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£1170 pounds bill from o2

hi all just got my monthly bill from o2 today and the cheeky buggers have charged me over a grand for gprs . the funny thing is i dont even use the gprs on my xda2i . so first port of call was to call them and ask what do they think they r playing at . i stated to them i dont even use my gprs on my phone and never have . anyway after talking to 1 of there so called managers he said that the only thing it could be is that someone has hacked into my phone and used my gprs or my gprs is broke on my phone and somehow it has been sending and reciving data . anyway i said to them so what do i do as i am not going to pay this bill of over a grand not a chance . anyway he said i had to put it in wrighting to them stating what happend and send a copy of the bill also . and he also said to cancal my direct debit so i have . the cheek of them the guy said a thousand pound was a lot of gprs data and i said maybe it is a lot of data but it has nothing to do with me . so i have just typed up a 2 page letter to them and it will be in the post first thing in the morning . i will tell u how i get on in the near future when they get back to me . anyway direct debit cancled . o2 bunch of fools why o why did i go back to this company . i have had nothing but trouble with them . just thought i would share my thoughts with all of u

Wow. What rate have they supposedly charged you at? Is it physically possible to have used that much data?
£1120 lets say at £3 p/m is 350 meg or 10 meg a day. Hmmmmm.
But lets say it's £1 a meg for big contract customers, 30 meg a day? They've gotta be kidding!
Never heard of anyone 'hacking' gprs unless they have cloned your sim in which case Jupiter ( as was the o2 billing system) would have picked up 2 handsets on the network at the same time and flagged it.
Richard

maybe u r right i am not sure . either way i dont use the gprs . on my phone and never have i use the wireless while sitting about the house ats it . still i cant wait to see what o2 have to say . coz at the end of the day i am not going to pay this bill not a chance . if ppl cant hack into My phone then the gprs must be broke or something . god i am scared to use my phone as i dont no what else they think they can bi l me for ... still life goes on eh

are you sure the charge is for gprs and not actually for dial up WAP access?
my charmer for some reason, decided to connect to the net overnight (while i was asleep) via dial up WAP even though i have a permanent and unlimited GPRS access.
i noticed this immeadiately in the morning, checked my account online and saw the £37 plus vat charges applied for WAP, called them up and had WAP disabled and the charges refunded.
the most common reason for this to happen is your email/IM or some other prog you have installed set to automatically connect to the net.
on my charmer i suspect it was actually pocket weather doing the deed.
i have applied my own back up fix "just in case" and have taken out of the dial up settings all the "9"'s and replaced them with "x"'s so it cannot dial up at all but if i should need to, i can quickly undo this fix to connect

fluffcat1 said:
Wow. What rate have they supposedly charged you at? Is it physically possible to have used that much data?
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When they incorrectly charged me for two days data in March (thanks O2!!) it came to £117*.
Of course they don't do refunds, but credits, which means they still want you to pay the incorrect bill, to be credited later. Fools.
Can't wait until T-Mobile brings out the Hermes, then I'm gone from O2 forever.
(*I stream radio a lot, and use push email a lot, and download from RSS feeds a lot.)

According to my online bill i'm still not getting charged for GPRS access.

fluffcat1 said:
Wow. What rate have they supposedly charged you at? Is it physically possible to have used that much data?
£1120 lets say at £3 p/m is 350 meg or 10 meg a day. Hmmmmm.
But lets say it's £1 a meg for big contract customers, 30 meg a day? They've gotta be kidding!
Never heard of anyone 'hacking' gprs unless they have cloned your sim in which case Jupiter ( as was the o2 billing system) would have picked up 2 handsets on the network at the same time and flagged it.
Richard
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I'm not actually suprised. When my corporate 9100 arrived at the beginning of using it I fortunately loaded the gprs monitor.
Our exchange support team had set the push mail up a bit heavily. In addition to email it tuned out they were pushing 700kb an hour to my phone regardless of my receiving any mail.
Until i started to read the gprs report i was running between 11-16mb a day (approx 700kb an hour background). Once I realised what it was doing I turned push off and had it running autosync every 10 mins 0700-2200 with every hour overnight (approx 40kb per hour background).
It may be corporate money, but until they sort it out 10 minute sync is good enough as at least I can control it.
Data dropped to 800k-2mb per day... much more sensible.
Its a bit like those pesky joke sms msgs, you don't know you've been charged until the end of them month.

