Help! Charged over £5,000 for alleged excessive data usage by Orange...

roxy_roxy1

Hi,

This is my first post as you can see...hoping someone will have answers/ideas/advice on an incredible situation that popped up today!

Was informed earlier this morning by the director of the company I work for, that apparently over the last three months Orange has taken over £5,000 for exceeding the contract's monthly data limit on my phone (which is 1 gigabyte; my phone is an HTC Desire Z). I'm speechless, as besides the sum being totally unacceptable for anything mobile related let alone data usage, my general patterns of use haven't changed and I've never had this before. Also ironically have had problems with their 3G service ever since we signed up early this year (there are a few calls logged, with masts regularly down etc) so find it doubly shocking that this could've happened at all!

Unfortunately this was missed 'til now as we've had a changeover of accounts handlers, otherwise the first bill of over £2,000 would have had us running before today.

Spoke to Orange late morning, and after they informed me that all looked correct and that due to privacy policies they couldn't actually tell me why/who/how it happened (unbelievable), I politely told them that for that amount of money I insist they do! And that we're prepared to follow through as long as it takes 'til there's an answer. Eventually they said it'd be referred to the Billing Integrity(!) Department and that the usual waiting time to hear back is a week...

I find it incredible that in all this time there was no warning, no automated text or email in place at any given point just stating that you've apparently gone over your limit, nothing. So irresponsible! Thousands of pounds for one person on a small company account per month. Whereas I feel responsible as it's allegedly on my phone, whether it's an error or not and therefore can't rest until it's sorted.

Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated. As you can imagine, feel awful and it's all a bit of a crazy disaster that I need to resolve somehow.

Thanks in advance.

robt_2

Have you been abroad and left data roaming turned on?

TakeThis

I think Orange charge the shocking amount of 96p per MB outside of the bundle. So that is £983.04 per GB. Buyer beware.

keith1950

Hi, if it's a business phone why would they question useage when people fly all over the world on business and build up massive bills.

Three words spring to mind.... horse.....stable door.

Hammyman

roxy_roxy1 wrote: »

Hi,

This is my first post as you can see...hoping someone will have answers/ideas/advice on an incredible situation that popped up today!

Was informed earlier this morning by the director of the company I work for, that apparently over the last three months Orange has taken over £5,000 for exceeding the contract's monthly data limit on my phone (which is 1 gigabyte; my phone is an HTC Desire Z). I'm speechless, as besides the sum being totally unacceptable for anything mobile related let alone data usage, my general patterns of use haven't changed and I've never had this before.

Have you had a HTC Desire Z before? It automatically syncs email accounts, linked Google accounts for contacts and calendar, weather, stocks, shares and news stories every couple of hours 24/7/365 unless you manually go into Settings, Accounts and Sync, select the ones you want to sync and the frequency.

oopsadaisydoddle

The billing team don't actually have the facility to see what/where (e.g. which websites etc) you have accessed. They don't get that info because of privacy reasons. You can however, request this information via the data protection officer.

roxy_roxy1

Hi everyone, thanks for replying.

No I haven't been abroad at all. So no data roaming.

Yes I realise the operators can't see data usage due to privacy policies, as they advised me. But since this is an extremely serious sum I need to know the hows, whys and wherefores to assess what's happened, which is why it's been sent on to another dept who will hopefully investigate it further.

Thanks Hammyman, I'll double-check settings. Still feels for that amount of usage there has to be more than that! No I've not had a Desire Z previously, but I did have a Googlephone before this, which I believe is HTC manufactured, with T-Mobile. Never had any problems with them which is why I mistakenly thought HTC was the way forward again (Orange came into it because of handsets).

Definitely shocking TakeThis...after some research realised there are a few other people out there that have been hit by thousands of pounds charges by Orange for exceeding data usage. Don't understand how they can condone that kind of practice without any capping or warning system in place! Incredible.

Hi keith1950, not sure when you say 'they' do you mean Orange or the company I work for?
It's just strange (besides anything else) as we signed up with them in March this year, and allegedly this started 3 months ago.

grumbler

He meant Orange because you asked why there was no any warning from Orange.

You need to rise a query about your bills and to request investigation.

roxy_roxy1

Thanks, that's exactly what I've done :-) was just wondering obviously if anyone here has had any previous experience, advice or tips, which is all appreciated.

And to answer Keith's question, you could ask why would credit card companies query an individual's spending etc. But they do, sometimes, when they deem spending patterns to be slightly different to that person's norm so you have to go through a security process. And here, when before 3 months ago the billing was within the regular monthly limit of under £50, to jump to £2,500 per month you'd think would trigger some warning bells. Or not. We're not a giant corporation, all companies are different. Like I said, just a generic warning message to anyone on a data plan saying when you've exceeded it (then) would've been more than good enough.

grumbler

There is a big difference between credit card companies and mobile networks.
Credit card companies balance between a small profit and a big loss if you default.
Mobile companies don't lose anything. It is either a small profit or a huge profit. Nothing to worry about.

keith1950

It's all about taking personal responsibility for using your phone and learning how it works.

There are plenty of free data counter apps that will alert you when you go above a level that you set.

Did you not set the phone so that it would connect to wifi before attemping to connect to Orange?........so it would ask you before it connected?

I completely agree with grumbler that your comparison between credit cards and mobile networks doesn't hold water.

I hope for your sake that this is some sort of cross billing issue but if it is down to you ,then accept responsibility and look to Orange to reduce the bill as a goodwill gesture.............and get the manual for your mobile out of the box !!

(Most of the previous examples we see on here are down to people taking their mobiles abroad and running up massive bills without even thinking about the consequences then coming on here to try and get help to get out of paying.)