L'équipe Texto SMS Gratuit
26 September 2026 · 12 min read
Introduction: €18 last month, €74.60 this month
The direct debit lands on a Tuesday. It's usually €18.99, an amount so predictable that you no longer even look at it. This time, it's €74.60. You haven't travelled, haven't changed plans, haven't bought a phone. Your first instinct is to call customer service, and the adviser delivers the magic sentence: "I can see out-of-plan usage on your line, sir."
End of conversation, or almost. Except that "out-of-plan" is not a diagnosis: it's a label covering at least six completely different mechanisms, some of them perfectly legitimate and others refundable as a matter of right.
This guide won't teach you how to "negotiate a goodwill gesture". It does the opposite: it teaches you to read your itemised bill like a technical document, to name the offending line precisely, and to know in which cases you have a right — not a favour — to a refund. In practice, the difference is a €5 credit note versus a full reimbursement.
The six families of out-of-plan charges (and they are not equal)
Every mobile overcharge in France falls into one of these categories. Identifying the right one is 80% of the work.
- Premium-rate special numbers. These are the 08 numbers, the 118 directory services, and certain four-digit short codes. Since the numbering reform, pricing is supposed to be announced before you are connected: "free call", "call + paid service". These calls are almost never included in plans, even unlimited ones.
- SMS+ and Internet+ services (charged to your operator bill). A five-digit short code (typically 3xxxx) that bills you €3 or €4.50 per message, sometimes as a weekly subscription. This is the number one source of disputes.
- Calls and texts to foreign numbers made from France. Careful: calling a Belgian or Moroccan number from Paris has nothing to do with roaming. It is not covered by European roaming rules, and it is billed per minute.
- Data allowance overruns. Either billed per MB beyond your allowance, or in the form of automatic 1 GB "top-ups" bought through the app.
- Options added to the contract. Multi-SIM, phone insurance, cloud storage, an "international" option, digital press. Often "free for 2 months", never cancelled automatically.
- Pure billing errors. Duplicate debits, an option charged twice, a cancellation month billed in full, a residual amount on a handset already paid off.
Families 2, 5 and 6 are where you have the most leverage. Family 1 is often legitimate but poorly understood. Family 3 is the most silent trap.
Step 1: get the real itemised bill, not the summary
The one-page PDF your operator sends you is not an itemised bill. It's a summary. It states "Out-of-plan usage: €55.61" without explaining where those €55.61 come from.
You are entitled to the itemised usage breakdown, free of charge, in your online account. Depending on the operator, it's called "itemised bill", "usage details" or "usage tracking". The document lists, line by line:
- the exact date and time,
- the number called or the short code,
- the duration or volume,
- the unit amount.
Download the last three itemised bills, not just the one that alarmed you. That's how you spot an SMS+ subscription that had already been running for two months at €4.50 a week, buried in a total that looked normal.
A useful legal point: the French Consumer Code requires electronic communications bills to be kept and made available for a significant period (at least one year in practice with French operators). So you can go back a long way, even if your online account only displays three months by default.
If you manage several lines — yours, the children's, a parent's — print the details and use a highlighter. A simple document filing wallet for administrative paperwork kept beside your desk saves you from redoing the work six months later, and an operator dispute is always won with dates.
Step 2: the most common case — SMS+ services subscribed to unknowingly
The typical scenario is nothing exotic. A game, a "you've won a smartphone" banner, a personality test, a ringtone service, a dubious streaming platform. A form asks for your mobile number. You receive a text, you reply "OK" or you tap a link. Technically, you have just subscribed to a paid service charged to your operator bill.
The clues on the bill:
- five-digit short codes, often starting with 3,
- a repeating amount: €4.50 every seven days, €3 every month,
- an opaque description such as "SMS+ service – multimedia content".
What to do within the hour
- Text STOP to the short code concerned. It's free and mandatory for the content provider: the STOP command must unsubscribe you immediately.
- Check the reverse directory of short codes. The public service run by the Association française du multimédia mobile (AFMM), available at infoconso-multimedia.fr, lets you identify the provider behind a five-digit number and its customer service. That's the document to cite in your complaint.
- Ask your operator to fully block SMS+/Internet+ services on the line. Every French operator must offer this lock free of charge. It's the only measure that prevents a repeat, and it is particularly recommended on a child's or teenager's line.
This block is also the answer to the classic case of a teenager buying in-game content. On a shared line, broader control goes through the phone's own settings; some parents add a router with built-in parental controls at home, but that obviously doesn't cover the mobile network — hence the importance of the lock on the operator's side.
Step 3: premium-rate numbers, what you owe and what you don't
Here's the bad news: calling an 0 891 number to reach an after-sales service costs money, and that's legal. The good news: the information obligations are strict.
| Type of number | Pricing | Included in the plan? |
|---|---|---|
| 0800 to 0805 (freephone) | Free from a mobile | Yes |
| 0806 to 0809 | Price of a local call | Generally yes |
| 081x / 082x / 089x | Call + paid service (up to €0.80/min or €3/call) | No |
| 118 xyz (directory enquiries) | Very high, up to several euros per call | No |
| 3xxx short codes | Variable, often premium-rate | No |
Two rules worth knowing:
- A customer service line cannot be premium-rate. The law requires that the number intended to receive calls from a customer about their existing contract must not be premium-rate. If you paid €3 to reach a provider's after-sales service about an ongoing contract, challenge it.
