Help! Talkmobile data charges for data I have not used.

james_bond1

Can anyone give advice on what is the next step I should do. I pay monthly for my daughters talkmobile phone. In August talk mobile barred her phone because a bill had clocked up of £110. THey say that she was streaming from 1645 to 1 AM the next day!!
Her tariff is the £7.50 a month. On that particular day she did not use her phone, she had it with her at all times and was on a Christian holiday in this country. She never uses her phone for streaming and definitely did not use her phone this way. In fact her usuage since November last year has been on average £8.50 a month.
I took all this up with Talkmobile and Carphone warehouse, sent the phone off for checking, came back with no fault found. They would not believe me, I took it to the ombudsman and basically they said that Talkmobile has it recorded to the sim that this data was used. I had to pay the bill.
Unfortunately, this has happened again, yesterday in fact with now a bill of £105. My daughter has cried about this because she has not done anything to warrant this usuage and has not used the phone in this way at all. She knows what she is doing and the phone has been with her at all times. If I don't get any joy again with talkmobile I am going to have to buy her a new phone with a contact elsewhere and just not use the existing sim card as it has another year to run.
I personally think it is very unfair that these companies do this to customers and not basically trusting them and even having a goodwill gesture. Also, on the very same day in the same branch of CWH when I complained about the first bill a gentleman had gone into CWH with a bill for £800 from Talkmobile :(saying he had been streaming for 3 days and he insists he knows nothing about this.
I will never go to Talk mobile ever again and I would definitely not recommend any one to use them. No sympathy for the user whatsoever.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

NFH

Bear in mind that phones constantly use data even when the user is not looking at the screen. I believe that most phones (including the iPhone) show the amount of mobile data that each app and system service has used since the data counter was last reset. What is the offending app or system service?

JJ_Egan

The phone is using data and has to be paid for .
The question is what app is using this data .

Personally i would factory reset the phone wiping all data and installed apps and set up again .
Whatever the phone is their is usually an app that will measure mobile data and can be set as alarm at a limit .

Does not matter what network you are with as this is a repetitive user problem they have more than likely run out of sympathy .See multiple identical posts on thsi forum.

james_bond1

Talkmobile have said that they cannot tell what was streaming, just that data was used. Also, when phone came back from the lab, they said they could not replicate the problem. I am wondering how can anyone replicate a problem if it only happens once in a blue moon?

james_bond1

JJ_Egan wrote: »

The phone is using data and has to be paid for .
The question is what app is using this data .

Personally i would factory reset the phone wiping all data and installed apps and set up again .
Whatever the phone is their is usually an app that will measure mobile data and can be set as alarm at a limit .

Does not matter what network you are with as this is a repetitive user problem they have more than likely run out of sympathy .See multiple identical posts on thsi forum.

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. When the Samsung Galaxy Ace phone was sent to the Talkmobile lLab they wiped off the operating system and put an updated new one on but the situation has still arisen, Is it possible that the sim card could be faulty?

Techhead_2

You really need to follow the advice above and use the data monitoring function of the phone or install an app to monitor data usage.

The Ombudsman has checked that the billing system had accurately recorded the usage. The phone has been checked. Honestly, all that is left is that something your daughter is using the phone for is using data. Given the out of bundle price for data, this isn't a huge amount and could be applications updating, maps, some games etc.

Phone companies hear the phantom data usage questions all the time. Usually, it's turns out to be something the user has inadvertently done because of not understanding what is happening. This is why using a data logging app or recording data used is your best weapon to dispute the charges.

buglawton

Its rather easy to leave streaming radio running, or maybe Spotify. What was typical data usage in MB last time it happened?

macman

A look at the logs should reveal what apps are using the data?
In the meantime can she not just turn data off when she doesn't need it?

NFH

james_bond1 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. When the Samsung Galaxy Ace phone was sent to the Talkmobile lLab they wiped off the operating system and put an updated new one on but the situation has still arisen, Is it possible that the sim card could be faulty?

No, as Techhead and I have already suggested, you need to monitor the data counters in the phone, if necessary by installing third party apps. This will show you the offending app or system service that is consuming so much data. Don't focus on obscure and unlikely causes such as the SIM card before looking at the usage history that is available to you.

jancam

Hi
Just been caught out with this and now have a £600 bill on a SIM only monthly plan at £12 per month. Talk mobile put a bar on the phone at £415 but it's gone up daily and we still don't know if this is the final amount. Again it was data downloading from midnight on 24/12 every minute we were charged 0.24p. Been on the phone to Talk Mobile for the last two days and instore to Carphone Warehouse today and one blaming the other and referring to T&Cs and pushing back to us. I've since cancelled the plan and got a PAYGo elsewhere. Just to be clear a 12 minute video was uploaded on 24/12 which would not have used the level of data and charged us £600 to do so and we thought we had a £50 limit on the plan, that's why we took it out and it was explained to us that this would avoid this type of situation - clearly not. We also weren't made aware until yesterday that it takes 72 hours for Talk Mobile to receive billing information from our provider - this isn't stated in the T&C, yet they say we are responsible for data used above the plan.

Our argument is we were miss-sold a plan on understanding this would be limited to £50 as advised by CPW sales team and we cannot understand or accept that TM didn't block until it had reached £415 and it's still rising.

We have written a letter of complaint and will continue to fight.

Nebulous2

What is her monthly data limit?
What is her typical data usage on a month when you haven't been charged extra?

My daughter is on talk mobile and has a 500 Mb data limit. She uses apps for contacting other people that use data, such as WhatsApp. She has never gone over her limit and has a data warning set on her phone to give her a warning if she is getting close. She uses wifi in the house. Her and all of her friends seem really aware of costs/limits and what they can and cannot do.

Another daughter is on T mobile, with a 256 Mb limit. They text her a warning when she is getting close, then another when she has reached her limit. At that point they don't cut her off entirely but stop streaming and still allow web browsing and emails. There is no further charge for this excess usage. She regularly goes over, but her contract ends in February so I'll get more data for her next time.

I'd suggest that 500 Mb is a minimum for most teenagers. You need to educate them to switch off data and use wifi wherever possible. They need to monitor what they are doing carefully.

Consider other newtworks that won't charge, such as my soft limit on T-mobile. I've heard good things about Tesco mobile as being the only network that actually does cap charges, but I have never tried them.