Vodafone Charges Customers Thousands for Roaming Charges in Error

An error led to Vodafone customers being wrongly charged thousands of pounds when using their phones abroad.

The mobile network apologised to those affected – some of whom had been charged up to £5,000.

Customers complained of not being able to use their phones via Twitter, also complaining that they could not reach their Vodafone to complain.

Many customers expressed shock that their bills had gone into the hundreds or thousands of pounds within just a few hours of being out of the country.

Vodafone had mistakenly sent out alerts to customers warning them that their data allowance had run out, despite many customers having plenty of data left for the month.

Vodafone blamed the issue on a technical error.

New EU regulations that came into effect in 2017 have meant that customers of UK mobile networks can use the inclusive minutes, texts and data on their phone tariffs within the EU for no extra charge.

Vodafone issued a statement apologising to customers and reassuring them that the situation was now under control: "We are very sorry that some customers could not use their phones yesterday, when roaming abroad. This was due to a technical error, which we have now fixed.

"Some customers are receiving billing messages in error; we are working through these as an urgent priority and are 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."

A similar issue back in August saw customers of Three in Ireland affected by similar bugs in their mobile network’s system. Three issued an apology after a problem with their system added erroneous fees to their customers’ bills and blocked them from using their phones.