Bill of £1,600

Miss_$

Hi

My friend has been to Canada and come home to find he has a phone bill of £1,600 due his phone has been roaming.

Does anyone know if the network provider should of cut his phone off when his phone bill reached a certain amount? They are telling him he has to pay it but hes not sure where he stands.

They have now cut his phone off after it reached £1,600

Thanks

watcherman

The gloaters will be along shortly, but unfortunately all your friend can do is appeal to the networks good nature and try for a reduction, capping only applies to within the EU.

robt_2

They are not able to cut it off when it reached a certain limit because usage abroad is not in real time, it is batched and sent daily/weekly to the UK provider.

All your friend can do is appeal to the networks better nature (and at the most expect 50% off) - going in all guns blazing will not help because they are under no obligation to do anything.

I honestly don't understand why people don't think to check how much their phone will cost to use abroad though.

DUTR

watcherman wrote: »

The gloaters will be along shortly, but unfortunately all your friend can do is appeal to the networks good nature and try for a reduction, capping only applies to within the EU.

I wouldn't say it's gloating, seems these big bill posts are gloating "look how large a bill I recieved"
Some users feel they can use their phone with impunity and not pay for the privelage

watcherman

DUTR wrote: »

I wouldn't say it's gloating, seems these big bill posts are gloating "look how large a bill I recieved"
Some users feel they can use their phone with impunity and not pay for the privelage

I just don't think people are aware (obviously), rather than thinking they can use it with impunity. If everyone was finance, cost, apr, debt etc savvy, then what would Martin Lewis be doing with his time :beer:

Wintermute

Pretty much everybody in this day and age should be aware that using their phone abroad costs them more, it's been in the papers, it's been on the news and the EU even passed legislation on it.

As robt stated above, billing abroad is not in real time,your friend wont be using the network he's subscribed to, he'll be using a foreign network and the network he subscribes to is going to be forced to pay for his phone bill so they're most likely going to force your friend to pay and the best they can really hope for is a goodwill gesture.

He's quite lucky they did cut him off, a lot of networks wouldn't have bothered and allowed the charges to mount up even higher.

You say the charges were for roaming, were they a mixture of charges or was it mainly data or voice calls? Did your friend contact the network before going to ask for information about using their phone abroad.

Unfortunately the only thing your friend can do is try and get a goodwill reduction on his bill, but he will most likely need to pay a large amount for it anyway.

bris

Anyone who uses there phone in Canada the same as if they were in the UK you should not complain about the bill later. This is not gloating, it's not exactly a big secret that roaming charges are extorionate. As to him being not sure where he stands, he stands with a £1600 bill that will need to be paid.
He can however work out a suitable deal with his provider that would allow him to pay by monthly instalments, this happens often and the billing department can set up a payment plan for him.

mrcamp

Wow! Not again. It's all over the news, it has been discussed here way too many times. And people still rack up these roaming charges due to their own negligence and nothing else. Your friend should count himself lucky of the carrier cuts a deal for him. He knowingly or negligently incurred the charges, and he is responsible for paying the full amount.

dmg24

watcherman wrote: »

I just don't think people are aware (obviously), rather than thinking they can use it with impunity. If everyone was finance, cost, apr, debt etc savvy, then what would Martin Lewis be doing with his time :beer:

If someone is not capable of understanding a mobile contract, they should not be signing up to one. They can always use a PAYG instead.

rwalton159

Wintermute wrote: »

Pretty much everybody in this day and age should be aware that using their phone abroad costs them more, it's been in the papers, it's been on the news and the EU even passed legislation on it.

As robt stated above, billing abroad is not in real time,your friend wont be using the network he's subscribed to, he'll be using a foreign network and the network he subscribes to is going to be forced to pay for his phone bill so they're most likely going to force your friend to pay and the best they can really hope for is a goodwill gesture.

He's quite lucky they did cut him off, a lot of networks wouldn't have bothered and allowed the charges to mount up even higher.

You say the charges were for roaming, were they a mixture of charges or was it mainly data or voice calls? Did your friend contact the network before going to ask for information about using their phone abroad.

Unfortunately the only thing your friend can do is try and get a goodwill reduction on his bill, but he will most likely need to pay a large amount for it anyway.

Spot on

Guys_Dad

sarah.roberts25 wrote: »

Hi

My friend has been to Canada and come home to find he has a phone bill of £1,600 due his phone has been roaming.

Does anyone know if the network provider should of cut his phone off when his phone bill reached a certain amount? They are telling him he has to pay it but hes not sure where he stands.

They have now cut his phone off after it reached £1,600

Thanks

Whilst not disagreeing with anything above, Sarah has asked a question that isn't answered fully in this thread, although it has been in other similar threads in previous weeks.

There is an EU cap, supposedly set at £44 (50 Euros) with a warning text when 80% is reached. However, beware of the delay if roaming on a different network mentioned above.

Google "EU roaming cap" to see. Here http://www.itpro.co.uk/622285/is-the-eu-data-roaming-cap-enough-to-protect-uk-users for example.


No help to your friend, though, as it only applies to EU countries plus a couple of territories.

The real problem is that people don't really appreciate the data implications of smart phones or phones et up to access push email, The pursuit of the latest shiny gizmo combined with not really reading up on the facilities and pitfalls means that on this forum alone there have been countless similar threads.

The best favour we all could do is to warn, warn friends and give them threads such as this for them to read.