KPN incorrectly charges €63 for 24mb usage in abroad

My housemate also got stuck with a similar bill for “connecting to the internet” as soon as WE BOTH landed in the Caribbean. When speaking to the customer service agent, the reasoning given is because “he was connected to the internet” (his phone was on airplane mode from after he received the initial welcome to the Caribbean text with all the costs and blah blah). Funny thing is, I also received that welcome text, but was not charged for “being connected to the internet”. And how could we AUTOMATICALLY be connected to the internet when the text message itself says “SMS CAR 4 AAN naar 1266”? So we must send that text FIRST to active the internet to THEN be connected to it, correct?

On the other hand, I also landed on the SAME DAY + TIME as him since we were on the SAME flight, and I was NOT on airplane mode and I did NOT receive such a bill.. It comes off as very scammy and scummy. Please provide an explanation for this soon and return his money! Otherwise y’all are losing another KPN customer of YEARS!

Thomas van KPN schreef:

Hi ​@Bhupen, welcome to our community! I apologise for the inconvenience!

When your phone connects to a foreign network the connection automatically gets blocked when you reach €62,50 to prevent accidental costs. To lower this treshold to 0€ you can send a text with “bescherming aan” to 1266. 
I’m afraid I don't have a solution for the 24mb your phone used and I can't issue a refund for this.

 

For more information about roaming you can look at our knowledgebase:

• KPN Mobiel in het buitenland: Roaming Kennisbank

One doesn’t AUTOMATICALLY connect to a foreign network just by landing in another country and connecting to their cell tower to receive the initial text message that notifies the user about data/sms/call costs. As the KPN text message says, the user will first need to text ON or whatever in order to connect to the internet. Ridiculous!

Unfortunately it takes only one maybe two seconds to use 24MB and as soon as you turn on your telephone or disable the flight mode your phone will connect to the Internet as on almost all phomes both mobile data and dataroaming are set ON by default. Please make sure you sms "BESCHERMING AAN" to 1266. Unfortunately KPN does not automatically protect your subscription for these exorbitant dataroaming costs. I have often asked KPN to do so in order to avoid these costs but so far KPN has not yet implemented this. Other providers like for example Odido do protect their customers by default.

That still does not make any sense and you heavily glossed over something huge that I mentioned. My phone also came off airplane mode when we landed in the Caribbean > then I receive the “welcome to blah blah” text message > and I DID NOT TURN ON airplane more after that. But my housemate DID. yet HE got billed for using data for “2 seconds” and I DID NOT. Also you’re wrong - most phones don’t automatically set roaming on: it’s a toggle that needs to be enabled/disabled and that setting is not reset automatically. Can you imagine how inconvenient it would be that my phone automatically sets roaming on just to be charged by companies like KPN that don’t seem to “protect” its users?

Also neither of us sent that "BESCHERMING AAN" to 1266 in order to ACTIVATE the internet FIRST in order to be able to use it. Without doing that, how in the hell are users “automatically connected to the internet” even if it is for just 1 or 2 seconds to then be charged with data usage? That to me is extremely suspicious!

My data + roaming were ON until I got home from the airport and I didn’t get charged jack for anything, but he did? Your explanation makes 0 sense and it just looks like y’all are pretty much scamming. I don’t appreciate this as a loyal customer and I’m likely going to terminate my contract with y’all as well and rather go to some other provider.

No, nowadays both the dataroaming and mobile data are both set to ON when a phone configured for the first time.

The dataroaming of both your phone and your housemate's phone was, as for the vast majority of phones in the EU, ON otherwise your houdemate would not have been charged as his/her phone would not have been able to connect.

Please note that in the EU dataroaming needs to be ON if you want to be able to connect to the Internet when you are in another country within the EU than your home-country. That's why nowadays the dataroaming is set to ON by default. And yes, that is very inconvenient when you are outside the EU as your phone will still connect the Internet as soon as you switch on the phone or switch of the airplane mode.

Every year there are thousands of KPN customers that are charged €60,50 for dataroaming outside the EU.

I have been fighting for many years to make sure KPN offers the possibility to protect yourselve for such costs and finally in Q3/Q4 2023 they published the possibility to sms "BESCHERMING AAN" to 1266.

• Hoe kan ik als abonnee de dataroaminglimiet aanpassen?

I will not stop fighting until KPN makes sure this protection is active up from the moment the subscription is activated.

When you were not charged for dataroaming than that means your subscription was already protected against dataroaming outside the EU.

So you’re saying one would need to text "BESCHERMING AAN" to 1266 to NOT be charged? How dumb of a system is that? Also considering KPN doesn’t clarify stuff like this AND doesn’t include any information in English either to help with international users.

I can also confirm we did the same thing the year before and we were NOT charged a cent for turning off airplane mode when we land and receiving that initial text message. So why the discrepancy? So it’s still extremely suspicious that this happened, and only to ONE of us, and only this year, and my housemate has been a customer for the PAST 3 YEARS (no complaints) and I’ve been a customer for OVER A DECADE (no complaints).

The difference being that I’m protected from this dumb rule and my housemate is not because they’re a more recent customer? BUT both of us received literally the same initial text message.

There is still not a proper explanation for this - "BESCHERMING AAN” should rather be “DATA AAN” to actually connect to the internet and start the data counter after receiving the text that notifies users that it costs x amount of euros for call/sms/data.

Also if there are thousands of users that are complaining about this EVERY YEAR, it SHOULD HAVE already been addressed and fixed, with refunds issued to everyone that faced this issue because with this information it seems like KPN just doesn’t want to fix this and rather are PROFITING by it because customer support just says “yeah you used the internet so we charge you >.>” - which again is both extremely scummy and scammy!

1000s of users x €60.50 = €60,500 per annum that y’all are receiving because of a mistake that Y’ALL don’t want to address? No thanks, but I’m also quitting this dumb service.

I totally agree.