Database Users

Help - one GPRS call cost me EUR280 ???

I got an XDAII in mid May (birthday present from my wife) and did not receive a bill until end June.
When I saw the first bill there was a GPRS call at 9.37am on a Sunday morning where I apparently downloaded 56MB of data ?. I cannot account for this and have repeatedly queried it. It has costed me EUR 231 plus VAT. which I am still querying with O2.
Can anyone help / clarify how this could or might have happened:
- I always turn off internet explorer after using it.
- I did not download any games, ringtones, video clips
- I was conscious of the cost of using the internet on GPRS so did not tend to stay on long.
- The most any another GPRS call cost me was EUR9.00. (which is expensive enough).
- 56 MB must be the equivalent of 100's of webpages and would have taken hours ? to down load
Could I have downloaded some sort of virus or could there have been some sort of program which downloaded itself. It was only a once off.
It is driving me mad and I am afraid to go near the internet XDA.
Can anyone shed any light on this for me and if so can I do aything with O2.
Thanks.

Hello,
Did you just semi-close (minimise with the 'X') I.E (Internet Explorer) .? or did you shut it down in the 'Running Program List' under 'Memory Settings'?
I made that mistake when I went to www.XE.com (live Foreign exchange rates), I just minimised it, turned off GPRS and left it on the kitchen table.
I went back to it 2 hrs later and it racked up €9 of GPRS!!!!!!!!!!!
XE.com refreshes itself every 30 seconds or there abouts, so it reconnected my XDA2 to GPRS!!!
So, if you left the IE on a site that refreshes itself frequently it will consume a lot of GPRS!!!!
Hope that helps
Andrew

E-mail could be another source of problems like this. Company VPN...would keep sending data constantly.
I guess I'm glad I have unlimited data...130MB downloaded so far this billing period!

Thanks for your replies Folks.
I think i just mininised/closed the screen by tapping the x - I thought that this closed the internet explorer. Obviously not.
I am glad to say that after three disputed claims (and being barred from making calls three times, despite paying all the other bill charges), O2 have credited my account to the value of the call, apologised for cutting me off three times and said that it was probably 'streamer' software which constnalty downloads updates weather, business, etc,. They restored my faith in O2 customer service. However, I will be slow to use the internet on my XDAII and will be sticking to Broadband which I have just connected up to.
It just shows - you should always query bills and not accept it even when they tell you that you are wrong

Orange payg all you can eat gprs.

Sorry if you all already know this, but orange payg are offering unlimited gprs for only £1 per day, i've been using it for about 2 weeks and it's pretty good, it's a full data connection too so you can get emails or sync over the air etc. In my opinion the best part is that you can pick and choose when you want it.

yeah i'm on it too. The Orange Unlimited GPRS extra for £1 thing right?
People signing upwith Orange to get this extra,REMEMBER, the gprs extra runs out at midnight, regardless of what time you apply it!
Applying it at 23:00 is just plain stupid cos you'll have to re-apply the extra at 00:00 anyway.
I've got a contact stored on my XDA that is assigned to a speed dial key. When pressed, it automatically re-applies the extra.
To do the same, create a new contact & give it this phone number: 450p#p3p1p4p1p1
The call to 453 should take about 45 secs, after that your extra should be applied
THE GPRS DOES NOT INCLUDE DOWNLOADING OVER P2P PORTS!!! almost everything else works fine (ftp, http, https, msn messenger, e-mail-etc) but using p2p costs you money, regardless of whether the extra is applied or not.
anyone know of a PPC app that dials a contact at a scheduled time and disconnect after X seconds? would be real useful for this

does that mean i cud use skype on it?

jaceuk said:
does that mean i cud use skype on it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, gprs is to slow for skype. My T-mobile gprs is about 40-50kbits/s. (flat-fee for 9,50 euro's a month )

sorry but what why can i use?
im looking into all thsi mobile net stuff but need to find the facts before i lay out money
if i try to get info in store they just try and sell,me stuff i dont need

Well its about the same speed as dial up, so you can surf the net (albeit slowly) and you can use MSN and collect email. its useful but its no replacement for wifi or 3G. I use it when I'm at work (i do a lot of waiting around)

