iMessage MMS message

[Anonymous]

I’ve recently sent two Picture messages from my phone to my wife’s using iMessage but have been charged 41.3p per message . My wife is currently abroad but as I’m using Wi-fi here why should I be charged ?

[liggerz87]

@MI5 you might have an idea. I presume what happened was the message got converted to mms instead of going over imessage are you both iPhone

[Anonymous]

Both phones are iPhones .. I’ve an iPhone 6 and my wife an SE .

I thought IMessage was free irrespective of whether it’s a pic or a text message

[Anonymous]

No all picture messages or mms are chargeable. iMessage is free but only for sms

[Cleoriff]

@AnonymousAll the information you need on MMS here https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/How-to-guides/Accidental-MMS-Sending-and-How-to-Avoid-it/ba-p/1014132

You will have been charged I'm afraid.

[jonsie]

When you are sending imessages then if your partners phone doesn't have a good wifi signal your phone will try to send the imessage as a text and if there is a photo or emojies it will change the text to an mms. 

You can disable this by going into settings/imessages/send as sms/off

Make sure the bubble is blue which means the message has been sent as imessage .Green means it's converted to sms/mms.

I think there is also the option of disabling mms in normal text settings. 

[MI5]

iMessage is about the only good thing for me on an iPhone.
I use it constantly when abroad to stay in contact with the family back home who also use iPhones.
None of us have ever been charged for sending iMessages. Even if your WiFi fails it will use data, it not designed to do anything else.
I do have send as sms option enabled too and occasionally a green sms will be sent but I’ve never figured out what triggers this.
If I were you I would call customer service and explain that you are using iMessage and shouldn’t be charged so could you please have a refund of those charges.

[Marjo]

Hi @Anonymous sorry to hear you've had unexpected charges on your bill. Please do take a look at the information above and let us know if it explains it and if you have any further questions we could help with.

Thanks for your help guys @liggerz87, @Anonymous, @Cleoriff, @jonsie, @MI5! 

[graclarkey]

As Jonsie says, you simply need to go to Settings > Messages > and turn off “Send as SMS”. This will ensure your iMessage is always sent as an iMessage, rather than falling back to an SMS or MMS when either of you has poor or no 3G/4G or WiFi connection.

Anyone who uses iMessage to send multimedia, eg photos, or for group messaging, should turn this setting off.

I also enable “Low quality image mode” which speeds up sending, otherwise iMessage sends images in full resolution, which also uses more data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous is incorrect

Picture messages sent through imessage are free as imessage uses your data connection