I recently traveled and did a transit in Turkey before reaching Germany. I didn’t use the o2 SIM card the whole time. I only placed the SIM card in my phone just as I boarded the flight to Germany. I had Airport wifi on the whole time. I only got two text messages from o2 welcoming me to Turkey and their prices. I didn’t use data, neither did I make a call or text. Now I see my bill and there’s an extra 6,21€ charge for Ausland. What is this about?
Lösung von richard_degh
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Hi
welcome to our community. 
We don’t know about the details because there is no itemized bill in your contract. You might check the call log in your mobile. Maybe you will find the usage.
Greetings
Thank you 😊 , and thanks for the effort to respond. However, the response does little to answer my query. I have a call flat contract, and the only place I’ve had my SIM card inside my phone outside Germany was putting the SIM card inside my phone while boarding a flight from Turkey to Germany. I didn’t make call, I didn’t use internet, as I have stated in my earlier message. See attachment below. That was it!
+7
Did you deactivate Voicemail? If not then incoming calls when the phone was off would have cost 1.38 per minute, even if the caller didn't leave a message. Your phone might have connected to the Internet briefly and downloaded data in the background. A few MB is not much and some apps bypass Wi-fi.
Hmm. Sounds ridiculous, but I wouldn’t rule out an equally ridiculous reason for the charge. I tried to cover all the bases, however, if you have a network trying their best to ‘get’ a customer to cough a few more Euro then they’d always find a way to do so, and the justification would be stated somewhere in the fineprint. It’s a shame, O2. Once bitten twice shy.
+7
Why is that ridiculous? It is hardly a secret that apps can access the Internet in the background, nor that it is important to deactivate Voicemail outside the EU. With any provider! Yes, providers sometimes charge for things hidden in the small print, but sometimes the customer has to take responsibility as well. The Voicemail 'trap' has been around ever since roaming has been possible.
You call it a “trap” and don’t want to accept MY description of what is ridiculous to me?! Who are you?! You just assumed what could possibly be the issue and you want me to accept that? If you read my initial message and not in a haste to answer, like you’re some person in charge of giving answers, as you’re doing all over the place, you would have noticed that I mentioned I had WiFi (which I bought at the airport) on the whole time even until the airplane took off, at which point I had to turn on airplane mode.
+7
You know this is a discussion forum, right? All I did was give you two very likely reasons for the charge you incurred. I did not say that it IS the reason (how can I know that?) or that you should accept it! Maybe I just misinterpreted your reaction so sorry if you feel I was getting at you.
Yes, it is a trap (due to the fact that if the phone is switched off and the call goes straight to Voicemail both an incoming and outgoing call are initiated). This problem with mobile networks has been around for a very long time but only arises if you are outside the EU. Hence, there are still a lot of people who do not realise they may incur unexpected charges. For this reason, unless you are expecting an important call, it is always a good idea to switch off Voicemail before you leave the EU. As such, I don’t find the explanation or the possible reason ridiculous, but if you do and you don’t want to accept it, then of course that’s perfectly fine. It really makes no difference to me ;-)
I did read your initial post and it does not change anything in my original answer. Having WiFi on doesn’t prevent phones / certain apps from connecting to mobile data - even for just a few seconds, in particular if you don’t have airplane mode on when WiFi is active. Sounds odd, but to avoid this: airplane mode on → activate Wifi.
On that note, good luck in your quest to find the real reason for the charge.
Apologies go from me to you as well, if i overreacted. Just chill. If I find something ridiculous - it would be my subjective interpretation. Whatever someone else thinks is equally subjective, especially when this is my issue. Thanks, anyway. Nice evening!
Hi
I understand that you like to find out the reason for the extra-charge.
At each flight at the beginning of the flight the stewardess informs you to switch your phone to airplane-mode, as
So, next time you take a flight, just switch your phone to airplane-mode and put off your mailbox with ##002# + green phone-button.
Concerning your charge, there is nothing that I can do for you.
I understand that you expected another solution, but in this case I cannot offer you another solution.
Loving greetings,
Tobias
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