Stung with large GPRS bill from abroad usage!

-Neil-

-Neil-

-Neil-

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Short story is I've been out of the country for three weeks in Dubai/New Zealand and Australia.

Before I went I called T-Mobile to check what the costs would be of using the phone abroad.

As expected I was told the following:

Send/receive calls around £1 p/m
Texts around £0.70
Voicemail retrieval = £'s

All fine by me, absolutely nothing mentioned about internet usage costs while on the phone.

I've had the contract (Flext W+W 35 Business plan) since Dec 07. My usage of the internet was pretty much the same abroad as it was during Dec over here. A mix of forums/gmail/bbcnews etc, no downloading large files as it would take too long, etc..

My first bill was for £37 at the end of Jan.

Two days before I get back the phone stops functioning, calls/sms/net.
Yesterday in the arrivals hall at Heathrow I call T-Mobile to be told the account has been suspended due to a £700 bill for internet usage!

Anyone else run into a bill like this before?

Speaking to them, she mentioned something about £7 per MB, so I've downloaded 100MB in three weeks? I can't see how that's possible it would take forever!

When I called them before I left, at no point was I told anything about the gprs costs abroad. Surely there is a capped data rate anyway? So much for 'Unlimited' internet as advertised.

Before I call them, any ideas would be great.

Neil.
 
you are gonna have to pay the web n walk packages are only unlimited in the UK, for abroad data costs a fortune, the reason they didnt tell you was you didnt ask about data charges, you surely are not saying you assumed your web n walk was included abroad
 
Well, I didn't expect it to be the same cost obviously but not this hideously expensive :eek:

Oh well, kicking myself now really :/

Neil.
 
Try moneysavingexpert.com, Im sure there are forum threads there with similar issues. You might be able to get it reduced.
 
as far as I remember it was also £7 per MB per day, so as soo as you connect to WAP you are hit with a £7 charge wether you use 1MB or 256kb.... double check that as well....
 
Doh!

Oh well, will try and sort out a payment scheme as I'm not having them take that much money off me in one go!

Neil.
 
I tend to just switch my phone abroad unless i REALLY need it, some places charge just to receive a text - a friend of mine managed to use up £10 of credit in a week without actually making a single phonecall or sending any texts.
 
unlucky i guess, mobiles really arnt worth taking abroad unless you really need it or know the charges, there lots of hidden costs just for basic things

charges to recieve a call
charges to recieve sms
charges for recieving voicemail
charges for reading voicemail

infact just listening to voicemail will cost 4x the rate on some providers

as for GPRS and using it abroad, its just a dumb idea
 
If you go abroad a lot try and get a USA based telephone as their international roaming packages seem to be a little better. My friend is a sound engineer so spends months away from the UK. He bought a blackberry in the UK as all his yank friends had them and it looked cool. His bills however where huge £700 - £1000/ month. He then got a USA one and it went to $600 a month. It is still a huge amount but as his crackberry is never out of his hand i am not suprised.
 
My mate ran up a bill of £300 phoning his parents in goa, he thought the minutes were free regardless. Eventually orange reduced the bill to £150 for him, this was back when I was about 19 too so no one was exactly raking it in, took him 3 months to pay off.
Took him about 2 weeks on the phone to orange every evening to get though.
 
-Neil- said:
Just a small update, got the bill reduced from £826 to £470 which is better than nothing....

Neil.
Click to expand...

see how much more you can get off.

If you can't get anymore off, couldn't you (assuming you have insurance) just say your phone was stolen and someone else must have been using it?
 
you should be able to be put on a payment plan mate with them. If you explain that you can't pay it all in a lump sum.

If you escalate it far enough up the chain i.e. the directors office they will more than likely reduce the cost further if you complain that you should have been told that the GPRS costs are £7.50/Mb whilst abroad.

The advisors will give you a line that T-Mobile has to pay the foreign network but if you get it into the directors office they would reduce the cost.
 
For future reference - when you're abroad, just hammer the wifi of every single AP you can find. You shouldn't have any need to connect via 3G/GPRS if you find the right place.

I used Skype on my phone when I was in Egypt and Turkey, there's almost blanket coverage in the tourist centres. I also got very good at connecting surreptitiously to check my Gmail while pretending to look at the menu of many a random restaurant.

al
 
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