- The tariff announcement is mandatory before connection on value-added numbers. No announcement = a breach, and therefore an argument for a refund.
Arcep, the French telecoms regulator, publishes the numbering plan and the pricing rules for special numbers; the DGCCRF penalises failures to provide tariff information. Naming those two bodies in a letter noticeably changes the tone of the reply.
Step 4: the trap of calling foreign numbers from France
This is the line nobody understands, because it contradicts an idea that has become second nature: "in Europe, it's included."
European roaming regulations cover your usage when you are physically in another EU country. They say nothing about calls you make from France to a foreign number. These outgoing international calls are billed per minute according to each operator's own rate card, and they can reach several euros a minute to certain destinations, notably mobile numbers outside the European Union and island territories.
Typical bill-exploding situations:
- a 40-minute call to a mobile in Africa or Asia,
- text messages sent to a foreign number,
- a contact on an app whose call switches to a standard phone call because the Wi-Fi dropped.
The countermeasure is mundane but effective: favour app-based calls over Wi-Fi, or take out your operator's international option for the month in question and then cancel it. For long, regular calls abroad, a wired USB headset makes computer-based calling far more comfortable and permanently removes the temptation to dial from your mobile.
Step 5: the options you were never asked to approve
This is the most rewarding family to audit, because it makes no noise. €2.99 a month for a cloud service, €5.99 for damage insurance, €4 for a press newsstand: over two years, that comfortably exceeds the price of the plan itself.
Two legal principles apply:
- Any paid option requires express consent. A pre-ticked box, a "yes" extracted over the phone without a written summary, or an option activated by an adviser "so you can benefit from" something do not constitute valid agreement. For a subscription taken out by phone, the operator must be able to produce the recording or the written confirmation. Ask for it explicitly.
- A unilateral change to the contract opens a right to terminate. If the operator raises the price or changes the terms, it must inform you at least one month in advance, and you then have four months to cancel free of charge (article L. 224-33 of the French Consumer Code). This is the most powerful lever in your file, and it is widely unknown.
List your active options in your online account, not on the bill: some only appear once they start being charged.
Step 6: the complaint that succeeds, in three levels
The classic mistake is to play everything out over the phone. A call leaves no usable trace. The procedure that works is written and escalating.
Level 1 — customer service, in writing
Through your online account or by email, with the subject line: "Billing dispute – line 06 XX XX XX XX – invoice no. …". Structure it in four blocks:
- the facts, with the exact dates and amounts taken from the itemised usage breakdown;
- the disputed line, quoted verbatim as it appears on the bill;
- the grounds: lack of consent, missing tariff announcement, premium-rate customer service line, duplicate charge;
- the quantified request: refund of €X, SMS+/Internet+ block, written confirmation.
Attach your screenshots. Keep everything. A portable document scanner or a simple scanning app will do, but what matters is the time-stamped PDF.
Level 2 — the consumer relations department, by registered post
If the answer is a refusal or silence for more than a month, escalate to the operator's consumer relations department, by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. This level is mandatory before mediation. A pack of ready-to-use registered letter envelopes saves you a trip to the post office, and the acknowledgement of receipt is the proof of date that starts the clock.
Level 3 — the electronic communications ombudsman
Free, independent, and reachable online after two months without a satisfactory solution. The Médiateur des communications électroniques handles thousands of disputes every year, a significant share of them concerning billing specifically. Its opinions are not binding but are followed in the vast majority of cases.
Alongside that, two useful channels:
- SignalConso, the DGCCRF's service, to report a misleading commercial practice;
- a consumer association (UFC-Que Choisir, CLCV) if the amount justifies getting support.
The preventive lock: four settings to change tonight
Once the dispute is settled, the next one still has to be avoided. Four steps, about ten minutes:
- Request a block on SMS+ / Internet+ services on every line in the household. Free, reversible, and it wipes out the most frequent family of out-of-plan charges in one go.
- Activate the usage cap or usage alert offered by your operator: a notification at 80% of your data allowance, out-of-plan usage blocked beyond a set threshold.
- Disable automatic data top-ups in the operator's app. That's what turns a 300 MB overrun into three billed top-ups.
- Check the list of active options once a quarter. Set a recurring reminder. It's the only method that survives forgetfulness.
For sensitive lines — a teenager, an elderly parent, a backup line — a prepaid card remains the most radical tool: no out-of-plan charge is possible beyond the credit loaded. A simple basic mobile phone with keypad and prepaid card, kept in a drawer, plays that backup-line role very well with no risk of a surprise bill.
Key takeaways
- "Out-of-plan" is not an explanation: demand the itemised usage breakdown, line by line, over three months.
- Five-digit SMS+ services are the leading source of disputes. Text STOP immediately, identify the provider via infoconso-multimedia.fr, then set up a permanent block with your operator.
- A customer service line cannot be premium-rate, and a missing tariff announcement on a value-added number is a breach.
- Calls from France to foreign numbers are not covered by European roaming rules: they are billed per minute.
- An option without express consent can be challenged, and any unilateral change to the contract opens a four-month window to cancel free of charge.
- The winning procedure is written: customer service → consumer relations by registered post → Médiateur des communications électroniques.
A mobile bill is not a monthly inevitability. It's a contractual document, with precise rules, a regulator and an ombudsman. The operator's only advantage in this balance of power is that most subscribers give up before the second letter.
