topic Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan in Contracts & Billing

Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 14:30:21 GMT

I've noticed an issue on my latest bill where I've been charged for calls to a Spanish mobile number, even though my contract explicitly states that I can use my phone's calls, texts, and data allowance while in Spain.

What's particularly concerning is that I've called this number multiple times during the billing period. EE support confirms that calls to the number starting with 0034649XXXXXX should be free of charge, yet calls to 00649XXXXXX are being charged.

It seems the EE system has started treating the same number differently. I've always dialed it with the country code as 0034649XXXXXX, and now it appears the system is misrecording the same number.
When I try to dial 00649XXXXXX from Spain, the number doesn't even exist, yet my bill claims I made calls to it totaling 70 minutes (!).

Has anyone else experienced something similar? How long did it take to get this resolved?

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Chris_B — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:10:58 GMT

@venetas Calling a 00649 isn’t a EU number that’s a area code for Turks and Caicos Islands

So you’ll be charged accordingly to that destination as that’s not within the EU that you can call and use your allowance for.

You can call any EU number while within the EU and use your allowance and this doesn’t cover calls outside the EU as in this case

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:27:31 GMT

The number I called is +34649XXXXXX, however EE claims it's 00649XXXXXX but it says Spain in brackets on my bill.
Additionally, when you dial 00649XXXXXX from Spain, you don't get through as such number simply does not exist.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

bristolian — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:48:07 GMT

Were you roaming in Spain whilst making these calls? Or in the UK?

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

XRaySpeX — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:33:38 GMT

An '00' prefix indicates an International code follows it.

'0034' indicates Spain & should work in Spain.

'00649' indicates Turks and Caicos Islands & would be chargeable when called from EU.

So, to call the Spanish no. you want you should use '0034649XXXXXX', not '00649XXXXXX'

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:45:43 GMT

Yes, I was in Spain and dialled +34 followd by the Spanish mobile number all the times I've been making a call to this number. Never dialled +64

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:47:53 GMT

That's the thing, I've dialled +34 followed by the Spanish mobile number each time I was making a call to this number.

Some of the calls are recorded as +34 by EE and some as +64 despite always having dialled +34.

It's just EE not making record of the +34 in some of the calls.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:48:55 GMT

Never dialled +64, that's the whole point.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Caroline_45 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 13:52:18 GMT

I’m in the same boat. Two calls to restaurants in Portugal while I was in Portugal and EE has turned them into calls to the Middle East despite my mobile showing clearly they are Portuguese numbers. Call centre man said he would credit my account as goodwill as they were chargeable calls. Refused to engage with the problem. Clearly EE’s systems have issues and customers are being punished. Also heard the guy talking to a colleague and laughing at me while I was on the line. Great service!

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Katie_B — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 14:28:56 GMT

Hello @Caroline_45.

I am very sorry to hear about your recent experience.

You can submit a complaint by completing this online form.

A member of our complaints team will be able to look into your call issues and also investigate the call you had with an EE agent and send some internal feedback.

Katie

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Caroline_45 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 18:00:48 GMT

Hi Katie, many thanks. I have already complained. The problem here is that there is clearly some sort of glitch in your systems that is wrongly categorising calls for several customers. To then be told that there is no problem, that my calls were not within Portugal (they were to local restaurants to make bookings!) and even be laughed at by an advisor is pretty shocking. As a company EE urgently needs to investigate why it is wrongly categorising some roaming calls and issue a general apology to affected customers.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

MarkC63 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 16:02:35 GMT

Hi @Caroline_45

I had exactly the same experience in Portugal last month.

Called a local Portuguese Mobile +351 933 09 xxxx Duration 2 mins 17 secs

It's showing on my bill as £6:83 and tagged as 00 933 09 xxxx (Which is Afghanistan ! )

It actually triggered an alert that I'd used over 80% of my price cap.

