Help with massive vodafone bill please

silvercar

Trying to help a friend. He has got into a bit of trouble with his company phone.

His tariff has a 500MB limit for data.

This month's bill arrives at over £1000. The odd items are itemised as WAP internet usage:
18/08 291.100MB £149.108
19/08 250.014MB £128.062
20/08 69.01MB £35.347
24/08 1303.005MB £667.40
25/08 98.277MB £50.343

He used his phone to video his daughter's school play and then tried to email that video from his phone so that he could access it via his laptop. He now knows an email with a sizeable video attachment would have been rejected by his work server, so he thinks he may have tried to resend several times, though he doesn't know if the server rejection would mean the data was on the network.

Is it possible that the bill could really be that high or does it look like a billing error?


Thanks for any help.

robt_2

If the receiving server rejected the email because it was too big, then yes, it had already been sent across the cellular network. But I am VERY surprised it got that far - the sending server should not allow an email that big. How big was the actual video file size?

Surely he knows if he tried sending it several times - there is no 'think' about it.

ruggedtoast

I would think he'd be better off asking Vodafone. The standard fee with Vodafone for exceeding data is £5 for another 500mb. You'd have to be trying to email a blu ray to run up a grand of data use.

In addition the upload speed, even for HSDPA is pretty slow, its pretty hard to imagine he wouldnt have noticed the usage on the 24th, the phone would have been broadcasting for hours, which would have murdered the battery.

If hes on a business tariff they may have some older price structure where you have to pay per meg.It looks like theyre charging about 50p per meg. Its massively in excess of current data charges to they may waive some or even all of it as a good will gesture.

Of course if your friend has been doing a bit of top shelf browsing on the work mobile they may not be so keen to help.

gjchester

silvercar wrote: »

Trying to help a friend. He has got into a bit of trouble with his company phone.

His tariff has a 500MB limit for data.

This month's bill arrives at over £1000. The odd items are itemised as WAP internet usage:
18/08 291.100MB £149.108
19/08 250.014MB £128.062
20/08 69.01MB £35.347
24/08 1303.005MB £667.40
25/08 98.277MB £50.343

He used his phone to video his daughter's school play and then tried to email that video from his phone so that he could access it via his laptop. He now knows an email with a sizeable video attachment would have been rejected by his work server, so he thinks he may have tried to resend several times, though he doesn't know if the server rejection would mean the data was on the network.

Is it possible that the bill could really be that high or does it look like a billing error?


Thanks for any help.

My rough mental maths says that 2GB at 50p a meg which sounds about right for out of bundle charging on most business contracts.

He may want to try calling Voda and asking for some goodwill gesture, and finding out if the 500MB allowance has been taken off (or is that not listed here).

My best guess is it was set to email and times out in the process as the signal got lost so the data was transferred but the email never go to the destination.

silvercar

robt wrote: »

If the receiving server rejected the email because it was too big, then yes, it had already been sent across the cellular network. But I am VERY surprised it got that far - the sending server should not allow an email that big. How big was the actual video file size?

Surely he knows if he tried sending it several times - there is no 'think' about it.

I don't know the size of the file but it was about a minute long.

gjchester

ruggedtoast wrote: »

If hes on a business tariff they may have some older price structure where you have to pay per meg.It looks like theyre charging about 50p per meg. Its massively in excess of current data charges to they may waive some or even all of it as a good will gesture.

Its possible his company has a deal with no or low rental in exchange for no inclusive bundle and "standard" rate calls. Often the case in big business as calls are revenue and hardware is capital.

gjchester

silvercar wrote: »

I don't know the size of the file but it was about a minute long.

That can't be right. The amount of data shifted eqates to a good few hours of DVD quality video. Something not right.

Either the phones never managed to send and constantly retried, so he has or the somethings stuffed..

silvercar

gjchester wrote: »

Its possible his company has a deal with no or low rental in exchange for no inclusive bundle and "standard" rate calls. Often the case in big business as calls are revenue and hardware is capital.

The calls are pooled across all users but each user has their own 500mb data allowance. Apparently no-one has ever gone over their limit before and people do browse the internet.

ruggedtoast

silvercar wrote: »

I don't know the size of the file but it was about a minute long.

What phone is it? Usually that would be about 30mb on standard def. Also Voda are meant to text you when you exceed your allowance. Somethings not right.

silvercar

ruggedtoast wrote: »

In addition the upload speed, even for HSDPA is pretty slow, its pretty hard to imagine he wouldnt have noticed the usage on the 24th, the phone would have been broadcasting for hours, which would have murdered the battery.

It did murder the battery.

silvercar

ruggedtoast wrote: »

What phone is it? Usually that would be about 30mb on standard def. Also Voda are meant to text you when you exceed your allowance. Somethings not right.

Nokia E72.