Are you sure you are right ???? GPRS
Ive just picked up an orange sim and yes the £1.00 per day unlimited offer still stands but its for orange world , not other services . I thought from the original thread that this would give me GPRS access to the web ?
Can you confirm what service you have been getting with it ?
Im looking for a basic internet connection I dont mind slow but I do mind £2.35 and upwards per Meg .!!!
Any thoughts
Astro1

I can confirm (with 390 megs of GPRS used under my belt) that it works with any http address.
Haha, if the service worked with P2P, orange'd have been raped for bandwidth by now.

voice and data usage left for the month

hello
i just got an xda exec on the o2 network.
i was wondering if you guys could tell me how to find out thenumber of free minutes and amount of free data mbs left in the month
with orange i dialed 150 and would get the number of free minutes left. i called up o2 services and they said they did not have any such number.
is that true? is there any way i could check left usage for the month

Use the online bill manager, it's complex but good.
You'll probbly find that you're not charged for data currently.

online bill manager accessed from "my account"
thanks
i found it in the unbilled details, does it also have the web usage
what do you mean by "You'll probbly find that you're not charged for data currently."
in the first month am i not billed for data(web) usage?

xda_guy said:
what do you mean by "You'll probbly find that you're not charged for data currently."
in the first month am i not billed for data(web) usage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get 5Mb a month, and I'm well over that for sure. I hewrd a little bird that O2 haven'tr been charging many people for data. I appear to be one of them.

Unofficially call 100 (which is Network Services; it's free) and asked to be transfered to the correct department who can give you a more up-to-date idea.

i called 100 and they said that i should dial the regular 087... number.
i discovered that the 087... numbr is not a toll free number, that's cheeky
hey belfast-biker, you mean havent been charging any people , or havenet been charging many people.
does the monthly bill show the amount of data that one has used ??

It's a known "issue" that O2 don't seem to charge "Online" users for data, but please don't keep bringing it up, otherwise someone from O2 might notice and then get their act together. THey might start charging us at any time and that would NOT be good. Just keep an eye on your unbilled usage and see if the data ever changes... it probably won't. Mum's the word, eh?! :wink:

I'm being billed for my Data Usage I used to get it free.
Euan

oooo thanks for the tip
i hope we wont be billed retrospectively
THey might start charging us at any time and that would NOT be good. Just keep an eye on your unbilled usage and see if the data ever changes
at the moment my data is not displayed, just voice and text messages, you mean to say as soon as they start showing data that is when i should be careful about my data usage?
hey themez are you an online user? were you billed retrospectively for data used?

I got the £162 deal, so i am on Data 5 with Data Centric (Voice). For a while it was totally free and then one day i looked at my online bill and i had used 8MB and had been charged an extra £3. I had been told it was free until May and made a complaint to o2. They were pretty good and gave me a £10 customer dispute voucher thing.
Keep an eye on your online bill
Euan

thanks for the reply
what is the £162 deal, is it an online deal again
02 had said that you had unlimited download till may? i loked at my online bill and it still does not say anything about data usage in the unbilled calls section
the usage still only has two sectiosn (voice and text)
the inclusive allowance details however has the following
i got double-200 extra anytime minute rollover (nice, did not know they were rollover minutes)
15 messages
welcome browse and download 5 MB(i thought it was 1 MB, will i keep this 5 MB package for some time)

GSM Connection on O2 with Exec?

Hi,
I'm using a lot more data than my O2 Online tariff has available. I've tried getting them to add a Data5 or Data36 type to it unsuccessfully - the best I can do is add a Surf10, which is what I've done, we'll see if that pans out any better when it is meant to kick in at the start of next month.
However, I've got 500 minutes of GSM access per month that I don't and have never used, and am wondering whether I can utilise that to collect eMail or something. I've tried using the phone numbers I've found on the web for the GSM access, but the Exec always complains that there isn't a modem at the other end.
Has anybody got this set up to work, or been successful in getting a better data tariff for an ONLINE account?
Cheers,
Steve.

