges are a complete rip off.

Three are not a rip off for data, at least not in comparison to any of the other Irish networks.

h57xiucj2z946q

I get 1GB for €10 Euro on 3 IRL on my Nokia N73, does me for the month. No complains.

helimachoptor

Sam Vimes wrote: »

this is true. but it often doesn't work properly and a lot of services are blocked.

this is true. that's what were suggesting he get

Have the same problem myself, mine is to with age verification but as I'm a bill pay subscriber.. I'm going to be over 18... Give them a call your might be the same. Mine did work fine.

helimachoptor

pyramuid man wrote: »

TBH you got off lightly.
I used to work for o2 and got people calling in with anything from €50 and €1400 in data charges. Just for surfing the web.

Got you beat.. When I worked for VF a guy called in with nearly 60K of roaming charges... then he went to the papers and got it wiped off:D:D.

Green Hornet

helimachoptor wrote: »

Got you beat.. When I worked for VF a guy called in with nearly 60K of roaming charges... then he went to the papers and got it wiped off:D:D.

60K :eek::eek::eek:. What kind of idiot was he?

chrislad

Patrickof wrote: »

No, they're not fine. Like every Irish operator their data charges are a complete rip off.

(Slight aside - carphone warehouse in the UK have a Nokia 6300 with 600 mins and unlimited txts PLUS a FREE playstation 3 for £35 per month!!!!!)

UK population - 60,000,000 people with a saturation of 79%

Ireland - Population of 4,500,000 with a saturation of about 105-110%

There's a massive gap in subscribers, hence the difference in prices. Christ, London alone has more people than Ireland.

250megs on an iPhone over Edge is loads. I have mine for 5 months, and damn, I used it, and I barely got to 900megs.

krudler

maximan wrote: »

I got an iPhone in the states and used it for a day. On my bill at the end of the month i clocked up €180 worth of data charges. A 14 mb download cost me €112. O2 are the biggest rip off carrier ever! Anyone know if there is anything I can do? They won't even tell me what I downloaded because of the Data Protection Act apparently!![/QUOTE]

of course, would you prefer someone in o2 could go in and see what web pages you were looking at?

as far as the charges go, tough,they're on the website and available from customer care which is a free call, if you didnt bother to check then a lesson learned

ardmacha

There's a massive gap in subscribers, hence the difference in prices

But how would this explain good tariffs in say, Finland or Singapore that don't have a much bigger population.

culabula

chrislad wrote: »

UK population - 60,000,000 people with a saturation of 79%

Ireland - Population of 4,500,000 with a saturation of about 105-110%

There's a massive gap in subscribers, hence the difference in prices. Christ, London alone has more people than Ireland.

250megs on an iPhone over Edge is loads. I have mine for 5 months, and damn, I used it, and I barely got to 900megs.

But this has nothing to do with *roaming* charges. Charges incurred while roaming abroad are just as horrendous to a UK O2 sub roaming in Spain as they are to an Irish one. While O2 etc need a good spanking the greater part of those charges are just what they pass on from the foreign network.

DD

maximan wrote: »

I got an iPhone in the states and used it for a day. On my bill at the end of the month i clocked up €180 worth of data charges. A 14 mb download cost me €112.

Lol, was worth it, what have you been downloading?
Next time let me know and I will download it for you and send it through the messenger:D.

Bu11et_Proof

I got hit with a bill of 150 euro data one time with o2 and got away with it I rang in before getting the N95 and asked them was the gps free, the girl i spoke to said it was after I exlaining thats the main reson why I wanted the phone. So I asked her to put a note on my account sayin it.

Got a bill in the door, shat myself and then decide to give them a call and got off with it because the note was there but man did I learn my lesson I only use it now via a wlan and not O2's network now.

Data charges are a ripoff

DD

Bu11et_Proof wrote: »

I rang in before getting the N95

How's the phone, I have played with it 2 weekends ago and I was curious how long the battery lives.

ardmacha

While O2 etc need a good spanking the greater part of those charges are just what they pass on from the foreign network.

However the problem is that they pass on outrageous charges from other O2 and Telefonica owned networks, which should be somewhat in their control.

mkennedy

Bu11et_Proof wrote: »

I got hit with a bill of 150 euro data one time with o2 and got away with it I rang in before getting the N95 and asked them was the gps free, the girl i spoke to said it was after I exlaining thats the main reson why I wanted the phone. So I asked her to put a note on my account sayin it. Got a bill in the door, shat myself and then decide to give them a call and got off with it because the note was there but man did I learn my lesson I only use it now via a wlan and not O2's network now. Data charges are a ripoff

Hold on, are you saying the charges were racked up solely due to the data usage for GPS.
Data with GPS usage is minimal so the 150 euro couldn't all have been for GPS.
I presume it was due to internet/email as well.
If so you you got off lightly

mkennedy

helimachoptor wrote: »

Got you beat.. When I worked for VF a guy called in with nearly 60K of roaming charges... then he went to the papers and got it wiped off:D:D.

Christ, can you imagine the look on that guy's face opening the bill.
Probably threw up.

I wonder would VF actually take the money if for some reason he didn't contest it.
Ha ha.

Just shows how idiotic data charges were (and still are in some cases).

robinph

mkennedy wrote: »

Hold on, are you saying the charges were racked up solely due to the data usage for GPS.
Data with GPS usage is minimal so the 150 euro couldn't all have been for GPS.
I presume it was due to internet/email as well.
If so you you got off lightly

GPS does not use any of your data allowance, completely different signals and system.

Now if you've not pre-downloaded the maps though then that is a different matter if your trying to update those on the go, but that is not actually the GPS, it is just a regular data connection.

mkennedy

robinph wrote: »

GPS does not use any of your data allowance, completely different signals and system.

Now if you've not pre-downloaded the maps though then that is a different matter if your trying to update those on the go, but that is not actually the GPS, it is just a regular data connection.

Yeah i know.
Of course GPS itself doesn't use data (just satellites).
But A-GPS uses data to get a quicker fix- i thought this is what he was referring to tbh (which is a minimal download).

I just described it as GPS because i didn't want to over-complicate my response by dragging A-GPS vs GPS into it .

I didn't think he was referring to downloading maps at all tbh though.
Because if he was talking about downloading maps, that is totally separate to GPS really.
And if done over the phone should really incur those data charges (given that they are a data download and not GPS).

But he said he got away with it (because of the note on his account about GPS not incurring charges) so i assumed he wasn't talking about downloading maps.
I assumed he was talking about A-GPS.
Which is why i was puzzled about the large bill (because it's a minimal download)