Calls from the UK to EU country

[Adacymru]

I received my bill for October 2018 airtime with extra charge for one call of 60 min for £81.60 to an EU country from the UK. I accept my fault for not checking that those calls would not come out of my tariff allowance (although if I was in an EU country and called the UK number, I would be charged £0, madness!!!) but for £81.60 I could fly from the UK to another EU country, stay overnight in a hotel, have a day long chat face to face, and fly back. £81.60 for an hour call is nothing but extortionate and feels more like punishment for making the call than a reasonable charge for such service. I could appreciate such charges 15 or 20 years ago when using a mobile phone but not in this day and age. I appreciate that I did not purchase a bolt on for making international calls, and I could understand if O2 were to punish me for the lack of such bolt on, which costs £5 per month if purchased in advance of calls abroad, and charge me double that for my lack of forward thinking, in addition to O2 charges for such calls with Bolt-on, which are at present 5p/minute. I do not comprehend however how O2 can facilitate calls abroad with the said £5 bolt-on for 5 pence a minute but perceives it to be fair to charge someone 27 times higher tariff for a minute call without the £5 Bolt-on. I find this totally unreasonable. I tried to reason with the help-line staff to no avail. I've now made another attempt to appear to O2 better nature (it worked once before on another issue, so fingers crossed) and I've made a formal complaint, hoping for common sense to prevail. If I have to pay this charge, I've already checked and if we switched all contracts currently held with O2 within my household to another provider, I can recoup that charge within a month or two, so I will get my money back somehow. This however leaves a very bitter taste, how a provider can apply such extortionate and totally unreasonable charges to a loyal customer (I've been with O2 since the first mobile phone I had, and that was probably more then 15 years ago).

[Anonymous]

They’re a company & they’re in business to make a profit. They give people options to avoid these kinds of charges, but people choose not to take advantage of them.

While I agree that the cost of that call is eye watering, you can’t really blame O2 (or expect them to take pity) when you fully acknowledge your own lack of judgement on this!

But I wish you every success in trying to get some sympathy. Come back and let us know how you get on!

[jonsie]

I do have a lot of sympathy for you and it's such a shame you didn't check before you called. The costs are quite clear on the international pages. However I do agree that £1.50/min in this day and age is quite outrageous. O2 lost a lot of profits from roaming when the new regulations came in so understandably I suppose, they have to claw the money back somehow. To be fair though, the roaming bolt on is available for customers who need to call overseas (within the EU) and so I'm sure you aware that ultimately the charges are down to yourself not checking beforehand. I would try calling again (not live chat unless you use the link on the complaints page) and see if you can get a more sympathetic adviser who could make a goodwill gesture.

let us know please how the complaint goes.

[Bambino]

@Adacymru Obviously no help to you related to this matter, but in future, if you're calling numbers in the EU on their mobile numbers, whether it's a UK or EU number, if you use WhatsApp it will cost you nothing. You can text and make video calls for free as well.

You're perfectly entitled to switch networks to express your displeasure, but check the coverage you'll get in the areas you frequent most before you switch.

[Adacymru]

I think I was so used to making calls abroad via WhatsApp that it never occurred to me that I made a call bypassing it. That's my reason for not buying bolt on. I know that O2 are in business of making money but not at all cost, they will charge me once for this call and forgo three contracts. Charging me would not be good for their business. And I still believe that the cost of the call is outrageous when they can afford to give unlimited calls for a month for half of that money. Fairness and loyalty seem to be out of fashion these days.

[Adacymru]

Good news!!!

I had a call from O2 mid week to tell me that whilst they do not agree that their message on charges on international calls is not clear (we're entitled to our own opinions on that issue), I'm not the only person that contacted them about it, and they agreed to cancell the charge for the call (in fact with VAT, it was over £90 in total). I could not fault their response, quick and satisfactory. Thank you O2 for being reasonable and it shows: if you don't ask, you don't get.

[jonsie]

Good news indeed and I'm happy that you were dealt with sympathetically. O2 will never admit to a website page that isn't totally transparent or is inacurate in any way. Good result, job done

[Cleoriff]

Excellent news @Adacymru Well done you for perservering. A good outcome

[murdof]

Had similar issue for £20.

Unfortunately I had cancelled my call bar due to O2's system limitation for call barring.

Specifically if you have international call bar enabled and then you roam to EU (free), you can not make outgoing calls to roaming country and back to UK - which are free.

So I had to disable the call bar and by mistake made a 18 minute call from the O2 SIM.

I have an Oneplus 5T with dual sim and use the other card for international calls.

O2 declined to sympathise in my case and said that the calls were legit. Of course they were - i didn't say that the charge was wrong... It is stupid though to have to overthink using your mobile with O2 shortcomings....

I have VF on my other device with same setup and you can enable call bars through the web portal immediately - not having to go through chats and wait 24 hours. VF enables/disables it within 5 minutes.

So beware people - O2's policy is not customer friendly. They just wait for you to fall for this...

[jonsie]

Try calling again to see if you can get a more sympathetic adviser. Nothing to lose only your time. I would advise against using live chat.