Charge on mobile bill for MMS text that doesn't exist!

[PunishmentRoundupWithJoon]

Just got my monthly mobile bill. I never incur extra charges. This month, there is a charge of 55p for an MMS text. I've never sent an MMS text. I've looked at the itemised bill and it shows it as being sent to my partner at 7.19pm on Tuesday. Checked the texts between us on that day, and not only is there no MMS text but there isn't even a regular text at that time.

I'm so confused. I realise in the great scheme of things, this is not a huge amount of money, but it's not about the money, it's about being charged for something I didn't send!

I called Tesco mobile and the woman, although friendly and as helpful as she could be, could only tell me that the text was sent on that date. But it wasn't!

Has anyone else experienced this, or does anyone have any insight on what may have occurred here?

If you send a really long text, sometimes they get converted to MMS. I've been bitten a few times by that... keep an eye on the line which counts the characters.

@Heronatemygoldfish - actually, yes, I remember that from years ago with a very old phone. But no, on this occasion the texts were pretty short all that day, just "where are you?" type of thing. Partner is at work at the moment, but have texted him to check his side of the messages. If it doesn't appear on his end either, then my confusion will increase!

Did the text have an emoji?

No emojis in any of my texts that day. And as I said, there wasn't even a text sent at the time of this supposed MMS message!

Emoji or did you like / love / thumbs down a text or send an animated text / gif? Voice message? Is the time on the bill GMT instead of BST so it's an hour out.
You can change the settings on your phone to make sure you never send MMS messages by mistake and avoid this happening again.

Think I've got a good idea what happened now. My old phone died completely on Tuesday so had to put SIM card into new phone (had it ready as knew old one was on the way out due to couple of water related incidents) - bugger knows what I did on old phone in my desperate attempts to fix it. It wouldn't be a surprise to know I sent an MMS without knowing it. Buttons were sticking and I was pressing everything just to try and get it working.

@mrsfoof - thanks for that, will definitely change the settings.

The SMS messages have transferred to the new phone strangely. There's a month missing! Anyway, I can view Tuesday, so who knows if one of Tuesday's messages is missing too?

Am going to let it go for the sake of 55p (though it'll bug me all day...)

Did you send him a phone number from your contacts? Sometimes they go as an MMS.