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Spurious roaming charges in Belgium

  • 12 November 2018
  • 1 reply
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I have just been on a trip to Belgium, sailing into Zeebrugge. Belgium is in the list of inclusive EU roaming destinations, so as advised I had my phone set up for roaming, and expected no charges. Coming into port I received three text messages from ID ... all within a matter of seconds, giving me no chance to react.

The first said I was roaming outside the EU, and that roaming costs could be expensive.

The second said that I was at 80% of my cap value.

The third said that I had hit 100% of my cap ad that I would not be able to use any additional services.

A minute of so later I received text messages welcoming me to Belgium and telling me I could "roam like at home"!

Checking my account I can see that I have received £5 worth of charges for downloading 530kb of data. The account offers no other clue as to who is charging me this and why.

I have 2GB of data allowance left. I am nowhere near a non-EU country, and my cap was at 0% when I left the UK.

My wife similarly has a large data charge on her account, but received none of the warning text messages.

What on earth is going on here?
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Best answer by Kevin 13 November 2018, 13:04

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Kevin
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Hello there @DaveJTurner.

Technically speaking, you would only be classed as being in the EU when you're connecting to networks from the European destinations themselves.

If you were out sailing off the coast of Belgium, it's likely you'll have eventually gone far enough out so that your phone had automatically connected to a maritime network that would not be classed as Belgium. The same would go for practically all of the EU countries when far out on the water.

Understandably it can be a little confusing when on a map you'd consider yourself to be on the continent of Europe, but that isn't how it works when it comes to EU roaming unfortunately.

Thankfully it does seem at least you had a cap in place on the account to ensure you've not been able to rack up any extreme bills. On land in Belgium (or within the EU) you should be able to utilise the normal monthly allowance you get from iD.

Kevin

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