So within the EU roaming charges for using your phone abroad are now 
capped pretty low. However I found out that on my phone provider 

privilege of getting my UK charges (ie free texts/minutes etc).

However, some days I sent only 1 text message, which should be capped at 

person at vodafone I spoke to said it was in the T&C when I signed up, 
but surely that can't override EU law?

Anyway, if you're on vodafone UK and thinking of going abroad, make sure 

on using your phone too much.

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Am 15.07.2014 14:11, schrieb scott:
> So within the EU roaming charges for using your phone abroad are now
> capped pretty low. However I found out that on my phone provider

> privilege of getting my UK charges (ie free texts/minutes etc).
>
> However, some days I sent only 1 text message, which should be capped at

> person at vodafone I spoke to said it was in the T&C when I signed up,
> but surely that can't override EU law?

There is no such thing as "EU law". There are "EU directives", but those 
never become laws themselves - it is up to the individual EU member 
countries to pass national laws to implement those directives. And 
although a country failing to implement a EU directive properly and 
within due time might be penalized, only the existing national laws are 
binding for individuals and companies.

So there's essentially two (or even three) questions that would need to 
be answered:

(1) Does the corresponding law in the UK forbid such loopholes? (Or, if 
the law isn't entirely clear about this: (1b) Does the jurisdiction in 
the UK typically interpret the law as forbidding such loopholes?)

If yes, then you might actually be able to get your money back (or keep 
it in the first place, which is usually the more efficient solution), 
and consumers' organizations or competitors might have enough leverage 
to stop the company from acting this way.

If no, then the company isn't doing anything wrong.


(2) Does the EU directive forbid such loopholes?

If yes, then consumers' organizations might have enough leverage to 
enforce a change of UK law. Nonetheless, the company still isn't doing 
anything wrong, and won't be until the changed UK law would come into 
effect.

If no, then all that can be done about it is lobbying for a change of 
the UK law.

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> There is no such thing as "EU law".

Then I blame the media for headlines such as "EU votes XXX into law" :-)

> So there's essentially two (or even three) questions that would need to
> be answered:
>
> (1) Does the corresponding law in the UK forbid such loopholes? (Or, if
> the law isn't entirely clear about this: (1b) Does the jurisdiction in
> the UK typically interpret the law as forbidding such loopholes?)

I can't immediately find any corresponding UK law - they probably used 
some legalese instead of the word "roaming"...

> (2) Does the EU directive forbid such loopholes?

Again I can't find the related directive, the wikipedia external link is 
broken and trying to search directly didn't bring up anything useful.

> If yes, then consumers' organizations might have enough leverage to
> enforce a change of UK law. Nonetheless, the company still isn't doing
> anything wrong, and won't be until the changed UK law would come into
> effect.

It's not a big problem, it's probably my fault for not checking the 
detail of the package I signed up to, but I just assumed that the 
roaming caps announced would override any previous contracts I had 
agreed to with my provider.

It worked the other way for my gf. Her texts are normally 15p or 
something, yet abroad she was charged 6p - go figure!

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Am 15.07.2014 15:40, schrieb scott:

> It's not a big problem, it's probably my fault for not checking the
> detail of the package I signed up to, but I just assumed that the
> roaming caps announced would override any previous contracts I had
> agreed to with my provider.

That's not how contracts work in practice in the ecosystem of laws.

Laws never just simply and automatically "override" a contract. A 
contract stays the same until either explicitly changed by consent (e.g. 
one party informing about their intention to change it in order to 
comply with a new law, giving the other party due time to either accept 
the changes via silent agreement or terminate the contract entirely via 
explicit statement), or formally and successfully challenged for being 
in violation of a given law and therefore (entirely or partially) null 
and void.

The good companies will incorporate new laws into their existing 
contracts by the former means; the bad ones will just wait for the 
second means to be invoked on a large scale.

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> The good companies will incorporate new laws into their existing
> contracts by the former means;

So eventually I found out the relevant UK law and the corresponding EU 
regulation (717/2007). It turns out that the providers can still charge 
a higher amount, only that they must offer a "eurotariff" free of 
charge. The only point is then whether voadfone "actively offered" me 
the "eurotariff" or not (I don't believe they did), but that will be 
much harder to prove.


provided for in Article 4, which a home provider may levy for the 
provision of regulated roaming calls in compliance with that Article;"

"1.   Home providers shall make available and actively offer to all 
their roaming customers, clearly and transparently, a Eurotariff as 
provided for in paragraph 2. This Eurotariff shall not entail any 
associated subscription or other fixed or recurring charges and may be 
combined with any retail tariff."

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