My (brief) fight with SFR

Years ago I signed up for a phone plan with Virgin because there was no 2 year contract and it was cheap for what I needed.

Then a little over a year ago I learned that Virgin Mobile was closing, and all customers would be rolled over to RED by SFR.

I didn't really want to change operator, but my plan was nice for a a decent price (10€ a month for unlimited calls and texts and 3Gb of data). After a while I got an alert that calls to something like 52 countries were now included in my plan (land lines in Europe, land and cell in US/Canada).

Great! I could finally call the US from my cell phone without it costing an arm and a leg! We have the same feature on our land line, but previously if I wanted to call the US while I was out and about, I had to borrow my husband's phone (he has a plan with Free).

This summer while I was in the UK I missed a call from my mom. Since the end of roaming has been clearly communicated as "use your plan in Europe like you use it at home", I called back.

A few days later I saw I had 49€ in extra charges.

Rather furious, I double checked the FAQ on the European Parliament's website and ARCEP's website (which say that a company can only restrict data, not other parts of the plan, while in Europe) then contacted SFR customer service to challenge the charges.

SFR wrote back copying and pasting their text that there was no more roaming in Europe for calls to Europe.

When the charges showed up as "upcoming" in my bank account, I contacted my bank and refused the debit. (By the way, you can do this for any charge. I've heard lots of stories about people not being able to cancel charges that are debited monthly for a canceled service, but the fastest solution is to refuse the debit at your bank).

SFR sent me a warning : "Pay your bill or we'll restrict your service".

I copied and pasted the ARCEP text that says companies can't restrict the non data parts of their plans when used in Europe. SFR wrote back that the laws allowed them to restrict the amount of time/days the plan is used outside of France (nice dodge of the question).

So I sent a complaint by registered mail.

I got another reminder to pay my outstanding charges or have my service limited.

My service got limited, but then I got a call from SFR. They would reverse the charges since this was my first time complaining. When I reminded the woman that the limitation of my plan is not legal, she gave a bull shit explanation about how I needed to "lire entre les lignes" of the billing rules.

I requested a written confirmation the charges would be reversed, finally got one a few days later, then paid my regular bill. My service was restored.

From the time I made the call the US to the time the whole thing is resolved was 6 weeks, although there was a bit more than a week of limited service in there.

I really want to change plans now, but it's hard to find a plan around 10€ a month that includes calls to the US. I think I might have to bite the bullet and go for the Free plan at 15€ a month, especially since they're really generous with the data use abroad and the US has been included since 2016.

While browsing for plans, I saw a few that say "Forfait exclusivement utilisable depuis la France métropolitaine", which seems to open the door for them to charge roaming in Europe.

Here's to oping 60 million de consommateurs or Le Canard Enchaîné or someone will create a scandal about how the phone companies are doing the limbo around the end of roaming law.