Data Connection and Wifi screwed me!!!

[WPCentral Question]

I have a Nokia Lumia 920 running WP8. A few days ago I was browsing reddit and watching youtube videos into the wee hours of the night. Suddenly I received a text and email saying I've used over 90% of my 1 GB data plan. I found this perplexing considering I was in my bedroom with Wifi turned on. I went into settings and noticed that while the wifi was indeed turned on, the phone was in a perpetual searching mode and not actually connecting or even recognizing any wifi in the area. I had to do a soft reset to fix the issue.

After the reset I immediately went into "cellular" in settings and turned "data connection" to "off". I checked myAT&T and confirmed that I had used about 990 of my 1000 mb data, but as I only had a couple of days until the end of the monthly period, I wasn't too mad.

Fast forward to this morning. I wake up and I have a text and email saying I have exceeded my data limit and I will be charged $15 fee. I immediately go into my settings and sure enough my data connection is still set at "off". Why the HELL did my phone somehow use the rest of my data even though my data connection was turned off???? Definitely not fair! Do you guys have any suggestion on what I should do? Emails I should send? Who I should contact about this issue? I feel I have been unjustly charged with this fee even though I took all the precautions to avoid this. I am also fearful this might happen again in the future.

TLR My phone exceeded my data limit even though my data connection was turned off.

 

[oditius]

AT&T is normally a day or so behind, that being said, by the time you got the first text, you was probably already over. You could call 611, but that isn't likely to help.

 

[Blacklac]

Get the 8.1 Developer Preview so you can use Data Sense!

 

[Gatlyn]

I accidentally went over my data cap too one time. There seems to be a long delay in the process it takes AT&T to send the data cap reminders. I called 611 to explain the situation and they reversed the overage charges for me.

 

[Brandon McLean]

Yep these services have a delay. On Rogers in Canada there's a disclaimer that usage in the last 4-12 hours will not be shown.

In 8.1 you could have used data sense or just pulled the shade down to check your wifi status at a glance.

 

[Mark section]

Doesn't matter ATT will try their best to over charge

 

[oditius]

Doesn't matter ATT will try their best to over charge

Don't let anyone fool you, they all do that.

Sent from my AT&T HTC One M8 via Tapatalk.

 

[Jan Tomsic]

Get the 8.1 Developer Preview so you can use Data Sense!

I had data sense on 8.0 already, it may have been called differently and it may have been Nokias app, but it was there and functional.
Even my carrier only counts data once or twice per day, and not for every byte separately, so be careful when your doing such data hungry tasks on data connection.

 

[switch side method]

Go to settings and turn on data sense. This will automatically tell you before you go over your limit

 

[kurtd]

Not sure if this is related but I can't get mms when I have cellular data disabled. The strange thing is I have no data plan, I have a voice only SIM. So apparently even though WiFi is on, it still uses cellular data for mms at least.

You should get t-mobile so you won't have any overages.
Sent from my RM-877_nam_canada_234 using Tapatalk

 

[MadSci2]

Not sure if this is related but I can't get mms when I have cellular data disabled. The strange thing is I have no data plan, I have a voice only SIM. So apparently even though WiFi is on, it still uses cellular data for mms at least.



You should get t-mobile so you won't have any overages.

Sent from my RM-877_nam_canada_234 using Tapatalk

Well, since T-Mobile coverage in Washington DC is so crappy you certainly wouldn't have any overage charges, even if there was a data cap on their plans.

Don't rely on the Carriers to tell you your data use in real time. They won't. Use a reliable App instead.