Charded for texting a number in America

[quiltingpat]

My son lives in America, He and I both have iPhones so I text him regularly using iMessage with no problems. I had an extra charge on my bill this month, and when I checked it was for 5 regular texts that I sent him on the same date. I went back through my text history and found the text (there was only one). It was green indicating it had gone through as a text rather than an iMessage. I am not in a contract, and my plan is 30 Day Ess SIM 25GB 
I plan on going in to the store to try and get a refund for the other four texts, but is there a way to turn off the ability (either in my account or on my phone itself) to text overseas numbers? If the text hadn't gone through that day I would have caught it and could have made sure iMessage was still functioning ok both our ends, or I could have messaged him through WhatsApp instead.

[bristolian]

If that "one" text message was longer than 160 characters, it's standard practice for the phone to split it up and send it through the mobile network as multiple texts, and for the recipient phone to then re-construct the messages into a single one. If you see 5 texts on your bill, then I suspect that message was between 641-800 characters.

If you have an international call bar enabled, this should prevent calls & texts being sent to non-UK numbers. As an aside, you've posted in the "roaming" section of the forum, but if you are in the UK you are not roaming. Roaming means using your phone abroad.

[Chris_B]

@quiltingpat   no store will give you a refund as stores are not there to give refunds. They’re there to sell.  You need to speak with customer support.  150 from your EE device.  

if you are billed then you are a contract customer.  You just might be out of contract as the minimum term is up but it’s now a 30 day rolling contract 

there is no way to switch off text messages.  Just make sure the text bubble is blue.