I regularly visit Turkey and have registered my mobile with the Turkish Communications Authorities to use a local SIM card when there. (You need to do this at a cost of 7TL as UK mobiles are blocked after a short time to prevent import of stolen handsets. You can register one handset per passport every 2 years).

With my Vodafone Turkish SIM I can get cheap calls to the UK (PAYG - 12p/min compared with £1.69 charged by Vodafone UK!), Texts are cheaper too 0.75TL (26p each) but for data the pricing differences are mind boggling!

Vodafone Turkey is 100% owned and operated by Vodafone Plc so one would think they would offer their contract customers a decent deal when using their network abroad. They don't!

Vodafone UK contract customers are charged £3 a megabyte when roaming on Vodafone Turkey, so using 500 Meg on holiday would cost £1500!! Using a Vodafone Turkey SIM you can buy an Internet add on allowing 500MB over 1 month for 9.5TL (£3.40), a massive saving of £1496.60!!

How can Vodafone UK justify this type of pricing? (Other networks have similar pricing but they don't own a network in Turkey and have to pay others to provide the service).

BTW: The Vodafone Turkey network is superb with 14.4Mbs HSPA+ in most developed areas. The Vodafone PAYG Internet add-on allows tethering too if you end up somewhere that does not have access to free Wi-Fi.

Because they can!

All of the networks get away with charging massively inflated prices for roaming services (and indeed most services "at home") because there's nothing stopping them.

The EU Roaming regulations are changing this, and if the proposal goes ahead allowing people to switch to a different provider when abroad, the prices should really come down.

Agreed but Turkey is not in the EU yet, so the rulings don't apply there. Vodafone are a disgrace ripping off their UK customers in such a popular holiday destination where they own 100% of a local network.

I think o2 charges £6 and T-Mobile £7.50

Vodafone are ridiculous when it comes to charging for data full stop. On my last contract they wanted £5 for 250mb of data.

O2 is £6 outside of the EU, and £2 within. It's stupid.