Unexplained 02 Data Allowance Drain at Midnight

The critical thing is the amount you are actually being charged at the end of the month. Since a couple of days before the iPhone was delivered in the UK I have been relentlessly charged £20.42 per month (since the VAT increase) for 300 minutes, unlimited texts and (sorry - major gloat) unlimited data. No way am I ever changing this O2 contract!

Hello,

I was wonderingif you have had any resolution to your problem? I’ve recently discovered (onlyin July/Aug) the same problem! My billing date refreshed 07/08 – and I receiveda text last night claiming that I have used all of it up! The only thing I couldthink of today was that there was an email “stuck” in my outbox of my mailfeature – which I have deleted – but impatience and left me looking for answersstill! It’s very frustrating as I have just paid for a “Bolt On” for 1GB (whichis already half gone!) and I just can’t seem to figure it out! Would appreciateANY help. Thank you. Cat.

Thank you - that sheds some light! The lady I spoke to first of all explained that I still had all of my data, then looked into it a bit more and advised that it was all gone - in a matter of a day. I'm going to call them again today to get to the bottom of it. Has your data stopped being drained?

I'm having exactly the same, I've just got off the phone from O2 and feeling infuriated - so glad I found this post! I got two texts within 5 minutes of each other, the 80% warning and then the notice that I have used it all. I've never used more than 200MB in a month, I just check e-mails, the occasional youtube vid and facebook updates... and now in one day I have allegedly used 472MB!! The guy I spoke to was just plane rude, he kept saying that I must have used it and that the system couldn't be wrong. He said maybe someone borrowed my phone and I didnt realise... Ive been at work all day with it in my pocket! I'll try this Laura Cameron person if I have no luck. Stupid 02, grrr.

I've had a similar, if slightly different experience. I checked my phone at 8am, removing it from being charged overnight and noticed it was at 98%, not the usual 100%. Two hours later it was down to 48% - not bad going even by the iphone's standards, considering the phone was just sitting on the table, unused. A few hours later I got the dreaded '80% data used' text. Having checked the 'meter' earlier in the day, it seems I had used 350Mb - for no apparent reason.

The only thing that is different to previous months is my SkyGo app that I downloaded a few days ago. Needless to say I hadn't been using it during the mentioned period. Is it possible that it runs somehow in the background? That would certainly explain the battery drain and enormous Mb usage.

Am really hoping this is a one-off glitch in the system somewhere as I don't want to have to continually worry about it.

Add me to those who have had this. Got the 80% text at about 11pm. Was puzzled by this but rather late in the evening to want to query it. Completely powered my iPhone4 down, after having closed everything, including push notifications etc. Woke this morning, Switched on and found I had "used" the other 20% overnight.

I then found this forum. Thanks for confirming it's not just me. Keep posting comments and experiences with O2. I am going to contact them shortly.

Tom

OK, update. Two calls to 02 Support agents, and if anything I am now more annoyed than before.

First agent explained that I could see my usage by viewing options under My Bill on My 02, and gave the story related by others, that the problem was probably down to background updates overnight, that would show as used data as soon as as I switched my iPhone on. The agent dismissed anything said on these forums as "the rumour mill" and said that as far as she knew, 02 had never come across the problem before. I asked that she check that, and was put on hold for several minutes. Whether she actually checked anything with a supervisor etc, I have no idea, but it did not change her view.

I then found that when I logged on to My 02, I was unable to see the My Bill option. There was simply no tab for this. There is a screen option that is supposed to help get around this and send you a username reminder. I used it three times, all with no effect. I recall this same problem with 02 several years ago with a different phone. I think I just gave up trying back then.

I made another call to 02 support, to a different agent. He talked through what I needed to do (ie everything I had done already) and assured me it "ought to work". Two other points, however. He said I can get usage data by loading the My 02 App, from the App Store. I didn't know of it. He also said that his records showed I had 60mb of my 500mb allowance left, so should not have had the 100% used text. However, I was also told that I had used mobile data very heavily "yesterday" and this could be the cause of the problem. As I spent all of yesterday at my mother's funeral, and used no data at all, that case simply doesn't hold up.

So, I tried the My 02 iPhone app. What a failure. Even before you load it, there is an apology on the page about difficulties using it. I looked at the 02 blog page they refer you to, and can see that this has been a problem since the app was launched in August 2009. What a shambles. Predictably, when I tried to log in, it would not load. After a dozen attempts, I've deleted it.

I had further tries to log in to my 02 and view My Bill. All the same - successful log in, but no My Bill tab on the left of the screen. I have now sent an e-mail to 02 support. Interesting that their web site promises a reply in 24 hours, but the acknowledgement e-mail you get extends this to 48 hours.

What a bloody shambles they are, eh?

Tom

The O2 app works fine for me, it had some issues when it first came out, they do shut it now and then for server work but I just logged fine, and have been able to for months, as long as you use the same password you use to log into your main account online it should work fine, I would try again. It does not show data useage if you are using wifi so either turn wifi off briefly in a hotspot of at home or wait till you are out and about. Its not the greatest app in the world, but its also not the worst.

I find the O2 app works fine on the phone, only thing is the meters go from right to left for the minutes and texts, and from left to right for the data. Bit confusing?

Anyway I just wanted to ask if anybody bothers to close down their apps after use, by doing the double home button press then pressing the app to get the minus sign? I was only told about this yesterday, so now I'm doing that every time. I'm hoping this might solve the problem? Would be nice to know if any of you who have had the midnight drain problem also do this - in which case my theory is trashed!

