Shocking bill £244 for 2 week period!!

SUPERJULES

My husband is with O2 through carphone warehouse and has just had a bill for £244 coming out of the bank this coming Friday (last bill £95). It is because he uses WAP a lot and downloads stuff.

I think the bill is just mad and we can not afford to pay it as the mortgage is due out this Wednesday.

I am well aware that having used the phone my husband is liable to pay the bill, but at the top of each bill there is call credit limit, in his case stating £50 so we thought that he was covered as WAP is classed as calls.When he phoned up customer services he was told that data is different and their records are updated later and this is in the terms blah, blah, blah and the limit is only there as a guide.

Does anyone have a similar experience or can anyone help please?

He even said that he would cancel his direct debit and contract just to get some reduction but no, obviously he can't.

the_tired_one

But if he has knowingly used that amount of 'time'....thats just hard luck isnt it?

SUPERJULES

the_tired_one wrote:

But if he has knowingly used that amount of 'time'....thats just hard luck isnt it?

Yes I know that but he never thought it would be that much. He was with Orange and BT Mobile previouly and never had a bill like that.

As I put in my post and would like someone to reply who has had a similar experience or who can help Please! not a reply that is just a comment or obvious observation that I am aware of .

Thanks in anticipation

Prudent

This must be a horrible shock. Perhaps PAYG might be a better option. His bill is double my annual payg 02 bill. Though granted I obviously don't use my phone as much. Pay the mortgage first - maybe you can pay 02 in installments?

shelly

Do 02 do WAP bolt-ons? It might be worth (in the future) for him to get 1 bolt-on and only 1 and limit himself that way.


Hope you get sorted

Jarlawuk

o2 do web usuage bolt ons so your husband should see if they can sort him out a decent sized data bundle. It won't help towards your current bill and nothing will really as they won't reduce the bill as he has used it. If you can't afford to pay the bill then speak to o2 about getting the payments spread out over a small period of time and see if they will agree to that.

soolin

To be brutal I don't think there is anything much that the OP can do. The bill is not in dispute and I've never seen any mention of users being allowed to pay in installments, after all the bills come monthly anyway so installments would be rather silly.


Soo

gk172

A friend of mine ran up a pretty big bill either with 02 or tmob and she called and explain she couldnt pay in a lump some and wanted to pay it in installments, i think they blocked all outgoing calls/texts/wap till she paid what was out standing then they reinstalled her to normal service. They would rather get paid whats owed so i would think its worth giving them a call.

PeteM

The original O2 PAYG SIMs that I got (5 years ago) had the free 300 SMS texts added each month if you topped up with £10, but they also allowed 300 free minutes WAP use - obviously, this didn't include downloading ringtones/games, but I could use it for e-mail, etc.

Not sure whether they are still available though.

5limJim

I'd be more inclined to check the WAP content your OH's been looking at, i've used WAP very briefly and could not find anything that I would want to spend more than 2 minutes looking through (cinema listings, and latest scores was about all i could be bothered with) or has WAP changed so much in a few years

Woby_Tide

downloading games and e-mail would take a lot of WAP usage, also with apps like Opera Mini now available I've found I can use it more often for other stuff whilst out and about (critical stuff like Fantasy Football changes or Ebay bidding!) WAP has certainly moved on from the early days anyway. I'm just having to move from Virgin PAYG as GPRS charges are just too costly IMO, now makes up most of my bill