Meteor - HUGE bill for Data calls

ibarelycare

I got my current bill the other day and was gobsmacked as it was nearly €300, it's normally only about €80 or €90. I discovered that there was nearly €200 of data calls made through WAP. I never use WAP on my phone, I only ever use wireless internet. There were only 3 calls made in total, one totalling over €130, and all one after the other. When I rang them, they told me that they'd actually already reduced my bill by €75 because the data calls had been so high. I said that I couldn't understand it because I never used WAP, and she told me that perhaps the phone had been unlocked in my bag and I'd gone on without knowing.

Now I completely accept that this is the likely cause of what happened, although I'm baffled as to how it could have run up such a high cost, especially considering the €130 call only lasted 18 minutes. I asked for a breakdown of the costs and they said that wasn't possible. Nothing had been downloaded to my phone or anything. The girl told me she could try and get them to further reduce the bill and asked me how much I'd be willing to pay of the data calls...I said I'd pay €50.

She came back to me today and told me that, unfortunately, the full amount would have to be paid. I asked was there anyone else I could speak to and she said she'd ask someone to give me a call back.

Is there any point in trying to dispute this? As I said, I do accept that the phone could have gone onto WAP in my bag (although I don't even know how to get onto WAP on my phone, there's no default button on the home screen or anything!), but it was an honest mistake. I really can't afford this bill at the moment, and was thinking of pleading with them to be more leniant! Or even doing the whole "I've been a customer for X amount of years blah blah blah" spiel...anyone think it'll work? Or should I just suck it up and pay the bill?

Paulw

Wireless Application Protocol - WAP, can be used for internet access. So, when you say you just use the internet on your phone, Meteor may list this access on your bill as WAP access.

Check out their website, for terms and conditions and also for prices of data access.

Bottom line - suck it up, pay for it, and work out what you're really doing with your phone.

jor el

ibarelycare wrote: »

I never use WAP on my phone, I only ever use wireless internet.

You mean you use Wifi hotspots, or your home wireless network to access the Internet on the phone, or that you use the phone as a modem and connect it to your computer? If no Wifi network was available, or there was an issue, and you tried to go online, it may have connected using the mobile network.

What's the phone?

ibarelycare

Paulw wrote: »

Wireless Application Protocol - WAP, can be used for internet access. So, when you say you just use the internet on your phone, Meteor may list this access on your bill as WAP access.

Check out their website, for terms and conditions and also for prices of data access.

Bottom line - suck it up, pay for it, and work out what you're really doing with your phone.

I only ever use the wireless in my own house through my broadband connection, and I checked with them and they said I don't get charged for that. They said they charge something like 2cent per kB of dataon WAP; tbh I don't know anything about that but apparently it's expensive.

As for working out what I'm really doing with my phone...I do know. I am usually very careful about locking it before putting it in my bag, and can't imagine why I wouldn't have that day, but since it's the only plausible explanation for what happened, I'll have to accept it.

seamus

What type of phone have you got?

On most modern phones, your phone accidentally accessing the web from your bag is not the same as accidentally making a phone call from your bag.

When you access the web from your phone, you pay for the data downloaded. So you look at a page, but you're only charged for downloading that page, not for how long you are looking at that page.

This is in contrast to the older form of WAP, which was effectively dial-up access on your phone, where you were charged per second for accessing internet.

Although most of the operators (including Meteor) and most phones still support this archaic form of web access, most phones will use GPRS by default and will not dial-up to access the web automatically.

As Paulw points out, Meteor list all web access as WAP (afair).

The chances of your phone having automatically downloaded over 10MB of data is miniscule.

ibarelycare

jor el wrote: »

You mean you use Wifi hotspots, or your home wireless network to access the Internet on the phone, or that you use the phone as a modem and connect it to your computer? If no Wifi network was available, or there was an issue, and you tried to go online, it may have connected using the mobile network.

What's the phone?

Only ever use it in my house to access the internet through our wireless, have never used it anywhere else. It's a Nokia E63.

ibarelycare

seamus wrote: »

What type of phone have you got?

On most modern phones, your phone accidentally accessing the web from your bag is not the same as accidentally making a phone call from your bag.

When you access the web from your phone, you pay for the data downloaded. So you look at a page, but you're only charged for downloading that page, not for how long you are looking at that page.

This is in contrast to the older form of WAP, which was effectively dial-up access on your phone, where you were charged per second for accessing internet.

Although most of the operators (including Meteor) and most phones still support this archaic form of web access, most phones will use GPRS by default and will not dial-up to access the web automatically.

As Paulw points out, Meteor list all web access as WAP (afair).

The chances of your phone having automatically downloaded over 10MB of data is miniscule.

Nokia E63. I don't know much at all about this, I have my bill in front of me and for the priciest one it says GPRSWAP 6211kB, and then the next call (18 mins later) says GPRSDATA 918kB.

seamus

ibarelycare wrote: »

It's a Nokia E63.

