Q: Facetime sends costly messages abroad without my knowledge.

Good evening all,

New here so apologies if this lands in the wrong place.

So I'm over €330 down due to FaceTime sending what seems to be automatic cellular messages about 6 times a day for 2 months without my approval whilst I was abroad. I have never even used FaceTime.

Leaving my country of contract I duly turned off all data in settings. I thought this would cover me as is normal.

After my return I have noticed an unusually large phone bill. Upon inspection all the charges are my phone apparently trying to connect to FaceTime. Each message sent automatically unknowingly has cost me 1 euro.

My contract is with Movistar Spain, my phone is a 4S. I was in the Caribbean whilst these charges were accumulating.

Am I at the rough end of a recent software update? Am I the fool for not turning off FaceTime? Where was the warning I missed regarding this?

Apple support seems to recognise there is a problem after taking details of my device but are currently failing to write something official on the internet so I can approach Movistar to have funds returned.

Anyone here know of something similar?

Thanks in advance.

cf