O2 Mobile Broadband ****WARNING*** 30 October 2009 at 9:27PM in Broadband & internet access 13 replies 1.4K views

ollyolatunji

About a year ago I purchased mobile broadband for my son to use at University, on their 3 Giga Byte / £17 a month tariff. Recently received a bill from O2 for £2,600 as my son had gone 15 Giga Byte over his limit. At no time did 02 send any text messages or e-mail warning that my son had gone over his limit. Also apparently they are unable to cap their services. On reading the small print O2 charge 19.1p per Mega Byte if you go over your limit...what you have to remember that there are 1,000 mega byte in 1 Giga Byte, so that works out to about £200 per Giga Byte, which is an extraordinary charge. The O2 web site is misleading as they should really these charges in Giga Bytes not Mega Bytes, they don’t charge in Mega Bytes !!!
To be fair to o2 they have agreed to waive the £2,600 but be warned some providers may not be so lenient

sean1604

Most of the time they have to waive it if its your first time, i'm pretty sure they're lying though when they say they can't cap them though. Most accounts i know off on 3 have a default cap of £20 (i urge most), but you can set a strict cap on them, pretty sure its in the t's nd c's.
Orange has a crazy out of bundle charge of 0.98p per mb on some tarrifs, imagine how high a bill you could run up with that :P

456789

why didn't your son monitor his usage?

student_84

He can monitor his usage through the o2 connection software, you can do the same through o2 online

stokefan

everyone makes mistakes

Donnie

15 GB over his one month usage. Someone was taking the pee. You were lucky, some providers may not have been so understanding.

If your son really needs to download a lot, he should take himself off to his nearest Cloud/BT OpenZone Hotspot and take advantage of the free wireless Internet included within his O2 package.

macman

Why doesn't your adult son pay his own phone bill? He was 6 times over the monthly limit, he can hardly have been unaware of that, the charges are perfectly clearly documented.

456789

Donnie wrote: »

If your son really needs to download a lot, he should take himself off to his nearest Cloud/BT OpenZone Hotspot and take advantage of the free wireless Internet included within his O2 package.

or try the uni library

mrtom21

Of course it can be capped... but that isn't what O2 want is it?? lol. Some dongles out there work like a pay as you go phone... where you spend £15 and get 3gb... once the usage runs out, the dongle stops working alltogether until you top up :P.

xycom1

OMFG 15GB, !!!!!! has he been upto!?!

boliston

That sounds like a "penal" rate of £200 per Gig for going over the inclusive allowance @ about £5 per gig. I wonder if they were to take someone to court to reclaim the over spend if it would go in their favour or would it be struck out as "unfair"?