FAMILIES heading abroad this half-term have been warned that mobile-phone firms are still ripping off customers, despite a European Union clampdown.

Last summer, the EU forced mobile operators to slash “call roaming” rates by more than 60%. UK providers cannot now charge more than 38p a minute to make a call in Europe, and no more than 19p to receive a call. Previously, callers could pay more than £1 a minute to make or receive calls.

However, there are no such price curbs for the 202 billion text messages sent in western Europe last year, or for use of the internet on your mobile. Costs for these services are now so high they can multiply your bill ten times if you’re not careful.

Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said last week that sharp reductions in the costs of “text roaming” and “data roaming” across Europe were needed.

Families have also been warned that the cost of using credit cards abroad is likely to have gone up since they were last away. In fact, you may be better off getting a prepay card.

Halifax Bank of Scotland, for example, lifted the foreign-usage charge on credit cards from 2.75% to 2.95% in September.

We highlight some pitfalls to watch out for this half-term.

Texts aren’t cheap – if you’re abroad

While call rates are capped, mobile operators are still able to make huge profits from texts and internet use abroad.

T-Mobile is reaping the benefit from this lack of regulation by charging 40p to send a text in Europe, compared with 38p to make a one-minute call.

Orange charges 30p, while O2, Vodafone and 3 charge 25p per text. O2 also allows you to use you monthly allowance of texts abroad, but each text in Europe is worth four in Britain.

The cost of browsing the internet is even more prohibitive, so watch out if your children are using their phone to catch up with friends on Facebook.

Customers can pay as much as £8 per megabyte (Mb) to download web data for contract customers – £40 to download a typical MP3 song, against £1.50 in Britain.

Using a Blackberry is generally cheaper than a mobile. For example, O2 charges just £1 per Mb to download web data – about £5 for a typical song. Checking emails is normally free within your package – 02 offers Blackberry users unlimited overseas access for £23 a month, although this is subject to a fair usage policy.

O2 said it will cut text rates for pay-as-you-go mobile customers from 45p to 25p in April. It also announced it will slash data roaming rates by up to 80%, bringing the cost down to £3 per Mb from the previous £15.

Mobile operators are also bypassing the EU curbs by charging customers per minute. Even if your call lasts 20 seconds, you will be charged for a full minute. Last week Ofcom’s Richards suggested it was adding as much as 20% to bills. For example, 3 charges roaming customers 25p a minute – 13p less than the EU requires – but for two calls within a minute, the charge would be a minimum of 50p.

There are plenty of alternatives if you want to cut roaming rates. One option is to use local Sim cards from firms such as Go-Sim and Sim4Travel.

Otherwise, use your laptop to make calls on the net. If you download Skype software, calling other users is free.

Use a prepay, not a debit card

If you use your debit card abroad, you will be hit by a cash-conversion charge of about 2.75% as well as a transaction charge of about 1.5%-2%, if you

use a foreign cash machine. You will face similar charges on purchases. These fees have risen since last summer, so your holiday could be more expensive.

For example, using your Lloyds debit card to withdraw €500 could now cost £371, compared with £364 in the summer, presuming an exchange rate of €1.40 to the pound.

Nationwide building society is the only provider to charge none of these fees. If you don’t bank with Nationwide, you can avoid the charges and get a better exchange rate by using a prepaid card such as the Travelex Passport or the FairFX card.

You load these cards with dollars or euros before you travel, so there is no conversion or loading fee when you make purchases.

You will, however, be charged for withdrawing cash abroad, though this is still less than most debit cards. FairFX charges €1.5 per withdrawal in Europe and $2 in America while Travelex charges €3.75 and $4.50.

Expensive ski insurance can have worst cover

Families have been warned that they could pay £30 over the odds for ski insurance that gives them no better cover.

Primary Insurance, for example, offers winter sports cover for £30 for a family of four travelling to Austria for a skiing holiday. This includes up to £750 for ski equipment, £200 for piste closure and £300 for avalanche closure.

More Than, on the other hand, offers £400 equipment cover, £250 for piste closure and £250 for avalanche closure. However, the cost of the More Than cover is £61.29. Both policies also have a similar level of excess.

Moneysupermarket said: “The level of cover is pretty similar across the board, and more expensive does not necessarily mean better.”

Diesel cars are better abroad

Complaints against car-hire firms are at an all-time high, according to Consumer Direct. The watchdog received about 1,800 complaints last year, 236 related to billing problems.

Car-hire contracts are riddled with extra charges that only become clear when you return home to find a huge bill. Tourists also find they have to pay more when they reach the pickup point, so are unable to cancel.

One way to cut costs is to book via brokers such as Holiday Autos (0870 400 4461, holiday autos.co.uk) or Car Rentals (0845 225 0845, carrentals. co.uk). Brokerage fees are about £2.50 a day.

If you’ll be driving a lot in Europe, pick a diesel car because it tends to be cheaper than petrol. The average price of diesel is 109.2p a litre in Britain, compared with 78.13p in Spain, while unleaded fuel costs 104.3p in Britain and 81.4p in Spain.

THINK TWICE OR PAY THE PRICE

A FIVE-DAY trip to Bulgaria cost Angela Nicholson, 22, a researcher from Chester, a £206 bill for texting and using the internet on her mobile – on top of her £40 a month subscription to Vodafone.

‘I was shocked. I rang Vodafone before I went and was assured that I was on their best plan for travelling in Europe,’ she says.

‘It’s not like I was sending hundreds of texts or downloading large files. It was no more than a couple of minutes.” Angela says she will now think twice before using her mobile on holiday.