Study Claims 5 Million Brits on UK Coast at Risk of Accidental Mobile Roaming Charges

A new Opinium survey of 2,000 UK adults (weighted to be nationally representative), which was commissioned by Uswitch.com, has claimed that more than 5 million people (9.8%) have seen their phone connect to an overseas network while they were still in the UK, triggering a roaming charge or alert. But 76% of respondents still think this is “impossible” or have never heard of it.

In the past we’ve seen plenty of occasions where people living in certain parts of the UK, such as Dover (Kent) or Sussex, have seen their mobile phones automatically connect to a mobile network in nearby France (i.e. certain atmospheric conditions, in the right location, can make French signals stronger than domestic ones). If you aren’t aware of this occurring, then it can lead to problems with dramatically inflated bills for calls, texts and 4G / 5G data (mobile broadband).

So, on the one hand, we’re highly sceptical of Uswitch’s extrapolation, from an opinion survey, to equate such issues to impacting 5 million people. But the issue itself is in fact very real and quite well-known if you happen to live in such locations, where it may occur. The issue is particularly relevant at this time of year, with 51% of respondents said to be planning a UK staycation this year.

Some 26% of respondents are planning a staycation in the South West, along the Cornwall, Devon and the Dorset coast, while the Kent coast and South East England follow in second place (13%). Of those who ended up receiving unexpected charges as a result of accidental roaming, some 39% didn’t know they could dispute the charges – and 52% either took no action or paid without questioning the bill.

The reality is that consumers should always contact their mobile operator when something like this occurs, although a refund isn’t guaranteed, but some operators will do it. Providers are already required to alert customers as soon as they start roaming and to take reasonable steps to stop Northern Ireland customers being billed when their phone locks onto an Irish network. But such things are easily overlooked.

However, whether or not you get hit by a charge can depend upon your mobile plan. Some operators and plans include EU roaming by default (e.g. O2, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile, iD Mobile, giffgaff, SMARTY and Talkmobile), which negates the impact from most inadvertent roaming connections. But others (e.g. EE, Vodafone, Three UK) often don’t include this as a default feature, although some of their specific plans may still include it.

Consumers with a concern about this could try manually selecting their mobile network (instead of letting your mobile decide), although this can be a bit fiddly. In addition, most mobiles allow you to disable data roaming features (but not calls/texts as this is a core part of how mobile networks work), which is probably a good idea when you’re in one of these locations.