£6600 ORANGE bill :( help!

iwanttosave_2

Do Orange not offer online billing or a text balance checker?

S3quence

DarkConvict wrote: »

Good posts S3quence

From the document



Shouldn't be too difficult, i would presume they update there bills nightly. A simple SQL query on the database to see the current outstanding credit balance (anything over allowances) and then filter by those who either have exceed a threshold like £100 or a regular limit. Databases are fairly quick so even on a few million records it shouldn't take to long to do, even if it is done only every 3 days.

Hi yes, I understand how they could have the system in place. I was a DBA for 3 yrs and this sort of query wouldnt take long to write. My point is that downloading on average 100MB a day over 3weeks may not be seen as excessive usage.

The only get out clause is the cost going up each day and depending how the system is designed it again may not see a couple of hundred quid a day as excessive usage for a business.

Plus this is all based on assumptions for all we know it could have been light browsing for a few weeks then 2GB in the space of several hrs. The systems could be in place and just unfortunate that the data was downloaded in between a daily scan of the system for unusual activity. or was flagged at 3am in the morning

I know I have on a couple of occasions left my laptop at a customer site and set off a 500mb download and left it overnight to download so its ready for when I get in in the morning. I have also had it crash out and lose connection half way through a Service Pack download (300mb) and had to start again. Like I have said accumulating the data quickly isnt too difficult

DarkConvict

Fair points S3quence, i agree you can mass data quickly, MMORPGs like WOW or EQ2, from a fresh install is many many GBs of patches over a few hours.

Ethically it feels wrong what they have done, but it is fair as noted above, if you exceeded your minutes allowance, rang abroad, etc you would still be expected to pay as its clearly stated in the contract. Negotiation is really the only option.

epz_2

S3quence wrote: »

Again irrelevant as this is accessing the data on your mobile not using your mobile as a modem.

Go on any of the mobile operators websites and review the price plan im pretty sure every one will state that you cant use the phone as a modem.

For Example: http://www.three.co.uk/_standalone/Link_Document?content_aid=1214305748126

Bear in mind over a few weeks 2GB is about 100MB a day not much really.
Now explain how orange can flag up ALL customers who exceed this limit?

wrong, tmobile will chage an extra £5 for 3gigs alowance, so the market rate for the company orange are merging with is at most £12.50 yet they they want 6K.


If you can track someones billing you can limit someones data use you can limit it when its about to exceed an alowance. The fact they have chosen not to have proper controls and then expect their customer to pay a massivly inflated price for it.

DarkConvict

epz wrote: »

wrong, tmobile will chage an extra £5 for 3gigs alowance, so the market rate for the company orange are merging with is at most £12.50 yet they they want 6K.


If you can track someones billing you can limit someones data use you can limit it when its about to exceed an alowance. The fact they have chosen not to have proper controls and then expect their customer to pay a massivly inflated price for it.

But is that for the mobile internet dongle, the usb stick that plugs into a laptop?

talkalot

The sad thing is this need never have happened. Orange do a 2 gig business data bundle for £25.00 pm.

epz_2

DarkConvict wrote: »

But is that for the mobile internet dongle, the usb stick that plugs into a laptop?

nope, its for using your phone as an wireless access point


http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/mobile-internet/on-your-laptop/phone-as-modem/

EDIT, i should add its one of the major reasons i will be joining tmobile (and the N900), you woulnt expect to pay extra if you put you phone on loud speaker, what business is it of the phone co where the data goes. I accept there is a cost associated with this in that a user is more likely to consume more so dont mind paying a small charge for it.

epz_2

iwanttosave wrote: »

OK so you're a business, how would it go if a customer used 6 grand of your products/services while you have posters everywhere saying how much your service is and then refuses to pay?

People think that because they are a big faceless company then they shouldn't have to pay the clearly advertised price, a contract was taken out with you accepting those prices, if you wasn't happy with the prices then the contract shouldn't have been taken out and cheaper prices should have been sought.

2GB is a fair bit to use but it isn't said over what period this has been used. Baring in mind it can take up to 48 hours for networks to get charges through for GPRS, if it was done in 1 day then they wouldn't have been able to stop it. Also I don't know how Orange work, but the only accounts that tend to be highly monitored are ones that come back with a bad credit score or ones they feel need monitored do with some networks.

they would have been able to stop it, they chose not to invest in the IT infrastructure and expect us to pay because of it. Is any bank going to let you withdraw your credit limit hundreds of times because its systems havent caught up yet?

Banks dont even have that high end systems in relative terms(i used to maintain it ) they just to do it properly. I work in an industry now where over 20ms time diffs in field gear are unacceptable but orange are doing things on the cheap and expecting the consumer to pay MASSIVELY over the odds for it.

nexuss

A skiing holidaymaker has been hit with a huge mobile bill from Vodafone after using its services in France, in a stark reminder of the potentially high cost of mobile data charges while abroad.
Will Pierce was bored with French television and downloaded some British programmes using his Vodafone data card. But during a five-day holiday he managed to run up a bill of £22,000 without any warning that he was doing so.
Pierce downloaded shows including Top Gear and Kavanagh QC at a cost equating to roughly £300 a minute. One show, lasting only 18 minutes, cost him as much as £5,132,
"I am amazed that Vodafone could allow an individual to run up such a huge bill without any warning or agreement of a credit limit," Pierce told the newspaper.
"I nearly fell over when I saw the bill. It was just unbelievable. I never imagined it would cost so much to watch a few TV programmes.
"There's no warning when you log on how much it will cost a minute, or a counter on the screen telling you what it is costing. If you ran up such a bill on your credit card while overseas you'd get a call checking that it is you who is spending so much."
Vodafone has agreed to waive the bill.

DarkConvict

nexuss wrote: »

A skiing holidaymaker has been hit with a huge mobile bill from Vodafone after using its services in France, in a stark reminder of the potentially high cost of mobile data charges while abroad.
Will Pierce was bored with French television and downloaded some British programmes using his Vodafone data card. But during a five-day holiday he managed to run up a bill of £22,000 without any warning that he was doing so.
Pierce downloaded shows including Top Gear and Kavanagh QC at a cost equating to roughly £300 a minute. One show, lasting only 18 minutes, cost him as much as £5,132,
"I am amazed that Vodafone could allow an individual to run up such a huge bill without any warning or agreement of a credit limit," Pierce told the newspaper.
"I nearly fell over when I saw the bill. It was just unbelievable. I never imagined it would cost so much to watch a few TV programmes.
"There's no warning when you log on how much it will cost a minute, or a counter on the screen telling you what it is costing. If you ran up such a bill on your credit card while overseas you'd get a call checking that it is you who is spending so much."
Vodafone has agreed to waive the bill.

Well roaming charges do take longer to make it back to the UK to be totalled for the bill, I am surprised vodafone waived the charges as they would have been billed by other companies for their customers use.
I thought it was common knowledge that the internet on phones was expensive, even more so abroad and that websites like youtube/iplayer take up alot of bandwidth. But i guess not.