OK, this is a very web-based phone. It's possible, maybe even likely that the phone will automatically use dial-up web access to download emails or other background stuff when no other means are available. Or it may simply be accessing the web in the background without your knowledge. Do you have your email configured on the phone?

Edit: Going by your bill, these are data downloads, so the phone seems to be downloading stuff without your knowledge. An email with a big attachment could hit 6MB.

ibarelycare

seamus wrote: »

OK, this is a very web-based phone. It's possible, maybe even likely that the phone will automatically use dial-up web access to download emails or other background stuff when no other means are available. Or it may simply be accessing the web in the background without your knowledge. Do you have your email configured on the phone?

No, someone else asked me this, no email configured to phone. I basically only use my phone for voicecalls and texting! I occasionally use it to connect to the wireless at home, that's about it!

seamus

6MB is a massive amount of data to download "accidentally" on a phone. It is possible that you were at home, browsing the web on your phone, but it wasn't actually connected to your home wireless network?

ibarelycare

seamus wrote: »

6MB is a massive amount of data to download "accidentally" on a phone. It is possible that you were at home, browsing the web on your phone, but it wasn't actually connected to your home wireless network?

I honestly don't know. I'm a bit clueless...I didn't know I could even browse the web without connecting to the wireless . I only ever connect to the internet from the home screen of my phone where I have a WLAN scanner and it detects my wireless. I'd like to be able to know details of the data but Meteor said that they couldn't give me that. But I do suppose this is a possibility.

Paulw

You may need to check the config of your phone, to make sure that it does use the wireless internet (wi-fi) when you connect to your home network.

It may be a case that it connects to your home network but yet still uses WAP to download content. So, while you're connected to your network, you're not actually using it at all.

It may be a config issue.

bongi69

I doubt Meteor will do anything for you. They were very sticky on another issue with me (not Data access related), and hence now I'm with O2.

On the Nokia's with wifi you can configure it to ask you which access point you'd like to use before you surf the net or get emails. In the web browser setting you can set it to "Always Ask", and a pop up box will come up when you select the browser asking you to select an access point. This will stop the phone automatically going to the next available access point which could well be a network one, if your wifi is somehow unavailable.

ibarelycare

Paulw wrote: »

You may need to check the config of your phone, to make sure that it does use the wireless internet (wi-fi) when you connect to your home network.

It may be a case that it connects to your home network but yet still uses WAP to download content. So, while you're connected to your network, you're not actually using it at all.

It may be a config issue.

Well I'm using it the same way as I always have and nothing has ever shown up on my bill before. I really only use it to check my emails or facebook, and as I said, it's very rarely. I'll ask them all these questions anyway when they ring me.

ibarelycare

bongi69 wrote: »

I doubt Meteor will do anything for you. They were very sticky on another issue with me (not Data access related), and hence now I'm with O2.

On the Nokia's with wifi you can configure it to ask you which access point you'd like to use before you surf the net or get emails. In the web browser setting you can set it to "Always Ask", and a pop up box will come up when you select the browser asking you to select an access point. This will stop the phone automatically going to the next available access point which could well be a network one, if your wifi is somehow unavailable.

It does this already. After I click "Start Web Browsing," my eircom line comes up and I click that!

bongi69

ibarelycare wrote: »

It does this already. After I click "Start Web Browsing," my eircom line comes up and I click that!

Check to see if there's any apps that use an internet connection. Some apps require you to set one access point, and you have to manually change it if you want to use another, or they'll just use the default (meteor). They'll never ask you to select an access point when opening them, the way your internet browser would do.

Using my old phone, a N95 8GB as an example, Ovi maps was an application that wouldn't ask for an acess point and just go ahead and use the meteor one. I had to set it to ask to go online before maps started. I dunno how relevent this will be to your phone, but just check the settings of any apps you have to make sure. TBH, the amount of data you "downloaded" sounds suspiciously like Ovi Maps (Nokia Maps in older versions).

ibarelycare

bongi69 wrote: »

Check to see if there's any apps that use an internet connection. Some apps require you to set one access point, and you have to manually change it if you want to use another, or they'll just use the default (meteor). They'll never ask you to select an access point when opening them, the way your internet browser would do.

Using my old phone, a N95 8GB as an example, Ovi maps was an application that wouldn't ask for an acess point and just go ahead and use the meteor one. I had to set it to ask to go online before maps started. I dunno how relevent this will be to your phone, but just check the settings of any apps you have to make sure. TBH, the amount of data you "downloaded" sounds suspiciously like Ovi Maps (Nokia Maps in older versions).

Oh crap....that's it. I honestly completely forgot about it. My brother was messing with my phone one day and was asking about the Ovi maps app. I have never used it but he started messing around with it. I don't know what he did but he obviously downloaded it. Would it seriously cost that much? I'm shocked. Well I guess I'll just have to pay it now

Thanks for everyone's help.

Paulw

The new Ovi maps come with a lot of add-ons, so it would be a large download.

That certainly could explain your data usage.

