Beware spiralling mobile phone internet charges
What would we do without internet on our mobile phones? Well some of us wouldn’t be hit by shocking bills at the end of the month after not being told that they’ve gone over their allowance.
Before this year, many of us holidaying in Europe were hit by huge mobile phone bills when we got home. Some of you have even experienced bills as high as £660!
Thankfully, in July, mobile operators were forced to introduce a cap of $50 Euros (around £42) on roaming charges, with an adjoining text message to warn you when you’ve reached 80% of this limit. And though we’d like to see this extended to roaming outside of Europe, these new rules were certainly a win for consumers.
The mobile internet sting
However, operators are still happy to send bills rolling into the hundreds, if not thousands, to unsuspecting folk who’ve been browsing the internet in the UK.
As thinkbroadband.com explains, we rely on common sense to make sure our mobile calling doesn’t go overboard, but browsing the internet is different. It’s very hard to know how many megabytes (MB) a particular website or application uses. And if you’re not told you’ve gone over your data allowance, the costs can spiral out of control.
Of course, it’s people who haven’t bought an internet ‘data bundle’ with their contract who’re affected. You can get a monthly 1,000MB data bundle for just £5 with some operators, but without this you could be charged as much as £4 for every single MB of data you use, according to the research.
Lots of people are splashing out on smartphones without updating their old contract – with the risk of bills up to 400 times more expensive than with a relevant data bundle.
It would be nice if mobile operators sent their customers a text message when they’ve exceeded their limit, but for now, make sure you’ve either got a data bundle or a package that caps your web usage. Have you been shocked by a nasty mobile phone bill?
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Ismail
Its a shame that the mobile operators are in effect fleecing customers out of hundreds of pounds by not warning them of their mobile internet usage limit, surely this must change, and the offcom needs to step up to the plate and show that it is fit for purpose by forcing the mobile operators to send a warning message to their customers when they get over their internet usage limit.
regards
nick
the phone companies have hit on a sure-fire way to ill off mobile internet, customers will not easily forgive their deceit.
Jon
I bought a Tesco phone for my 12 yr old with a sim card contract that had a limit of £10 a month just so she could contact me if she missed the bus from school or needed me at all. The phone broke so I changed it in Tesco from a group of phones they told me were compatible with the sim contract. They also told me that there was free internet that would pick up my wifi at home. 1 month later I have a bill of £270 because when my daughter used the internet she was apparently connected to something called 3G at £4 a mb. Surely it can’t be right that I am expected to pay for something that I have not agreed to buy?