£380 charges for internet usage in 6 months on a £7 a month sim!!

bally_144

I set my 85 year old mum up on a £7 a month sim only contract as she can't really use the phone due to vascular dementia and certainly cannot use the internet, but wanted to be able to call her more easily. It included 250mb of data but this was not really needed. When checking her bank account for her recently I was horrified to see that her monthly bills over a 6 month period were £32.06, £74.06, £38.06, £92.06, £80 & £64!!!! She must have somehow switched data on and managed to connect to the internet. I suspect that VM don't care if someone on their most basic contract starts racking up massive bills - she used 1.5 gb of data one month and was charged over £80 for it - it is very good for profits! However, I am surprised that this doesn't automatically flag a concern to them, as abnormal credit card usage would. Also, do they not have an obligation to ensure that everyone is on the most efficient package for their usage? I am not sure how much responsibility they should shoulder here but was shocked that such charges could be consistently racked up without any concerns being raised by VM?

Farway

Not a shill for VM, but perhaps they did flag it up to the user, your mum with vascular dementia?

Maybe get her a 2g mobile which does not have any internet capability

pramsay13

Contact them to discuss. I imagine technically they don't have to shoulder any responsibility but they may well do.

I have a £5 monthly cap on my SIM card so might be worth asking for something similar going forward.

If your mum can't use the internet how were the charges being racked up? 

zxc9

You do realise that you can put a spend cap on a virgin sim only deal.

stragglebod

Get her a pay as you go sim with automatically recurring bundles. Then when she goes over her data allowance the data just stops, rather than her getting billed for it.

https://kenstechtips.com/index.php/cheapest-pay-as-you-go-bundles

Neil49

If it's an android phone then you can set a monthly data limit through settings at which point no more data will be used. 

d123

Neil49 said:

If it's an android phone then you can set a monthly data limit through settings at which point no more data will be used. 

Safer to just set the spend limit with the network. All networks have to offer it.

Chino

bally_144 said:

Also, do they not have an obligation to ensure that everyone is on the most efficient package for their usage?

No.
If a customer is concerned about whether they are on the most efficient package then any obligation is on the customer to continually monitor their usage and the market. If anyone's at fault here, it's you for not placing your mother on the best package for her usage, not on VM for delivering the service they contracted to deliver.

macman

If she's asking you to check her bank account for her, then it might be a good idea to do it more often than once every 6 months...

simax

When the regulations changed in 2018, it became a legal requirement for the person signing up to the contract to agree to a spend cap, or to opt out of it. If you didn’t do either, you couldn’t sign up. This was not only to prevent Bill shock for the user, but also to protect the networks from chancers who would plead ignorance to get a free refund of charges that they were not eligible for.

So, upon signup, there would have been a part about a spend cap. If you opted out, you haven’t got a leg to stand on. Sorry old chap.