GSM works for me
Hi Steve - I just set up a new connection using standard dialup account settings and had no problems connecting. This wasn't the O2 dialup (because I couldn't be bothered to look their details up) but an ordinary ISP.
The only problems you may have is whether the 0845 numbers of most ISPs come within the remit your tariff - and if you use the O2 number (which I seem to remember is a short number) that might also fall outside your allowed calls.
John

yeah, that's my point really - it would be nice to utilise the free GSM minutes I have on my tariff to do something useful - they are just mounting up and up, and meanwhile my monthly bill is going the same way.
I think the T-Mobile Web & Talk (or whatever they call it) is where I'll be going next - I've just got another 6 months to wait - may be O2 can sort something out data-wise by then?
Cheers,
Steve.

but until then ..
But until you move steve - I'm pretty sure there are still one or two dialup ISPs with geographical numbers that you probably could use your minutes with - in fact BT used to have one - google should turn one up.

ok, but does that count as GSM minutes, or voice minutes?
Cheers,
Steve

may have changed
A couple of years ago it counted as voice minutes when it was a geographical number even tho it was data transfer (there again I've never understood how they can tell the diffrence when its just gsm, tho I think they used to have a 'blacklist' of the major isp's numbers so they could charge data rates for calls to them) - but they may be wise to it now - you'll just have to see!

Sh*t - 6GB Data transfer??

Hi,
my mobile service provider sent me a bill, wich contains 6GB data transfer (and I have no flat-rate). I'm 100% shure, that I didn't caused that data traffic.
Are there log-files for data transfers at the Touch HD device? I used the "standard" ROM with no traffic manager installed.
Thanks for you help.
Regards
hqqh

hi, as far as i am aware, there is no inbuilt logs of data transfer
but 6GB?!?!?!?!? what on earth have you been doing with your device? using it as a modem for a desktop pc???? downloading loads of video on it?
i thought i was pretty having at surfing, emailing (no attachments thats just silly) etc etc and i dont get through my allowance of 500MB per month
seems an awful lot of data transfer, if you are not sure you've used this up, then i would challenge your service provider
an idea of data usage is here:
http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispat...fpb=true&_pageLabel=template09&pageID=MB_0005
but also consider that this is a 3g usb stick for a full size pc, the data usage on a pda should be considerably less for the same sort of usage as you are less likely to have such big files going back and forth
i used that to guestimate that to use 6gb you must have.....
surfed for 5 hours daily, sent 30 emails daily, downloaded 100 mp3 each month, downloaded 50 high res pics each month and downloaded 4 movies each month
that or youve been watching shed loads of streaming porn!
seriously, its not unknown for service providers to get their data billing wrong.....
just a thought, you havent got it setup as a mobile hotspot or something?

Sh*t - 6GB Data transfer?? Reply to Thread
Hi,
thanks for you answer.
I don't use the HD as modem or mobile internet device. Only if I have a wlan connection, I check my emails or some news pages!
This 6GB download should be taken place at one day according to the bill. If you take the theoretical download speed of 7,2MBit/sec this should have taken about 2 hours. But I this under real conditions a bandwidth of 7,2MBit/sec * 0,5 or 0,3 --> I should have downloaded or streamed 5 - 7 hours.
So my plan is to do not pay for these 6GB (580€) and then the moblie service provider has to check the technical equipment. Hopefully there is an error .
Does someone has experience with not correct bills?
Regards
hqqh

i had an incorrect bill, hence my reply
i told them what you are saying basically... that i could not have shifted that much data overnight while i was asleep (i cant remember how much it was now, several hundred MB i think.... which while possible i knew i did not do due to the times the data was transferred.... that was with the HTC Charmer which didnt havent wifi so couldnt have been hacked over wifi somehow (bluetooth was permantly off and unless you were stood outside my front door, you would connect via BT anyway)
they didnt argue and credited my bill
as you are talking about 580euros, then persoanlly i would put a block on the direct debit or however you pay your bill to make sure they dont take the payment then challenge them... this action could mean you breach your contract though
what ever you do dont just not pay them and wait for them to contact you... i would ring your service provider now if i was you

I do a lot of browsing and I often watch a few YouTube videos each month and I've never really gone over 1GB, so something very strange must have happened for that much data to have been used, especially if you don't even browse the web or anything.

Can they deliver to you a detailed bill with when you have downloaded these 6gb.
I use internet access alot, and I reach my 5OOmb limit only one month over 12. It was when I have used alot poping email with big attached files.
You said you that you sometimes alless the net on wifi. But are you sure that you are using only wifi and not gprs.
The best solution for you for the future is to deactivate gprs data access. You will find tools to do it like HDTweak or others.