Personal hotspot usage stats incorrect (please hear me out)

I have a wild solution to everyone’s issue that is testable but I don’t have an extra iPhone laying around to try .So anyway it is possible that someone has captured your SIM card number and is using your sim info on another phone which would explain why if you turn off your hotspot it still runs up data and “other devices” label because the other phone is nowhere in your vicinity to be identified by your phone. I have read that these data grabs are counting against peoples accounts. Do I think it is real data accessed through your account but going to another device using a copy of your sim , and you can do that with a jailbroken phone?? So it could be they are just entering random numbers until they get an active account because as k Verizon sims start of with the same few numbers followed by 5 0’’s then I guess that leaves 99 billion numbers left

but u could test this out by taking your active SIM card out and put into another phone turn on hotspot and see if the counter runs up when you put it back up after some usage on “fill in “ phone. I am guessing the phone is not tabulating the amount of data but just gets sent a report from the carrier. That’s my wild guess that makes sense or it’s just a really weird bug

Interesting idea, but this is not what is happening, because the data usage is not reflected by the carrier. In my case, my phone will show tens or hundreds of gigabytes of hotspot usage for the month, but Verizon shows less than 10 GB of usage for the entire month when I get my bill. The numbers on the phone outstrip the amount of hotspot usage that is even allowed on my plan.

Additionally, this happens on both my work and personal phone with two different carriers, so it would be unlikely that this occurred on both, and I'm not even sure if an eSIM can be entered on two different devices, I am pretty sure they are one time use and not transferrable.

But ultimately this is disproven by the fact that the carrier does not reflect this data consumption.

This is for sure a bug. I have the same issue. Hotspot disabled but after hour I have 2 gb used by other devices via hotspot. So apple just need to fix it

[Edited by Moderator]

Apparently, iOS 17.4.1 didn’t fix the bug :-(

Your question appears to be academic.

Your cellular carrier is not saying you used more data than you actually used, so there is no billing issue. The issue you’re discussing is merely a statistic, with no side effects.

I have the same issue. It’s been driving me insane. I was trying to use the statistics feature to get an idea of how much data I am using. I was blown away by how much hot spot data I was using. I immediately called my carrier and confirmed that I did not use anywhere near the amount the iPhone is reporting. This is a bug. Apple PLEASE FIX IT!!

I have the same issue, but mine reports 43 GB of use, my carrier reports 2 GB, the funny thing is that I have NOT turned the hotspot on this period!!!

While this BUG seems to be harmless is extremely annoying, and wont allow me to get a real calculation of my usage.

I have the same experience. I use my hotspot on my other Iphone… Iphone connected to Iphone… dont ask why… and it will eat like 6GB in 10 min. Browsing for 5 min Google Maps, 3 Min Video on Youtube and 2 Min Social Networks. I have done this many times, the pattern is the same. In reality it used like 150Mb. It is really annoying, since you have no idea, how much traffic you are generating and what is your real data usage.

I too have this issue, other devices currently showing 75.7GB. Hotspot is 100% switched off and has been. I am wondering if it is calculating my iPad wifi data? I don't know just a thought, but I have now had this issue for a couple of months.

My mobile data was just used up by other devices in no time during my holiday. Whole 75GB used up by other devices. Hoping for a statement from Apple. This is really unacceptable and wasting your clients‘ money…

I am on holiday in Samoa and using *only* cellular data. So I’m trying to keep track of how much. These errors in the cellular data consumption, particularly the mysterious “other devices“ that rack up huge numbers, make this task impossible using the iPhone’s statistics. Like others, thankfully my cell provider has numbers that make a whole lot more sense. What a stupid bug in something that could be quite useful.

I’m having the same problem. Am away in Europe roaming so reset stats to keep track of usage. I have been tethering my iPad to the phone when I wanted to use it, but stats are crazy, showing >100Gb of data used in the last few days! I reset again and within a few hours it’s gone over 15Gb. My carrier’s app shows about 13Gb total used since the start of current billing period, which is reasonable as I’ve been doing a fair bit of mobile based browsing, music playing and navigation. On iOS 17.4.1 and no updates available