iPhone Roaming

Question: Whats the point

Answer: money

In the US most (possibly all) cell phone plans do not have an option to turn off texting. If you don't pay for a texting plan you usually pay about $0.10 for all received texts (spam too) and $0.20 for all international texts received. If you don't want to pay for the spam texts then you can pay anywhere from $5 - $10 or more a month for a texting plan. Does it really cost too much for them to turn off texting. No, of course not. The issue is that they make millions of extra dollars a year by refusing to do what makes good sense.

Many people would have just paid the bill you received. You did not but most would have. Thus, the point is they make a lot of extra money by doing this along with all the other "fees" that change every month and don't appear in the contract.

I am far from being a fan of Verizon (my provider), as I feel they are guilty of limiting the users choices in order to increase their bottom line, but I must say they have pretty good user controlled blocks that are accessible via their website. I had text messages blocked for quite some time. Had to finally relent to a texting-included plan in order to communicate with our college-age daughter

Tom D.

Maybe a bit off-topic, since OP is in UK, but I'm replying mainly to the charge of "possibly all" providers not having a provision to disable texting.

O2 or Orange?

You need to contact them again....

I'm with O2..never had a problem, and I work all over the world

On my iPhone (UK model) the Enable 3G and Cellular Data facilities can be turned off separately - look under Settings | Network. I am always minded to use a local SIM card on foreign holidays, but a possible alternative is to remove the SIM card, since WiFi and cellular connections are, or should be, separate circuits.

how long you had the phone... pop into any Apple store and ask them.. or call the UK help line, or call the store directly....