Level 1

18 points

Data roaming charges incurred even when turned off??

I am wondering if anyone has had a similar problem lately and what, if anything, apple is prepared to do? I scanned the boards here a bit and the first instance of this that I saw was in 2010 so surely in the last 4 years someone has looked into it?

We went to the US from Canada for 10 days. Ensured that Data Roaming was off on phones. Now as an apple user, I am accustomed to the user friendly setup. Generally if the button says 'I Do this please tap here' I expect that when I tap it that it will actually do that.

I have just found out our data roaming bill from our trip is up an extra $400 from data roaming charges. If I turned data Roaming off, why is my phone allowing data usage when roaming in another network?? For example, when the local hotel wifi cut out the new iphone 5's we just got a month ago assuming everything works fine on them, decided to continue whatever we were doing but over the data network. Why is it defaulting to data when roaming is turned off? Also eh is the phone allowing things like location services to use data while roaming, when again roamjng is off?

I don't get it. If turning off data roaming doesn't actually turn OFF data roaming why is there a data roaming setting implying that it will do so? Why not just say to turn off all cellular data? OH WAIT! That doesn't work EITHER! Apparently even with both cellular data and data roaming turned off, location services and other apps can STILL access data. Even Airplane mode doesn't technically turn off all data use.

What's the freaking point of having settings that 'turn off' features if they don't actually turn them off completely? Apparently with all data off we are still supposed to be able to send and receive texts. I have not found that to work at all either.

Just wondering is there any point to even having an iphone on at all while traveling internationally? I mean I assumed turning on airplane mode essentially your phone becomes a glorified iPod.

Anyone??

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1

Posted on Mar 4, 2014 7:54 AM

23 replies

chuckdvc

Level 1

0 points

Dec 28, 2015 1:03 PM in response to fhebig

My girlfreind just had this issue, 500.00 in charges in 2 hours and she in fact did have data roaming off. After she got the 500.00 notification she turned the phone completely off for the remainder of the trip. ATT doesn't want to have anything to do with it. They say the phone was connected to the ships tower, Royal Caribbean. Only explanation is that her Iphone 6plus was defective and connected even though it was off. Has anybody talked about a class action lawsuit about this issue?

liam151

Level 1

4 points

Apr 12, 2016 6:41 PM in response to verison

This happened to me as well a couple of times... wonder where is the leakage?

I have been billed small amounts for data roaming in Malaysia & Vietnam when my data roaming setting was off permanently.

Now I will try to switch off the wi-fi assist to see if it helps.

May 31, 2017 8:37 AM in response to fhebig

The answer:

Iphones have several extra features that can mess-up your data usage, if you are not aware of them.

Airplane mode does block you from receiving any signals and sending any signals, which would make additional data usage on airplane mode impossible if IPhone had not also decided to add wifi-data assist which over-rides airplane mode and your phone will start using data, to speed up wifi.

Ontop of that iPhones also do daily backups just after midnight, backing up all of your messages, and mms messages, and unfortunately iPhones refuse to use wifi for this, they will ONLY do this on mobile data.

nalepa

Level 1

4 points

Nov 6, 2017 2:56 AM in response to chaner2015

just returned again from overseas again with new iphone 7 plus and this time switched off data roaming. but telstra now have this $10 international plan if switched on and they charge if i make just one call or do data. so there are days i do not used the phone but this one hour data charge triggers this pack on. Now instead of cents per day I pay $10 which means I have to switch this feature off.

why do i get data being charge per hour when when mobile data is switched off.

The Telstra shop boys could see this on my bill but had no explanation.

AmishCake

Level 6

9,698 points

Mar 4, 2014 12:19 PM in response to fhebig

Have you asked your carrier why this happened?

verison

Level 1

0 points

Feb 10, 2016 4:24 AM in response to fhebig

This happened to me also since I updated my iPhone 6 to latest IOS 9.2.

Everything was working properly before that on all my iphones.

vippiv

Level 1

10 points

Dec 12, 2016 6:13 AM in response to fhebig

Fighting this with T-Mobile now. Had data roaming switched to off, iPhone 6 on iOS 10 still connected and was billed $100 for 2 minutes or so.

T-mo blaming Apple, Apple blaming T-mo.

Aug 13, 2017 5:59 AM in response to fhebig

I too had a similar issue recently. Does Apple provide some solution for this?

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Data roaming charges incurred even when turned off??