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

[venetas]

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.

1. 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.
2. 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? 

[Caroline_45]

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.

[MarkC63]

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

[Caroline_45]

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. 

[MarkC63]

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. 

[Caroline_45]

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.

[venetas]

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! 

[MarkC63]

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.

[AHarMan2]

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...

[Caroline_45]

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.

[XRaySpeX]

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@Caroline_45 wrote:

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

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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 :