Accidental roaming data blow-out on 2Degrees

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Accidental roaming data blow-out on 2Degrees - anything we can do?

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Item

1717 posts

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#2112626 23-Oct-2018 10:52

2degreesCare:

@Item if you get your wife to add you on as an authorized contact we can look into this for you :)

Please PM us the Mobile number and 4 digit pin and I can take a look.

Cheers

^SW

Hi - will PM you, thanks for getting in touch.

premiumtouring

355 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2112789 23-Oct-2018 14:19

SaltyNZ:
premiumtouring:

We also swap sim cards when travelling, but guess what, when you do that, service SMS's are sent (at $1 per piece) whenever you do the sim card dance on iOS devices. Because those service SMS's from Apple are sent by the device, there's nothing you can do about it.. except put in place a $1 spend control which blocks it from happening.

The service SMSes from Apple are free even while roaming, and even if they weren't, we don't charge $1/SMS while roaming for anyone, anywhere.

Not true. Activation texts which get sent while roaming are 0.79c + GST. They are silently sent by iOS and 2Degrees do not credit you for them.

SaltyNZ

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#2112791 23-Oct-2018 14:28

I take it back: I have checked the configuration and you are correct that the iOS messages are only free within NZ. I guess if you must swap SIMs for roaming, you could do it before you leave.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

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#2112900 23-Oct-2018 20:56

@Linux: ... and $1600 is far more than back ground data in 1 day

John, I think you need to tone down a bit.

And for your information, for example just today was disclosed a bug in Google News causes gigabytes of background data usage.

My point is, you have to give the benefit of doubt. You don't know the situation.

Tone down on the attacks.

nzkiwiman

2585 posts

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#2113201 24-Oct-2018 13:28

To the OP: I hope that 2D can assist; I would hate to be in your wifes situation as $1600 is a hell of a lot of money

To those who has come into the thread on high horses: WTH!
The OP has mentioned he is not fully aware of all the story, is willing to pay if nothing can be done etc
But yet you continue to come down hard on him.

SpartanVXL

1306 posts

Uber Geek

#2113239 24-Oct-2018 14:40

Yes people should be aware of data charges and the dangers of enabling roaming un-prepared.

But when you can have 4G speeds in the order of MB's per second with each MB costing $10 its inane to expect the average consumer to always keep track of this. As the example of Google News shows, something out of bounds could come along and chew through it instantly.

Even with full root and permission systems on an android, I would be wary enabling roaming at all.

MichaelNZ

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#2113465 24-Oct-2018 20:31

Linux:
Time to pay up and to be honest I have zero sympathy and $1600 is far more than back ground data in 1 day

Does your attitude represent 2degrees?

Linux: This is bit off topic and not related to this thread but the number of customers that got massive roaming charges 10k+ when I worked for Vodafone and disputed never getting a warning SMS

Has it ever occured to you your customers are not as clever as you and $10 per Mb is a gross ripoff taking advantage of them?

$10 per Mb is just unconscionable. I hope 2degrees and the other telcos involved get kicked hard one day and the sooner, the better.

WFH Linux Systems and Networks Engineer in the Internet industry | Specialising in Mikrotik | APNIC member | Open to job offers

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irongarment

280 posts

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#2113468 24-Oct-2018 20:37

I have pre-pay. I suppose the $40 sitting in my account will get me a few Mb if I forget to turn off roaming, but after that no data and no charges.

SaltyNZ

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#2113580 25-Oct-2018 08:13

MichaelNZ:

$10 per Mb is just unconscionable. I hope 2degrees and the other telcos involved get kicked hard one day and the sooner, the better.

Retail rates reflect the wholesale costs involved. We constantly strive to reduce those but as the smallest fish in a small pond we don't have the leverage we would like. Having said that, for the most popular roaming destinations we have pretty decent size roaming packs which include unlimited calls & texts. We are also the only operator in NZ to have Wifi calling, and as far as I am aware the only operator in the world who lets you use it while overseas to make and receive calls and texts for the same price as you would at home. Finally, there is spend control, which we have had since 2010.

We don't have total control over roaming pricing but we go out of our way to make sure there are plenty of options to not end up with a huge bill.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

sbiddle

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#2113599 25-Oct-2018 08:52

MichaelNZ:

$10 per Mb is just unconscionable. I hope 2degrees and the other telcos involved get kicked hard one day and the sooner, the better.

$10 still reflects the high wholesale costs that are incurred roaming on some foreign networks. Contrary to popular demand the costs reflected in wholesale agreements and charged by some roaming hubs are far greater than the retail cost of data on the same networks.

The catch 22 situation (which isn't so much an issue now but was a few years ago) was that providers also needed to make revenue from roaming to offset their losses when they were waiving huge accidental roaming bills from customers. When somebody did/does get their bill waived this is really revenue from legitimate roaming users offsetting it.

gsr

112 posts

Master Geek

#2113616 25-Oct-2018 09:33

Just to clarify: this can only happen when one has postpaid right?

irongarment

280 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#2113634 25-Oct-2018 10:12

It should be no surprise that it's also known as "reaming".

code15

198 posts

Master Geek

#2114565 26-Oct-2018 17:30

Simple solution to alleviate a lot of pain for both customers and carriers would be to set a roaming data spend cap by default for all on account customers.

Show the roaming user a splash page asking if they want to keep using casual data after a sensible amount has been spent.

I’ve set mine to zero. Roaming data at those rates should be opt in.

Peppery

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#2115596 28-Oct-2018 20:25

gsr:

Just to clarify: this can only happen when one has postpaid right?

You'd just drain your balance quickly on prepaid, but you won't be left with a huge bill.

SaltyNZ:

We are also the only operator in NZ to have Wifi calling, and as far as I am aware the only operator in the world who lets you use it while overseas to make and receive calls and texts for the same price as you would at home

Super off topic, but T-Mobile US lets you use WiFi calling overseas just like you guys do. It's a shame the Australians don't.

Item

1717 posts

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#2116319 29-Oct-2018 15:51

So final update:

2Degrees offered a good faith credit of 30% off the total cost of the data bill.

Accepted gladly and appreciated - thanks 2Degrees for your understanding.

We will chalk this one down to experience and go on with our lives!

Cheers all for comments and contributions..

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