Data roaming charges incurred even when turned off??

The answer may be found in a sneaky little addition to IOS 9 to be found under settings/cellular and then scroll all the way down to the bottom. It's called Wi-Fi Assist and the default after upgrading is on!! That means that whenever the phone thinks that Wi-Fi connectivity is poor, it will automatically use cellular data! So make sure it's off.

I turn data roaming off every time I travel overseas. Last trip did the same but this time I was charged 0.3 cents for 1KByte of data that appears to be one the exact hour. i.e 9am, 10am 1p, 2pm 4pm etc.

I travel to three countries and this charge was processed almost on the hour every hour. sometimes 0.6 cents for 2 KByte.

WHY?

Unfortunately still today there is no answers neither support from Apple for this HUGE BUG!

I'm using an iPhone 6s iOS 10.2.1 and still exists such data roaming usage. Really don't know what to do anymore.

It is tough having to have these issues till today.

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.

only on mobile data? you're joking about that, right? sarcasm, maybe? I don't have roaming charges but I have tons of data owerages (like $1500 worth over the last 8 months). in june I put my ipad in airplane mode and used it exclusively on wifi as an experiment. my carrier said I still used 4.8gb of data. I don't [expletive] think so! yes, my wi-fi assist is off. thankfully I discovered that little buggen of a feature on day one, and turned it off.

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.

I've had the same problem! I buy minutes for my iPhone 5 as needed. Minutes are "stolen" from my iPhone even when I have not used it all! The carrier, T-Mobile, sez these are "roaming charges" even tho roaming is OFF!

Terry Trowbridge 12/2017

Have you asked your carrier why this happened?

I experienced the same situation and when I called Bell I was told that turning "cellular data" off doesn't really turn it off. We were told that our phone will reset to "data on" even by charging it. I doubt that that is the case, however, who am I to doubt what Bell says?? I haven't spoken with Apple and, considering what you were told, it seems pointless to. Our bill was in excess of $800 for just over a month. We have now purchased a data/phone plan so the winner once again is Bell.

I Always check my cellular data to make sure roaming is off and to monitor usage and this month noticed it said 9.4kb. I know it's small in comparison but I haven't left nor even came close to a country border not even a state border.

It is a known issue that even when "Cellular data" & "Data roaming" are both OFF, the user may still incur some data roaming charges.

I was advised by the local telco here (Singapore) to turn off data roaming "at the network level". For Singtel, I can use the command *101# to toggle "network level data roaming" when overseas without charge.

Use Airplane mode, and turn WiFi on. Your only network connection will be via WiFi. If you are international, and want to avoid any cell use, you must be in Airplane Mode, which turns off the cell voice/data. It's easy to test, because you will get nothing except a dialog telling you to turn off Airplane mode or turn on WiFi. It's also not in the carrier's interest to tell their customer that "operator error" was at fault. That is why they told you "iPhone has a problem", which is the easiest way for the carrier rep to push the blame to someone else. In the end, you still need to pay, and they have you believing that the phone (not you) was the problem.

Tim Farnan has it right. For iPhones:

1. In Settings, turn on Airplane Mode. (You'll want to do this anyway before takeoff.)

2. When you get to a WiFi spot at your destination (Starbucks?) turn on Wi-Fi and select the network.

That will block your cell phone calling but browsing, syncing with iCloud, Skype and many other apps will work just fine. Messages, Facetime and Mail probably won't.

You can check this out on your home network before you leave. If you happen to have VoIP at home (we have Ooma) many VoIP companies have a phone app so the call you make from your iPhone (over wifi) will have your home number call displayed. Very neat.

(Caution: My email, ftp and web services are independent of the cell phone company. I'm not sure how/if all this works if everything's at the same provider. YMMV.)

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?