Vodafone Ireland regularly deducting 1.99 for data use.

osarusan

Ok, for the context - I live in the UK, and have a phone with both Vodafone Ireland and Vodafone UK sims. Both are PAYG

On the rare occasions I text, I use the Irish number for texting because using using the UK number incurs a £1 charge (though subsequent calls and texts are free for the day, it's usually not worth it).

As a result, 10E credit on my irish number would last for months and months.

Recently though, the credit drains quite quickly, and looking through my 'Detailed usage history' on the website, it's almost all due to charges of E1.99 for mobile internet data. These are on usually dates that I'm in the UK, and the amounts of data are tiny (2.4kb, 1.9kb), so I really have no idea how that is happening.

One was recorded as happening at 3.44am on December 26th 2023 - when I was in Ireland, but I can assure you I was deep in a drunken sleep at that time.

The irish ones seem to happen when I'm at my mother's house where her wifi is awful. In fact, in general, both for the UK and Ireland, the charges seem to happen when I'm connecting to wifi or when wifi momentarily drops.

Can anybody suggest what might be happening here, and how to resolve it?

28064212

If the WiFi drops, the phone will switch to data, and any single bit of data (say the phone checking whether it's up-to-date) will trigger the charge. Why not just disable data completely?

osarusan

Data is generally off, so when I'm not on wifi, the phone is offline. If I go for a walk or whatever, it doesn't trigger any switch to data - I'm just offline.

It seems to be a connection to wifi (maybe connecting to new wifi) that does it.

Roaming is off, not that I'm sure that is relevant here.

2G connection is on (and always has been I guess) but again, I'm not sure whether that's relevant.

Something started triggering the momentary use of data about 6 months ago that previously was not there.

Ten Pin

Best not to leave any credit on a low use VF PAYG account.

If it's only for texting, use webtext instead and only top up to keep SIM active (€5 every 8 months).

https://n.vodafone.ie/myaccount/webtext.html

Rock Steady Edy

I had the same issue a while ago. Make sure mobile data is off. If it happens again, just take it to a Vodafone store and explain the situation, and they should be able to sort it out.

Wheety

Switching off data is usually not enough. Apps still use background data. You need to find the setting to turn off background data. It's possible that Data Saver is the setting you're looking for but it's been a while since I looked at it.

Ten Pin

"amounts of data are tiny (2.4kb, 1.9kb)"

The PAYG 5G Data Unlimited plan is linked to Advantage Plus 3 tariff that has a data rate of €0.0021609 per MB at home.

AFAIK the daily €1.99 charge is not applied so any small data use charge will be almost unnoticeable.

Other option is to delete the APN which should stop any mobile data traffic.

osarusan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788635#Comment_121788635

I have done this now.

I've also gone through the instances of mobile data use (that I didn't choose to do), and it really does seem to be connected to wifi connections. I can see that one happened when I just arrived at a UK airport and would have been taking my phone out of airplane mode and connecting to the airport wifi.

I'm certain that I wouldn't have been using my Vodafone Ireland data at that moment, but it connected for an instant I guess (2.3kb).

Hopefully turning data saver on (along with having mobile data already off) will do the trick.

What is strange is that these micro-connections were not an issue until a few months ago. Until then, my credit used to go on forever - I think I got texts saying that I basically had to buy some to keep the phone number active. I wonder what happened to my phone settings to cause the change.

JVince

Would you not simply call them and ask?

osarusan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121790290#Comment_121790290

I was onto them this morning, but all they are doing is looking at the same usage history I am.

I'm not really disputing their charges - I guess the phone did connect to mobile data when they said it did. For me the question is how to stop that from happening in the future.

I guess it's a phone settings issue rather than a Vodafone issue.

moonboy52

Assuming Android, Go into Developer Options and Disable "'mobile data always-on while on wifi'

That MAY help as sometimes WiFi drops (if the connection is not solid) and the phone will use a few KB of Mobile data and then switch back to WiFi, as far as i know

thebo

I had this issue too. Have 2 Sims in phone three and Vodafone. Have three set for data only.

Had no problems until seen 1.99 deducted few times from Vodafone which wasn't activated to use data.

Had to contact them and make them disable internet on account as use three for data.

It didn't happen before so only recently it could be a glitch on there side as phone shouldn't activate other SIM data when not enabled.