VODAFONE has promised customers they won't have to pay huge bills of up to £10,000 which they wrongly received when using their phones abroad.
Some people found their Vodafone mobiles stopped working over the weekend with no explanation and they were unable to access the internet or make calls.
Many were later horrified to find notifications on their accounts suggesting they owed thousands of pounds in roaming charges, even if they had only used their phone a handful of times.
A number of those customers complained that they had signed up to Vodafone’s roaming packages while on holiday in order to avoid paying extra – but had received a text notification saying they owed a lot of money.
One user said on Twitter: “My wife's sim card has stopped working, and Vodafone app on her phone shows erroneous amount of £6,576.50 when we are both on Red Extra plan and we are in Istanbul, Turkey.”
According to the phone provider’s website, all its pay monthly plans come with Vodafone Global Roaming, which lets customers use their UK data, minutes and texts in 48 destinations at no extra cost, or pay £6 a day to use their UK allowances in a further 104 destinations.
Another Twitter user, Adam Ray Palmer, said he had only used his phone three times while abroad but had ended up with a huge bill.
He wrote: “[Vodafone has] still not got back to me – was on hold for 60 mins before being cut off because my usage has been cut off currently and says I owe £10,000+, this cannot be right?!”
Charlene Clement wrote: “Have no service and due to travel home tomorrow – plus have had an absolute panic attack seeing a bill of over £1500.00 – what the hell???”
At one point, the company’s app also seemed to be down, leaving worried customers unable to check their charges.
But Vodafone assured customers that they would not have to pay incorrect bills.
How to avoid roaming charges
TO avoid getting a bill in the hundreds, here's how to keep roaming charges to a minimum:
- Turn on airplane mode – airplane mode turns off all wireless connections, including your mobile data.
- Ensure that data roaming is turned off – some iPhone and Android devices have a specific setting where you can turn off data roaming
- Turn off "auto sync" – search the settings menu for a "sync" page, and ensure auto sync is turned off, to prevent apps from updating in the background. Some devices also allow you to turn off background data.
- Ask your mobile network to block data roaming – most networks will allow you to put a block on data roaming.
- Only use your data when you know you're using free wi-fi
- For those who want to use data roaming, many networks offer some kind of package designed to reduce costs. This is often the best way to avoid hidden charges, especially for people expecting to use their phone a lot. Make sure you keep an eye out for exceptions in the terms and conditions.
The company said: “We are very sorry that yesterday, some customers could not use data or calling services when roaming abroad. This was due to a technical error, which we have now fixed.
"Any affected customer should restart their phone to ensure that services are resumed.
As a result of the issue, some customers are receiving billing messages in error; we are working through these as an urgent priority and removing any errors from customer accounts.
"Customers will not be charged and do not need to worry about contacting us as we are proactively checking accounts and fixing any issues."
This is not the first time that Vodafone customers have faced outages: hundreds reported similar problems in June, when they found they were unable to use their phones or access the internet across Europe.
And one mum got a nasty shock when Vodafone charged her £5,000 when her 10-year-old daughter made a 15 second TikTok video on holiday.
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