Tips to avoid unexpected charges on your bill.

[Cleoriff]

Hi All.

I'm looking for a collaboration on this topic.

@Marjo  noticed a thread HERE  and she suggested the Forum might benefit from a guide on ways to limit expenditure which hopefully will avoid unexpected charges on your bill.

I thought I would start with a few and look forward to anyone adding and discussing other ways/methods.

* Spend Caps. (only applicable if you have taken out a contract since Oct 1st) Link Here: Spend Cap

* Other Numbers and Charges. Link Here: Other Numbers And Charges

Going over your monthly allowances for of texts and minutes is the most common reason for a high bill

Making calls, sending texts or using data outside of our Europe Zone

Using your phone to make a purchase, such as buying wifi on train

Making calls to non-geographical or premium rate phone number

Calling a directory enquiry service.

Sending texts to premium rate services, such as voting in a TV competition

(You can contact customer services and ask them to place a Premium Bar on your account. This will stop calls to premium rate numbers, 090, 070 etc).

* Sending SMS which convert to MMS. (Link Here)   Avoid sending MMS

An emoticon/emoji is a smiley face, a thumbs up a heart or any other tiny picture that many people like to add to their SMS messages.

THESE ARE THE BIGGEST SINGLE SOURCE OF ACCIDENTAL MMS SENDING.

Adding an emoticon by itself won’t, in many cases, force the message into MMS format, but, what it will do, is eat up your character count.

A simple smiley face or wink will use 90 characters.

With this in mind it is easy to see how just by adding 3 emoticons actually reduces your character count to only 210 letters (that’s not much!)

You can avoid this by inserting a smiley using keyboard characters rather than hitting the emoticon key and choosing a picture. A smile can be written as : ) or a wink as ; ) 

* Restrict use of Charge to Mobile   Link Here: Charge To Mobile

You can contact customer services and ask them to Bar all Direct to Bill Debits on your account.

(only problem with this, you will need to contact them again to lift the bar, if you wish to purchase anything)

* Don't click on any links on FB etc.

You could find yourself directed to a Payforit scam where you will be charged monthly for services you neither want or need.  More info here: Premium Rate Scams

* Use Wifi instead of Mobile Data (where possible)

* Use Free Apps instead of those you purchase.

That's all I can think of now. If anyone else can add anything, then feel free to do so. This is a 'document in progress'

Thanks also to @MI5 and @adamtemp64 for use of your work re MMS and Premium rate numbers

Look forward to hearing of other ways to limit spending, or avoiding unexpected charges.

[Anonymous]

Well done & a nicely written helpful piece of information

[jonsie]

Very helpful @Cleoriff and I'm sure members will find the spend caps and accidental sending of mms helpful.

Just onee point, whilst a single emoji will count as anything around 90 characters, each subsequent emoji will count as 1 to 3 characters. I don't know why this is but it is always useful to have character count showing when composing a text. This can be done within the message settings.

Some phones also have an option to warn when a text converts (usually 480 characters or spaces) to mms. Check your message settings to see if this is an option.

[Cleoriff]

@jonsie

Good point about the phone warning you when your SMS converts to MMS.

Mine (Samsung) always throws out this warning

As for the character count re emojis etc. That section was a copy and paste from the existing guide here

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/How-to-Guides/Accidental-MMS-Sending-and-How-to-Avoid-it/ba-p/1014132

So if that needs changing, then the author of the guide should do it?

[jonsie]

---

@Cleoriff wrote:
......

As for the character count re emojis etc. That section was a copy and paste from the existing guide here

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/How-to-Guides/Accidental-MMS-Sending-and-How-to-Avoid-it/ba-p/1014132

So if that needs changing, then the author of the guide should do it?

---

Yes it should be made clearer. You can check by inserting a number of emojis in a text.....

[Bambino]

Good tips @Cleoriff. A subsection of the use of WiFi and free apps should maybe include WhatsApp for use when you can't use your allowances, if available.

[Cleoriff]

---

@Bambino wrote:

Good tips @Cleoriff. A subsection of the use of WiFi and free apps should maybe include WhatsApp for use when you can't use your allowances, if available.

---

Good point @Bambino

I'll include that in the  revamped article.

[Cleoriff]

Just thought of a couple more things...

Calling Abroad from the UK (charged at International rates Calling Abroad From UK

(unless you have the International Bolt On)  International Bolt On

Checking Travel Rates Abroad.  To include links to Travel in the EU, O2 Travel, O2 Travel Inclusive, International Travel Rates.

A lot of people are shocked at their bill if they don't understand these before they travel abroad

Just a thought...

[TallTrees]

Thank you very much @Cleoriff for taking the time to help customers, especially new customers,  avoid those poss scam and extra charges.  I will find the completed article very important and will make a note of it.

Best wishes Cleo 

[jonsie]

Or buy payand go

So much you can put in there but it could make other guides obsolete. Too many links could confuse?