Scam Alert

[Chris CM]

We caught the 1615 Pont-Aven from Plymouth to Santander last Wednesday, at about 2030 I received the following text from 1024 :

From EE: To access the internet abroad you need to buy a roaming data add-on. You only pay for the add-on you buy so you'll always know exactly what you're spending. For an add-on that lasts 24 hours, reply to this text for free with the code 4MB (to get 4MB for £5.22), 10MB (10MB for £10.45). For an add-on that lasts 7 days text 22MB7 (22MB for £26.12) or 50MB7 (50MB for £52.25).

Now over a £1 a mb is ridiculously expensive even for EE and I was convinced it was a scam which was confirmed when we passed close to the coast of France and got the usual welcome message on my phone from EE informing me that I was free to use my UK data freely in France with no cap, same when we got to Spain.

I don’t know if it’s linked but when out of range of UK, French and Spanish mobile signals we were connected to Monaco Telecom! Bit weird but maybe Brittany Ferries have done a deal with them to provide a basic phone / text service? I don’t know if it works as I had no need of this service but did receive the offending text via them!

Has anyone else received this text? Did you reply?

 

[autorouter]

This kind of thing is all automated. I presume the phone company knows your location, and sends out the message if there's no specific deal between them and the local provider. The ship provider will be by satellite link, £1 a MB to reduce the data bandwidth required.

 

[philann]

A lot of people get caught out when on a ship in international waters. Such roaming is not included in packages and is expensive, that’s why advice is given to turn off roaming on the boat. It’s not a scam. The ship Wi-Fi is still available (but slow).

 

[Chris CM]

I’ve sailed many times on BF and the Pont-Aven and never received such a text before but I’ll make sure I switch off roaming from now on when on board!