topic Re: Charged for simple text message in Mobile Services

Charged for simple text message

G109B — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:35:08 GMT

When you send a text message it can travel by iMessage, SMS, MMS, or RCS.

The choice is down to your phone type, your phone settings, your carrier's policies, the policies of the carrier used by the recipient, and the type of phone the recipient uses.

For instance, a simple message I sent from my iPhone was charged 93p because the destination was not an iPhone so didn't use iMessage, and its carrier (Talkmobile) only accepts messages >160 chars using MMS (the picture service).

Unfortunately the lovely friendly people in EE Technical Support do not have a clue about all this, and could only insist the problem was due to me sending a picture, which really wound me up to the point they gave me a free PAC to leave EE and a refund of the 93p.

I took up this offer for one of my iPhones and moved it to O2 where MMS is free, but this turns out to be only for the first month (duh!).

I have since discovered all the above, and have turned off MMS in my phone settings.

Re: Charged for simple text message

G109B — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:20:02 GMT

When you send a text message it can travel by iMessage, SMS, MMS, or RCS.
The choice is down to your phone type, your phone settings, your carrier's policies, the policies of the carrier used by the recipient, and the type of phone the recipient uses.
For instance, a simple message I sent from my iPhone was charged 93p because the destination was not an iPhone so didn't use iMessage, and its carrier (Talkmobile) only accepts messages >160 chars using MMS (the picture service).
Unfortunately the lovely friendly people in EE Technical Support do not have a clue about all this, and could only insist the problem was due to me sending a picture, which really wound me up to the point they gave me a free PAC to leave EE and a refund of the 93p.
I took up this offer for one of my iPhones and moved it to O2 where MMS is free, but this turns out to be only for the first month (duh!).

Re: Charged for simple text message

bristolian — Thu, 15 May 2025 11:32:42 GMT

@G109B wrote:

For instance, a simple message I sent from my iPhone was charged 93p because the destination was not an iPhone so didn't use iMessage, and its carrier (Talkmobile) only accepts messages >160 chars using MMS (the picture service).

This has all the hallmarks of a well-intentioned explanation that doesn't stack up.

I find it extremely unlikely that Talk-Mobile doesn't support concatenated text messages, i.e. those above 160 characters displayed as one. However, even if it were the case.. you will have sent a message as SMS, it will have been carried through EE's network and onwards, as SMS, and the conversion would have been done by TalkMobile.

You will have been charged for what you sent, regardless of what another operator does with it. That's a basic principle of UK telecoms. An analogy is that you call another UK mobile who happens to be roaming abroad - you have called a UK number and are charged for a UK number. It is the roaming user who's responsible for the international costs.

Thus in your example, if your bill showed charges for an MMS, then EE's network received an MMS from your phone.

Re: Charged for simple text message

G109B — Thu, 15 May 2025 12:08:48 GMT

@bristolianI am only learning about this the hard way, so maybe my iPhone 16 is choosing MMS.

I did check that Talk-Mobile doesn't accept >160 chars, and the recipient has an Alcatel phone, so I assumed that some sort of negotiation takes place. The real issue for me was EE Technical Support not knowing about any of this.

Their investigation involved sending me a new SIM, removing the recipient from my contacts, deleting all previous messages from them, rebooting my phone, and ended up asking me to take the phone to their nearest retail outlet. Unbelievable !!

On the plus side, they were able to explain how to stop text messages going to both of my phones instead of just the one they were sent to, how to turn off MMS, and how to set my spending cap to zero.

Re: Charged for simple text message

Chris_B — Thu, 15 May 2025 12:47:46 GMT

@G109B Is that two iPhones ? If it is it’s because you have messages in the cloud enabled. It’s an iCloud setting

Re: Charged for simple text message

G109B — Thu, 15 May 2025 12:58:00 GMT

@Chris_B Maybe. On the other hand, look in Settings/Apps/Messages/Send&Receive where both numbers are listed and only one needs to be ticked.

Re: Charged for simple text message

Ali_A — Thu, 15 May 2025 15:04:45 GMT

HI @G109B

Thanks for taking the time to let us know your experience. Sorry to hear there was some confusion about the message you had sent.

You can have a look at our Why some text messages are converted to photo messages page which has a lot of information about messages being sent as MMS.

Ali

Re: Charged for simple text message

XRaySpeX — Thu, 15 May 2025 20:01:16 GMT

Strictly only an SMS is a text!

Whatever you sent was converted by your phone to an MMS (Picture Msg) & charged accordingly. Possibly cuz it contained an attachment or some non-text chars. like emojis. The recipient network would have no influence on how it was sent or charged and their explanation does not make sense as @bristolian pointed out.

Re: Charged for simple text message

G109B — Thu, 15 May 2025 20:27:38 GMT

@Ali_A sent a very telling link to something that I and EE TechSupport do not know,
where you will find that adding a SUBJECT will cause MMS to be used:
https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/manage-use/using-phone-features/text-messages-converted-to-photo-messages
@XRaySpeX is just repeating the standard mantra I hear over and over, and clearly doesn't fit my case.

Re: Charged for simple text message

XRaySpeX — Thu, 15 May 2025 20:32:53 GMT

Yes, I just gave 2 examples of the reasons that texts are converted to MMS listed in that article.