O2 £2700 bill for data usage abroad

[Anonymous]

I'm a fool for thinking there were reasonable limits imposed by Ofcom on mobile phone providers, but thought it would be interesting for others to know that I just received a £2700 bill for data usage while visiting the US for three weeks.  This is a single billing cycle.

After a certain point, this is plain and simple profiteering.  Wouldn't it be reasonable to say, once a customer has spent £500, to cap his bill for data usage in that billing cycle?

[MI5]

I believe it is capped unless you over ride it....?

[jonsie]

I'm not sure how you managed to rack up those charges.

Have a look here about data usage outside Europe.

http://www.o2.co.uk/help/bills-and-payment/calling-texting-and-data-usage-abroad

Data

So that you don't have to worry about racking up a huge bill when you're abroad, we'll cap your data usage.

If you're going to Europe, we'll cap your internet use at £43 (inc VAT)/255MB. If you're going outside of Europe, we'll cap your usage at £40 (ex VAT)/50MB.

You can raise this cap to £120/705MB in Europe, 200MB outside of Europe, or remove the cap completely, by contacting us. Once the £120 cap has been removed, you'll be charged per MB for the country you're travelling in. You can find out more information on cost per MB here and our demystifying data help article explains data consumption.

If you want to reapply your £120 data cap contact us when you're back in the UK.

Terms apply

[viridis]

@MI5 @jonsie forgive my ignorance here, not travelled outside europe with my phone, but does that mean the op, at some stage in the past, has requested the data cap be removed?

[MI5]

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@viridis wrote:

@MI5 @jonsie forgive my ignorance here, not travelled outside europe with my phone, but does that mean the op, at some stage in the past, has requested the data cap be removed?

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It is my understanding that is the only way, unless there has been some major system issue, which I'm sure O2 will investigate.

Maybe if CS can't help a complaint may be worth raising for an investigation http://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain

[jonsie]

I've always switched mobile/cellular data off but Igiven all the reports in the press over the last 12 months and the information coming from O2 both on the web pages and via texts I received from O2 on my last trip, data is capped at £40 each billing cycle.

There is something badly wrong here and it needs O2 to investigate.

[Cleoriff]

Sounds like a system failure to me. Surely even if the OP removed the cap it wouldn't have risen to £2700 of usage without some sort of warning text?

[viridis]

Unless it's one of those issues where O2 say you used all your data in 5 minutes but this time, charged someone for it.?

[jonsie]

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@viridis wrote:
Unless it's one of those issues where O2 say you used all your data in 5 minutes but this time, charged someone for it.?

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I'm more inclined to think that the system has failed.

A complaint should sort it. O2 cap at £40 per cycle unless opting out.

[MI5]

It has to be a system failure as I said earlier.
Even if the OP had opted out I'm sure you get texts telling you how much data you had used and surely this would have alerted them to a problem , but I guess these never arrived either.......