Agree with u on 02 incompetence. They could not tell me which speed/size of SD cards are compatible with my EXec. Asked me to phone Sandisk!! Incompetence exemplified - after I held on for over an hour for technical support. Plus voicemail is not time stamped, u can't tell when they r left nor can u repeat a current msg without getting to the end of all the new messages first!!

belfast-biker said:
When they incorrectly charged me for two days data in March (thanks O2!!) it came to £117*.
Of course they don't do refunds, but credits, which means they still want you to pay the incorrect bill, to be credited later. Fools.
Can't wait until T-Mobile brings out the Hermes, then I'm gone from O2 forever.
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O2 strike again. Didn't pay last months bill (my fault) of £120, and this months bill with those arrears, is £407. ON a basic rental of £35 and not going over miutes or texts.
£120 arrears (fair enough)
£35 rental
£80 data (jesus, and this is with push email turned off)
And the rest? They now want me to pay out the remainder of my contract, presumably because of my non payment last month? I don't know. They didn't say. But they do say in the email:
"The balance on your account shows that you do not owe us any money." and;
"You will see that your first bill contains two line rental charges, one for your first month and the second for the next month (in advance). "
Which is... bizarre. Total fools.
Anyhow, could not wait any longer with that level of sheer stupidity, so I've just gone and sorted myself out with the monthly £7.50/50minutes contract with T-Mobile, to wihch I'll add the £7.50 webnwalk unlimited data bundle.
Bliss.

tmobile web'n'walk is an invention of genius
£7.50 a month, as much data as you can possibly get out of it provided it's not p2p or streaming video
makes push email unnecessary when you can set your email to check every couple of minutes

agentp said:
tmobile web'n'walk is an invention of genius
£7.50 a month, as much data as you can possibly get out of it provided it's not p2p or streaming video
makes push email unnecessary when you can set your email to check every couple of minutes
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I thought that too, but push email gives you OTA syncing of your calendar, contacts and tasks too...

Loss of 3G?

Did anyone else with a media max plan suddenly lose 3G signal where you used to have it before? Mine switch to edge today at 4:30 and won't get the 3G signal back.

mrspawn99 said:
Did anyone else with a media max plan suddenly lose 3G signal where you used to have it before? Mine switch to edge today at 4:30 and won't get the 3G signal back.
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Could be a local tower problem, congestion or it could just be a display problem on the phone. Yesterday my phone was displaying both "G" and "E" over the course of 3 hours, but the WM field test app showed I wasn't connected via GSM and when I did a speed test it came out to ~400 kbps. That's 3G speed, so I think the Fuze indicator was just incorrect.
For a good way to confirm, type in *#*#364#*#* into the phone dialer. A field test app will come up. Scroll down to "Band". If you see "850" or "PCS", you are connected via GSM/EDGE. If you see <unknown>, you are connected via WCDMA (3G).
Speaking of which, is there a version of WM's field test floating around somewhere that will show correct power, band and channel info for WCDMA?

Good call on that one, it was just displaying the wrong icon. I thought I had goten caught in that whole Media Net vs. PDA plan BS.
Incidentally, does anyone know whether they can limit your data usage like that. e.g. throttle you down to egde service when you have a 3g enabled device but still provide an internet connection?

mrspawn99 said:
Good call on that one, it was just displaying the wrong icon. I thought I had goten caught in that whole Media Net vs. PDA plan BS.
Incidentally, does anyone know whether they can limit your data usage like that. e.g. throttle you down to egde service when you have a 3g enabled device but still provide an internet connection?
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yes sooner or later .. THEY WILL eventually catch up to you and you might end with a huge bill if they can prove that you were using media max on a pda ... just blowing winds of caution

My Phone is EVIL - $438 in data charges this month

So this morning I was woken up to a phone call from my furious father saying I have to pay $438 dollars for my data usage on my phone. I just got the phone last month (VZW Apache) and was aware of the pay-as-you-go data usage, but I figured I will rarely be using it because wherever I go I'll just use wifi. Little did I know that when I went to open my internet browser, my wifi was never turned on and it used over the air to get my data. GREAT
Am I f**ked or what?

Well, I wouldn't say that your phone was "evil". The icons for WLAN and GPRS/EDGE in the top bar look entirely different!

ziki88 said:
So this morning I was woken up to a phone call from my furious father saying I have to pay $438 dollars for my data usage on my phone. I just got the phone last month (VZW Apache) and was aware of the pay-as-you-go data usage, but I figured I will rarely be using it because wherever I go I'll just use wifi. Little did I know that when I went to open my internet browser, my wifi was never turned on and it used over the air to get my data. GREAT
Am I f**ked or what?
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Your best bet here is to have your dad call Verizon, with you on the phone also, and explain your situation (you thought WiFi was on). If they are accommodating like AT&T, they will remove the data charges if you agree to sign up for a data plan on your phone.
Keep the $30-50 data plan on your account for a month or so, and then remove it. Much better then being on the hook for $438.

You are going to have a hard time addressing that.
Legally, you only have one recourse. It would need to be a malfunction of the phone. That is to say it indicated a connection via WiFi while actually utilizing your data connection. In that sense you are in a better position than the iPhone user who takes their phone overseas racking up huge charges as it checks email. They have no legal recourse, since the contract clearly states the phone will incur significant charges whilst overseas unless otherwise configured.
I do think our contract law is getting out of control by encouraging consumers to sign contracts whose terms they do not understand, where minor clauses can lead to thousand dollar charges. Any large financial liabilities should be clearly stated in large print such that the consumer can understand how to avoid incuring them.
Of course, this isn't legal advice, just my personal opinion. If it was not a malfunction of the phone or misleading information offered to you by customer service then you are beholden to the good will of your carrier. Often they will adjust fees like this, but that's entirely up to them and they have no legal requirement to do so. NotATreoFan offers good advice, that's probably your best bet.

