Help! DSS mobile phone bill £4500!

[mumtomoley]

Just got DSS's phone bill and it's just over £4500

He's been to Turkey for 2 weeks with his mum and left data roaming on/been on the internet as it's all data charges. We really do not have the means to pay this at all. I've spoken to his mobile phone company, Orange, and they are going to call me back tomorrow. They have said that they may be able to put a credit on the account but 'to manage my expectations it won't be a significant amount'.

Any advice gratefully received?

Yes i think the guarantee is universal but it wouldnt I itself make you not owe it. Just thinking of things that would be part of any complaint.

I have a limit on my dds phone of I think 50 pounds.

WynkenBlynkenandNod Did you have a cap set up with Tesco? Or did they just do this anyway?

OMG! Crazy that they didn't cut the phone off. That amount is extortionate.

It get's worse... looking at it all properly now and there's another £1604 not yet even billed.

The direct debit guarantee wouldn't be a part of this anyway. They have notified you in advance of the charges (I get a text to say my bill is ready, so can check online 2 weeks before payment is taken) so I wouldn't involve that in your argument. Agree it's insane that they didn't block the phone before then!!!

Not sure where the line is drawn re responsible use and the phone company cutting the phone off after a certain limit

Rock chick I read it as the OP only knew of the charges when the DD failed, hence no notification of the change of amount. Of course if orange sent a text then the OP wouldn't have seen it (though if they did, one more row for DSS i think!)

Just call your bank and say the bill is in dispute and cancel the direct debit, but be sure and put in writing your complaint to Orange.

Ask Orange about their 'fair use' policy or rather ask them to send it to you in writing. I thought that if someone exceeded fair use, they would be automatically cut off so they wouldn't get insane bills?

Well we actually found out because DP was trying to contact him to ask what time he's getting his GCSE results and the message wasn't going through. DSS said 'oh yes, I don't know what's wrong but I can't seem to send or receive messages' But then looking into it the DD also didn't go out. I would imagine that DP got an email to say that the bill was available but as the bill is generally pretty much the same each month he didn't look at it. The fact that he has kept quiet about not being able to send messages tells me he probably knows more than he's let on.

Looking at the bill this 4.5k is basically for 8 days. Went on holiday on the 8th and this bill is only up to the 14th. Also the bill is only just due, so I don't think they would have stopped usage for non payment yet?

Hopefully they have stopped it because of the amount. At least if they have, then I can argue that they do accept some responsibility to do that, and they should have done it much much sooner.

Thanks ilovemydog

Is a 'fair use' policy something specific to mobile phone companies? If they have such a thing then that is very useful (hopefully!)

When you speak to them, have in your head the whole time an amount you consider reasonable to pay (vastly less than that bill!!). It helps I find with negotiations. Take it to the money pages of the torygraph or grauniad, they are both good at helping with these kinds of problems. So sorry, sounds awful xx

Can you get your DP to check his emails ASAP? They may have sent other emails too.

Just asked him and he doesn't get any emails from them regarding billing, so I think they must send a text message to the phone.

Have posted on Moneysavingexpert. Orange are phoning me back at 1.00pm so when I've spoken to them I'll give ofcom a call for their advice as I rather think that what I consider reasonable and what Orange consider reasonable are wildly different.

Any suggestions for what is reasonable to offer them? It's difficult for me to be objective on that one! Am aware we have to accept resonsibility for DSS being such a plum.

And also just wanted to say thank you for all your help.

Mumtomoley I wasn't aware I had a cap set, it wasn't discussed when I changed contacts with them. I guess it might be in the small print somewhere but I wasn't aware of it.

Can DSS tell you if they sent him a warning text after the bill it 50 euros?

consumers.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/telecoms/charges/roaming/

If they didn't you may be able to argue something?

There are two possibilities. Either you pay the 'cost' to Orange i.e. the amount they had to pay the overseas provider for the use of their network, but without Orange's profit mark up.

Or you argue that Orange should have noticed the out of character usage much earlier and stopped the phone. That's why I suggested getting a better breakdown and trying to see the phone itself to see what text messages were actually sent. It depends how quickly Orange's internal systems report activity to them, especially as the activity occurred on somebody else's network i.e. the turkish network provider. They may only receive reports daily from the Turkish provider as to what Orange phone users have used on their network. I think you could argue that they should have picked up the unusual usage within 24, max 48 hours though.

By the way, the 'cost' to orange is likely to be pretty high, at least half of the bill, so I would advocate the second argument!

Holy crap! That is a shocking amount.

I've just been to Antigua and O2 ant me a text saying they would charge £X per Mb of data but would charge me no more than £50. I can't remember if this was £50 per day or £50 in total as I've deleted the text (I turned data roaming off and used WiFi). Therefore it is possible for companies not to rip you off.

Someone on moneysavingexpert suggested that I ask them to apply their dataroaming bundle retrospectively. It's £175 p/m for 500MB which would cover what he has used.

I know this probably sounds a bit daft, but to be clear it would make no difference to their actual costs whether we had the bundle or not would it? I just want to be clear on this because assuming it doesn't then this is definitely what I would push for them to do. I.e. they aren't anymore out of pocket than if we had been sensible enough to do this in the first place.

And go for it on the basis that they will hopefully allow us to do that because they have been irresponsible in allowing such whopping great charges rack up?

Mum gets to pay for it then.

Or do they make a loss on these bundles?

What do you mean numbertaker? Because he was on holiday with her?

mum that sounds like a great suggestion. don't worry about orange being out of pocket in this instance. It really sounds like a good starting point and if they argue that it wasn't pre-authorised, you could say 'well ok, we will pay that and an additional £50' or whatever,