The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Premium rate My £17,000 phone bill
Roaming charges
Holidaymakers who travel abroad this summer should monitor their data usage after one customer was landed with an £18,000 bill after a four-day trip to Dubai. Orange customer Daniel Jeffery, who works in recruitment and was on a work trip, said he was not using his work mobile phone excessively while abroad. “It wasn’t as if I was downloading films or streaming television programmes. I was mainly checking emails and opening CV attachments,” he said.
Mr Jeffery, 25, received the £17,728 bill from Orange – with £17,510 listed as a non-VAT charge for his usage in Dubai. He said the bill was outrageous: “I’m getting married later in the year and the wedding costs less than what Orange charged me.”
The bill was paid automatically by Mr Jeffery’s employer by direct debit. When the letter arrived Mr Jeffery complained to Orange, which told him that his data cap, which would have prevented his bill from escalating, was removed during a holiday to Turkey in 2015, which he contests.
“I’m adamant this is something I did not do and in thee past two years I’ve have never once been made aware of this,”his,” he said. A spokesman for r Orange, which is now part rt of EE but retains the brand d for small business accounts, nts, said Mr Jeffery had removedoved the cap via text message sage and as a result a £3,74040 bill was issued, which ch was paid in 2015 and not disputed. d.
When Mr Jeffery arrived in Dubai on March 21 he received a text message detailin detailing the cost of using “data” – int internet usage measured in mega megabytes (MB) – in the United Arab E Emirates (UAE). It said he would notn pay more than £36.40 a mo month unless he had previously optedop out of the data roaming cap. DuringD the trip Mr Jeffery said he received no communicationcommun from Orange warning him aboutabou the thousands of p pounds worth of roamingro charges heh was racking up. Orange claimed it had sent repeated text messages as his phone used larger amounts of data.
Mr Jeffery said: “I’m devastated. My work is obviously furious and I’m in a hugely uncomfortable situation. I’m very cautious when it comes to roaming charges and cannot believe a phone company can just spring this cost on a customer.”
Orange said: “During his visit to the UAE we sent a number of SMS alerts informing Mr Jeffery of the ongoing data usage and associated charges of using data without purchasing a bundle after he opted out of data caps on a previous trip abroad.
“We have a wide range of great value data bundles and urge customers not to remove the data cap unless absolutely necessary.”
The spokesman said the company had decided to cut the bill to £500 thanks to the “unique circumstances” of the case. It has also reinstated the cap that was removed in 2015.
International roaming caps
Roaming fees are capped in the EU and from June 15 they are being scrapped. Consumers will pay the same for calls, texts and data when travelling in Europe as they do at home. However, even those on unlimited plans may still find operators apply a “fair use” limit on data while customers are roaming.
Those who go above the limit will be charged a maximum of €7.70 (£6.71) per gigabyte plus VAT. By 2022 this will be cut to €2.50 (£2.18).
As an example, it takes a gigabyte of data per hour to stream TV programmes or films in standard definition on Netflix.
Mobile roaming data charges vary. Wherever you travel, providers will cut off your data usage when you have spent €50 – unless you opt out of the cap. If you sign up to roaming add-ons offered by your provider you may automatically be opted out. From August 1 phone usage outside the EU will attract 20pc VAT.
‘I’m getting married later in the year and the wedding costs less than this bill’