With that too, you can set it to only use your wi-fi and not use WAP.

bongi69

ibarelycare wrote: »

Oh crap....that's it. I honestly completely forgot about it. My brother was messing with my phone one day and was asking about the Ovi maps app. I have never used it but he started messing around with it. I don't know what he did but he obviously downloaded it. Would it seriously cost that much? I'm shocked. Well I guess I'll just have to pay it now

Thanks for everyone's help.

Turn your phone to airplane mode (so nothing will be downloaded), go into maps, into settings. Under network settings there should be a box to ask you if you want to go online when using maps. Check this box and everytime it starts, it'll ask if you wanna go online. Set the default access point to your wifi too, as an extra safeguard.

You can at least try appeal to Meteor's sense of good, and play dumb about it, you didn't know, wont do it again etc. but don't expect anything. I'd be chasing the brother down the street with an axe

ibarelycare

bongi69 wrote: »

Turn your phone to airplane mode (so nothing will be downloaded), go into maps, into settings. Under network settings there should be a box to ask you if you want to go online when using maps. Check this box and everytime it starts, it'll ask if you wanna go online.

You can at least try appeal to Meteor's sense of good, and play dumb about it, you didn't know, wont do it again etc. but don't expect anything. I'd be chasing the brother down the street with an axe

I'll do that now, cheers

And yeah, I'm going to kill him!

Theta

Sounds like it did an over the air software update to me. Like you maybe started it by accident or something like that. The sizes are about right for it anyway. And the multiple calls sounds like it downloaded one update after the other?

If it has ovi maps then the size is about right for the latest version.

I know I have done this at least once by accident although the update was tiny.

seamus

Should be possible to completely disable data by deleteing the APN data on the phone. I think this will also disable MMS too, though I could be wrong or it may depend on your phone.

Cabaal

seamus wrote: »

6MB is a massive amount of data to download "accidentally" on a phone. It is possible that you were at home, browsing the web on your phone, but it wasn't actually connected to your home wireless network?

Not really to be honest, could be some sort of application update or something....I can pull down 40MB in about 20min via an edge connection on my iPhone

Domscard

This charge would have been even worse if you were roaming :eek: I came across this today http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=47583 and it leaves me quite worried about using Ovi maps at all.
I too use the internet almost exclusively on wifi and I'd hate to think that it had a mind of its own when it came to making a connection to download data. I have ensured that the settings on my Nokia demand a confirmation of connection but it seems that this may not be enough.
I can't find any settings related to internet connection on the Ovi maps app itself, which indicates that it is disabled. But if that bug report is true (and I'm reading it correctly) just opening Ovi Maps will result in a download!

delllat

Domscard wrote: »

This charge would have been even worse if you were roaming :eek: I came across this today http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=47583 and it leaves me quite worried about using Ovi maps at all.
I too use the internet almost exclusively on wifi and I'd hate to think that it had a mind of its own when it came to making a connection to download data. I have ensured that the settings on my Nokia demand a confirmation of connection but it seems that this may not be enough.
I can't find any settings related to internet connection on the Ovi maps app itself, which indicates that it is disabled. But if that bug report is true (and I'm reading it correctly) just opening Ovi Maps will result in a download!

almost ecery time a program starts up it connects to an update server so info would be being passed back and forward

jor el

ibarelycare wrote: »

Would it seriously cost that much? I'm shocked.

At 2c per kB, and you downloaded about 7MB (7000kB), the cost would be about €140.

ibarelycare wrote: »

Well I guess I'll just have to pay it now

Expensive lesson to learn, unless you can pawn it off onto your brother for messing with it in the first place...

Domscard

delllat wrote: »

almost ecery time a program starts up it connects to an update server so info would be being passed back and forward

I must definitely watch that when roaming in NI especially. I had understood from some other forums that Ovi maps could be updated on wifi to avoid downloads on the road.
On another note for the OP, I know that pre-pay Vodafone (and O2) allow you to connect to the internet for 99c a day (50mbs). Is this not the case with Meteor?

Theta

Domscard wrote: »

I must definitely watch that when roaming in NI especially. I had understood from some other forums that Ovi maps could be updated on wifi to avoid downloads on the road.
On another note for the OP, I know that pre-pay Vodafone (and O2) allow you to connect to the internet for 99c a day (50mbs). Is this not the case with Meteor?

It is I think one of my friends was telling me he uses this all the time on Meteor but you have to opt into it.

dudara

If you're bill pay on Meteor, then you can get monthly data add-ons. I currently do this on an iPhone with Meteor and it's quite cost effective.

Cabaal

dudara wrote: »

If you're bill pay on Meteor, then you can get monthly data add-ons. I currently do this on an iPhone with Meteor and it's quite cost effective.

I use an iPhone on Meteor and pay about 5e a month for a 250MB data addon, I think the most I've used is about 190MB in a one month period and this alot of browsing.....its worth the peace of mind

ibarelycare

dudara wrote: »

If you're bill pay on Meteor, then you can get monthly data add-ons. I currently do this on an iPhone with Meteor and it's quite cost effective.

Yeah they said this to me on the phone, but there's no point in me getting it, as I won't use it. I'll just be more careful from now on!