It was that alert that led me to contact Customer Services, at that stage I didn't realise it was the call that had caused it, I asked them repeatedly what had suddenly caused the trigger. They wouldn't/coudn't tell me !

Next day, I saw the call in my unbilled list. I phoned again, but it simply wasn't taken seriously, they said they couldn't do anything until the bill was issued, which was today. I tried phoning again today, they said their; and I quote, 'Our World Wide System is down for the day " !

Anyway, Complaint form filled in, and sent off.

Lousy Lousy service

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Caroline_45 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 16:20:52 GMT

Yup! It's crazy. The guy laughing at me to his colleague said 'It's only £3.32. I could understand if it was £30, but £3.32!'. I had told him repeatedly that it wasn't about the amount, it was about losing confidence in their systems when I'm roaming, first to correctly identify a call within the EU/country, and secondly, at least to recognise an error when it occurred - which the guy refused to do. He just kept saying it was a chargeable call and that there were no issues of this type that they were aware of. I offered to send a screenshot of my recent call logs showing it was to Portugal and he said he didn't want a screenshot! I'd love to FOI them on how many complaints they've had about this issue! Anyway, I'm exploring other networks as this has just been terrible customer service.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

MarkC63 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 16:28:50 GMT

Yes, It's the same with me, only 7 quid, but it could have been so much more ! Fortunately, it was the only non UK number I rang while I was there

Contract expires in April, I'm seriously considering jumping ship now, I've been with EE for 11 years, the first 10 were fine, but this year it's deteriorated significantly.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Caroline_45 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 16:38:38 GMT

I agree. I've been with them for many years, but this has really damaged my faith in their systems and their customer service. Not sure I can go back from that, especially given they still haven't admitted their mistake.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

venetas — Sat, 19 Oct 2024 13:44:04 GMT

Now this happened again, and I have to spend hours and hours with EE support to have it investigated and eventually resolved. This is absolutely unacceptable, what a scam!

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

MarkC63 — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 08:10:18 GMT

After filling in the complaints form on Friday, yesterday I received a phone call from EE.
We had quite a long chat. The chap said they had had a systems error over the last couple of months, where folk roaming in the EU, had been charged for making 'local' calls. He acknowledged my call had indeed been made to a standard local Portuguese mobile.

I said that's fine, but what concerns me more is none of the three CS staff I've interacted with, knew that, or if they did, why didn't they acknowledge the issue ?

I said what alerted me originally to the incorrect charges, was an SMS saying I was getting close to my 10 UKP spend cap, but the CS agent couldn't/wouldn't tell me what had caused that, and I was blissfully unaware of the error charge until I returned home, and properly examined my unbilled activity on my desktop PC.

He said they will all be 're-trained !'

I will receive a refund, and a goodwill payment.

I suggest, if not already done, complete this online form.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

AHarMan2 — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 10:41:14 GMT

I too have lost confidence in their system when they implemented real time billing

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/10/ee-uk-overcharges-some-mobile-customers-by-hundreds-of-pounds.html

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

Caroline_45 — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 10:59:32 GMT

Put in a complaint and got a call this morning. Apparently the first charged call was because roaming hadn't been set up properly on my account; the second was because it was to a Portuguese mobile. So people need to be aware that apparently local mobile phone numbers are NOT included in our roaming, which seems a bit harsh to me - the person explained that it was to try to keep costs under control for EE. I had a look at Vodafone and it looks like it may be the same there too. Who said Brexit would be fantastic again......?

Anyway, the person who spoke to me was very helpful and explained things clearly. Hopefully there will be some retraining further down the chain so that call centre agents give better explanations and advice.

Re: Charged for calling a Spanish mobile when EU roaming is included in my plan

XRaySpeX — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 11:59:23 GMT

@Caroline_45 wrote:

So people need to be aware that apparently local mobile phone numbers are NOT included in our roaming

Not true! While roaming in EU calls to local (non-premium rate) phones nos. are included in your allowances. Just have a look at https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/roaming/roaming-costs/countries/portugal :