Charged for group texts as picture messages

[hastings66]

Steaming....

So I send a group text as I am Girlguide leader - just short messages on where to meet up etc.  Then turns out EE have been charging for them as PICTURE MESSAGING!!!  £50 extra bill this month (plus previous months I had not noticed...).  No warning! No pictures!  Just simple texts sent to a group of people.

I complained and they gave me half the money back.  This is outrageous - how many other people are they doing this to?  Told me to use Whatapp - a bit late now and I need to get a whole new set of permissions plus it's not the same - more for chatting...

Grr....and you think I'll renew my contract (for my whole family)??

[Alex_M]

Hi @hastings66,

Some devices will convert group texts to MMS messages automatically. It's not done by EE.

EE has a help article which explains it better: https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/getting-started-and-upgrading/using-your-phone-features/why-are-some-...

Personally, I would stick to things like Whatsapp or Messenger for group chat.

Thanks,
Alex

[bristolian]

I'm unsure about Apple, but Android phones definitely give an onscreen notification when a text message is being converted to an MMS, which is chargeable.

Emoji are usually OK for SMS, but group messages will often get converted.

This will be the same regardless of network.

[Chris_B]

@hastings66   your probably sending to all sorts of devices ( iPhones/Android ) and  if you go over a set limit of devices I think it’s 3 or 4 these will be sent as an MMS not a text message.     It’s not just EE it’s all networks as these are device based not network based. 

  If you are sending to only iPhones are are using a iPhone yourself these will go as an iMessage .    

Group texts have always been like this it’s nothing new.   

 What’s app is the best way to send group messages. 

[bristolian]

The limit on length of text messages that can be carried over SMS is quite high - I think it's 8 messages that can be concatenated and that's a hard limit.

You can configure an Android phone such that the majority of emojis are sent as SMS, but ultimately anything that's converted to MMS has an onscreen warning. And this will affect all users of a particular device, regardless of which network you are on.