How can mobile operators justify outside allowance charges.

TheLegendOfMart

TheLegendOfMart

TheLegendOfMart

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My dad has just got his latest phonebill and he has gone 70MB over his 250MB data allowance and T-Mobile have charged him £442 for it.

How can they justify charging so much, why didn't they warn him or turn his data off?

He doesn't download a lot he uses wifi, an app must have been using data while he wasn't connected to the home router.

I'd understand if it was GB but not MB.
 
What the hell...

No way they were charging £6.30 per MB of data over the limit..

Pay Monthly 24: If you exceed your monthly data allowance, you will be charged £1 per day to use internet on your phone
Sim only 12 month & 30 day plan: We won't charge you any more if you reach your monthly data allowance, but if you exceed your data allowance, you will be charged £1 a day until your next monthly bill for each day you use data

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/terms-and-conditions/pay-monthly/ Get on the phone and find out why.

I've used 4 GB this month on EE, my contract probably costs a tenth of this bill....
 
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Doesn't add up - afaik depending on the plan they charge you £3 for every day you use the internet when over your data allowance and if you exceed a certain level (or go over a certain level on some plans) they will throttle data throughput.
 
Glaucus said:
Roaming charges abroad by any chance, outside the EU.
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Even that would be ridiculous surely?

Don't you have to buy add-ons anyway, gone to France and NL in the past few months and had to buy an add-on before being able to use any data. It was like £3 for 100 MB or something for a 24 hour period.
Not sure how much more it costs outside of the EU... but to equal £400... no way :o (though.... you do read some horror stories, so I guess it is possible)
 
No he hasn't been outside the UK for donkeys years.

On the phone to T-Mobile and they say that it wasn't added to his contract when he started it in March 2013 even though it says from 22 Jan 2013 you will be capped at £1 per day.
 
TheLegendOfMart said:
No he hasn't been outside the UK for donkeys years.

On the phone to T-Mobile and they say that it wasn't added to his contract when he started it in March 2013 even though it says from 22 Jan 2013 you will be capped at £1 per day.
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Wow, hope you tell them to go do one! If it doesn't get resolved I'd keep asking to be escalated to their managers etc. Can't see that crazy amount being upheld tbh.
 
oli356 said:
Even that would be ridiculous surely?

Don't you have to buy add-ons anyway, gone to France and NL in the past few months and had to buy an add-on before being able to use any data. It was like £3 for 100 MB or something for a 24 hour period.
Not sure how much more it costs outside of the EU... but to equal £400... no way :o (though.... you do read some horror stories, so I guess it is possible)
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Just in case anyone comes here with this problem, I traveled and roamed regularly on T-Mobile using data. It always forced me to buy a bundle and it lasted a set amount of days. One day I went from the UK to Germany to the UK to France, and when I was in France it didn't re-prompt. This is normal as I hadn't fully used up the European bundle I bought earlier.. except it never prompted. I racked up a huge bill - only noticed when my phone was barred - of something crazy like £1000. I phoned, complained, and they cancelled it.
 
Had a similar problem with Orange as I've been with them for donkeys. I was about to go out of my allowance so phoned to check that I won't be charged more than £1 a day, which they confirmed was the case.

Next thing I know, I have a whacking great big bill. Turns out the account is so old that the £1 a day thing wasn't automatically added to my account, though it's in the T&Cs.

Phone up, complaint, it'll get refunded.
 
bobbyspangles said:
Something not adding up here. Have you actually seen the bill yourself? Sounds like an excuse to cover up that he's been paying for dirty talk.
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Those are fairly strong accusations to be bandying around on zero evidence, unless you're the best long range cold reader ever.

The post above this seems the most likely.
 
bobbyspangles said:
Something not adding up here. Have you actually seen the bill yourself? Sounds like an excuse to cover up that he's been paying for dirty talk.
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GNDiOUs.jpg
 
No, first charge is 45mb, second is 23mb. The first 000s are GB. Already asked T-Mobile they said it was MB not GB.

It's a 3G phone, how can one use 70GB in one day, can't even do that on my home broadband.
 
Download the itemisation of the bill and look at the individual connections, it's possible he's made purchases through his phone which have been charged to his bill.

TheLegendOfMart said:
hy didn't they warn him or turn his data off?
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Because often there's a delay between the useage registering on the providers end of the network, sometimes you can make a call that doesn't register for up to 72hrs and so they can't cap it for this reason, if they said they would cap it they'd need to have live updates constantly.
 
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