I agree with NATF as well. Ask to sign up for one year of their data plan if they agree to waive your data usage for that month. Even if it comes out to the ame amount, at least you have 12 months to pay it off and internet access.
I just wonder if it isnt better to talk to a person in the store you bought the phone from instead of talking to a rep on the phone. The store may not have the ability to do as much, but I would imagine they would be more inclined to help.

So I just got off the phone with them. The best they could do was take off 25% of the data fees. The rep's explanation was that even though WiFi is always on, verizon automatically uses their network for internet, unless there's no verizon signal...then it'll use wifi. LOL
What I did was I mentioned a magical phrase...data plan. After crunching some numbers the representative gave me a deal...I do data plan until my contract is up (feb 19)...SAWEET
Thanks for the suggestions guys

ziki88 said:
So I just got off the phone with them. The best they could do was take off 25% of the data fees. The rep's explanation was that even though WiFi is always on, verizon automatically uses their network for internet, unless there's no verizon signal...then it'll use wifi. LOL
What I did was I mentioned a magical phrase...data plan. After crunching some numbers the representative gave me a deal...I do data plan until my contract is up (feb 19)...SAWEET
Thanks for the suggestions guys
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What kind of deal did you get?

The deal was he refunded the $438 charge and instead we did the data plan (~$44) till feb 19

ziki88 said:
The deal was he refunded the $438 charge and instead we did the data plan (~$44) till feb 19
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Exactly what I was hoping they would do. Grats...

NotATreoFan said:
Exactly what I was hoping they would do. Grats...
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yeah man, seriously lucky. Glad it worked out for you

Sprint hotspot service charge?

Tried to search for the thread without a result..
I reflashed my phone to custom 2.2, it came with sprint hotspot.
Comcast's connection is shoddy, it's on and off. Connects to the router and all, but the damn modem doesn't have a good connection to comcast's router. Renewing the ip won't do **** either.. it'll usually self resolve in 2-3 hours....idfk...
Anyway, I started using spring hotspot and it's really neat, comcast goes down, sprint goes up.
I do very basic web browsing, I don't believe it hogs bandwidth, and I have the unlimited data plan. I did a couple google searches but most of them were rants about getting hotspot to start up without the $30 activation charge, well.. clearly, I don't have that issue. I have the, am I about to get ****ed in the ass because i'm using this service, issue.
How can sprint monitor data usage? Would they be able to tell that the phone has been tethering? If so is there a work around? Like I said, I keep it to a minimum, and only on certain occasions.
If I am about to get a $500 bill, I would like to know ahead of time. haha

What Android setting did I miss?

Hello all,
My apologies if this belongs somewhere else. OK so here's what I would very much need to see about getting resolved rather quickly. I recently switched phone service. I now have Mint that has 6 months for $45, which has 4GB per month data - https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/
I'm not sure if things are setup correctly. I have a Pixel 4a5G phone and I was listening to music on it and using up my data, before getting home. What was happening before on a previous plan, from another company, was when I was listening to music, I would have my service stopped when I got home. I would think this is happening cause I have a home wifi signal that it is reaching, and it automatically disconnects to connect to the wifi signal. This is what I am ASSUMING is what happens with Android. This is far more desirable than what is happening now. I come home and it's still playing the Mint connection, which is costing me. Yes, yes, the service is cheap and I might get by with 4GBs per month, but I'd much rather it disconnect when there's a "free" wifi signal available. Seems like it used to be that I got disconnected when I got home and it would reconnect with the free wifi, but I'll take just getting disconnected from a charged line, if I can.
I even prefer doing wifi calls, just so I know it works. So is there a normal way to have settings setup to best avoid phantom charges? Thanks for reading this and I look forward to being kicked down some knowledge!
If this belongs somewhere else, please let me know.

Assuming Wi-Fi can connect to Internet - take note that the Wi-Fi network doesn't have Internet access, it's simply a Wi-Fi access point exposed by an external device during setup:
Enable aeroplane mode, then toggle Wi-Fi.

Us3r_1 said:
Hello all,
I now have Mint that has 6 months for $45, which has 4GB per month data - https://www.mintmobile.com/plans/
I'm not sure if things are setup correctly. I have a Pixel 4a5G phone and I was listening to music on it and using up my data,
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Click to collapse
4GB data per month was good enough 10 years ago but now be very very careful because just a system update can cost you 2GB data.
Bare in mind that there are TWO computer byte standards and businesses take advantages and mislead clients so you think that you get 4GB instead they are much less: byte
And also you listen to music so this is another reason why 4GB per month (not real) aren't enough.
Regarding wi-fi settings, I advice you check with your network provider because sometimes phones don't download the right information.

Us3r_1 said:
What was happening before on a previous plan, from another company, was when I was listening to music, I would have my service stopped when I got home. I would think this is happening cause I have a home wifi signal that it is reaching, and it automatically disconnects to connect to the wifi signal. This is what I am ASSUMING is what happens with Android. This is far more desirable than what is happening now.
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Well this happened today as I outlined here. It released the "costly" connection for the free connection. Too bad you can't setup a preferred hifi connection. Would make things way more simple.