Hi there. After reading this post, I felt compelled to register and share my experience. Okay, so I haven't got an iPhone so please forgive me, but I do hope my post may help.

Originally, I was with Virgin and had a Samsung Tocco Lite, which wasn't a smartphone as such. Out of my 1gb monthly allowance, I used no more than 100mb per month. No video streaming, no downloading of music; just the normal Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, BBC etc etc. And I would surf approx two hours per day.

In my infinite wisdom, I then joined O2 and purchased a Samsung Galaxy Ace Android with 500mb monthly data allowance. I was aware that my phone downloaded the data in a richer text format and that I may use a fraction more data than my previous phone, but after just two weeks I had reached my 500mb allowance. I decided to buy an extra 500mb bolt-on to see me through the month and just put it down to the fact that I had downloaded a few apps etc and that I was an Android newbie. The following month, I had reached my 1gb allowance and bought another 500mb. Now at this point I started wondering if there was an issue with the phone as all my friends had told me that they did much, much more than me with their iPhones (YouTube, Sky Tv, etc etc) and they barely scratched the surface of 300mb per month (and they were with other service providers). One morning, I had left my internet connection open whilst travelling an hour to work. My phone had used 80mb of data! Er, "where from?" I thought. I contacted O2 and they advised me that at midnight there is data synchronization etc, so they advised me to change a few settings.

In the meantime, I had contacted O2 and after a long conversation with them, they instigated a "network investigation" and I am waiting to hear back from them.

Now a few days ago, I changed my stock browser to Opera Mini and UNCHECKED the following settings:

- USE PACKET DATA (when not using the phone)

- UNKNOWN INSTALLATION OF NON-MARKET DATA

- BACKGROUND DATA

- BACK UP MY DATA

- AUTOMATIC NETWORK-PROVIDER DATE/TIME SETTINGS

- MY LOCATION

Now changing these settings virtually renders my phone as "not-so-smart-phone", but I have noticed a massive reduction in data usage. For example, surfing data previously would use about 7mb per 10 minutes! I have used my phone today for approx two hours and have used only 12mb! And this has been the same over the past two days.

This could be down to all my setting changes, or the fact that Opera Mini firstly sends the data to their servers, strips out the rubbish, and then delivers the content to your phone in smaller packets and also it's a much quicker browser because of it.

Or is it that O2 have done something in the background???

Who knows.

Thanks for listening.

This has happened to my wifes iPhone 3GS on o2!

Everything was fine first year of o2 iphone sim untill the free internet changed to pay n go with 500mb of data per month, After just 2 weeks she got a txt 450mb used already? Next day txt £1 a day for internet!

Luckily I had a spare o2 sim which I used a while ago in iphone with no probs told the wife who is in the house most of the time to use wifi, 2 weeks later same txt 450mb used!!!!!!!

Busy updating (and wiping clean with DFU mode)

Changing to 3 network with unlimited data for £15 a month but also have o2 broadband which im now going to have to cancel because it was half price when using o2 sim!

Still not sure what caused this? Also I unlocked iPhone through o2 if that had anything to do with it?

I think o2 want you to buy these new bolt ons £10 a month for 1GB.

The more I read, here and elsewhere, I am coming round to the view that this is an O2 scam to try to panic users into buying more data. The irony in my case is that I have already opted for a data increase, so that I can use my iPhone on tethering, but the increase doesn't come in until October, as I am going to be abroad for most of the time before then.

I have eventually had a reply from O2 about accessing my account from their web site. Trouble is, I can't get that to work either at present.

I am also seriously thinking about switching to a provider like 3.

Thanks.

I have at last been able to get at the "My Bill" section of O2's site, following exchanges with their technical people. One significant problem seems to be that the on-line username reminder facility gives you a quite useless user name. You need the one O2 issued originally, and I had long since mislaid that.

I was able to look at my daily usage total. Anyone know if there is any way to get beneath those figures, and to see which sites etc the usage went to? Having got to the totals, when I click any option, I just get an error message saying "EBPP_1102: An error has occurred for the UserName xxxxxx while processing the account number xxxxxxx and role 2 that you have requested" (I've added the x's instead of the real details there) No idea what that error means.

However, my basic data usage figures don't stack up. In the last ten days, my daily usage has gone through the roof, according to O2. That includes using more than 60mb on the day I was at my mother's funeral and made no use of my telephone whatsoever!

More incredible than that, however, is that on the day after I was told I had used all of my 500mb allowance - a day on which I made no data use of my phone at all, I am shown as having used 90mb the following midnight. That's virtually 20% of my data used on a day when I know for certain that I had the phone set to "airplane mode" in order not to use any data inadvertently.

Frankly, this really is beginning to look like an attempt by o2 to persuade users to upgrade their data allowance, though doing so by falsifying data use would, of course, be criminal - literally.

I have challenged O2 on this, and asked for access to more detail (in case the error message is preventing me seeing it).

The idea of switching to 3 is tempting. I have used a 3 mifi dongle for a while, with my iPad, and have not yet had problems with reception, except at one notorious local point where O2 signals are rubbish too.

Has there ever been solution to this problem, because I have the same data drainage problem.

I use WiFi at work and at home, so I am only meant to incur data usage while out and about

except all my data usage seem to be at 00:00hrs when I am suppose to be on WiFi at home

and my ISP is O2

Has there been an explanation for this?