Ridiculous Bill for Mobile Data-network ignoring my complaint...

blueandgreen

Hi: I recently received a large mobile phone bill from one of the big mobile network operators. My usual monthly bill is about 50 Euro - this bill was over 250 Euro. Most of the increase was due to some light mobile data usage-about 10MB over the course of the month.

I have sent a letter of complaint to the company in question as well as a follow-up email 3 weeks later. Both were ignored. Does anybody have any advice-legal or otherwise? I have not yet contacted COMREG. I include the letter of complaint below:

START*********************************************************
Dear Sir/Madam,

I recently received my latest bill dated February 25th. Having occasionally used my new phone to access websites during the month of February, I was horrified to discover that my GPRSWAP charges for that month totaled over €180. This charge applied to a a mere 10.911 megabytes of downloads and equates to an end cost of nearly €18 per megabyte.

I then compared this with your data add-on rate and discovered that you charge €9.99 as a monthly charge on data downloads of up to 250 megabytes. This equates to a more reasonable cost of approximately €0.04 per megabyte. It means that your standard data charge is roughly 450 times greater than your data add-on rate.

This is an outrageous policy for your company to maintain. You will understand that I was completely unaware of such extortionate prices. I am currently reviewing my options and am considering writing a formal letter of complaint to Comreg. I am eager to hear any response you might have.
END*********************************************************

aidan_walsh

Consult a lawyer for legal advice.

Tom Dunne

blueandgreen wrote: »

You will understand that I was completely unaware of such extortionate prices.

And therein lies the problem. You simply don't have a leg to stand on.

Ignorance of charges is no defense.

Random

You didn't check how much it cost. You used it. You got charged. Meteor aren't gonna give a toss if you approach them with such hostility.

Ring them up and explain you ****ed up. Tell them you neglected to read all the T&C and throw yourself at their mercy. See if there's anyway they can just charge you for the data addon price, should you have had that on your account - but don't expect it.

Otherwise read the full fees for services that you use in future.

chrislad

blueandgreen wrote: »

Hi: I recently received a large mobile phone bill from one of the big mobile network operators. My usual monthly bill is about 50 Euro - this bill was over 250 Euro. Most of the increase was due to some light mobile data usage-about 10MB over the course of the month.

I have sent a letter of complaint to the company in question as well as a follow-up email 3 weeks later. Both were ignored. Does anybody have any advice-legal or otherwise? I have not yet contacted COMREG. I include the letter of complaint below:

START*********************************************************
Dear Sir/Madam,

I recently received my latest bill dated February 25th. Having occasionally used my new phone to access websites during the month of February, I was horrified to discover that my GPRSWAP charges for that month totaled over €180. This charge applied to a a mere 10.911 megabytes of downloads and equates to an end cost of nearly €18 per megabyte.

I then compared this with your data add-on rate and discovered that you charge €9.99 as a monthly charge on data downloads of up to 250 megabytes. This equates to a more reasonable cost of approximately €0.04 per megabyte. It means that your standard data charge is roughly 450 times greater than your data add-on rate.

This is an outrageous policy for your company to maintain. You will understand that I was completely unaware of such extortionate prices. I am currently reviewing my options and am considering writing a formal letter of complaint to Comreg. I am eager to hear any response you might have.
END*********************************************************

You don't have a leg to state on. Comreg are there for genuine complaints, not because you weren't aware of data charges. They might help you if you ask nicely, but if you've sent that mail, I personally would laugh and do nothing to help you, as you've assumed that Meteor is at fault here, not you.

Solair

I would ring Meteor and plead ignorance of the charge. Say that you're really disappointed and that you thought you were getting the bundled rates.

If they're not interested, tell them you'll move network and take your friends/family with you too.

Usually Meteor are quite good at customer care stuff like that.

I agree though their data charges are insane.

I also find it really annoying that it's very difficult to get any accurate usage info for their data bundles. Their website's never accurate and even their text back service frequently spews out nonsense.

Tom Dunne

Solair wrote: »

I also find it really annoying that it's very difficult to get any accurate usage info for their data bundles. Their website's never accurate and even their text back service frequently spews out nonsense.

Slightly OT, but the website is now accurate. Give or take a couple of k, they match the data counter on my iPhone.

conZ

This happened me recently. Recieved a bill for over €1100 from O2. I am quite a large customer though.

I, firstly, composed myself. Then I wrote down a list of things I was going to say to the Customer Service rep, notably :

I was misguided when purchasing the phone, wasn't told about data pricing tarriffs, wasn't told about price or options when I was setting up GPRS or whatever it's called. Basically implied that it was their fault for not pointing me towards the data pricing plans and was left on the ****ty overpriced per mb tarriff even though it was implied when purchasing the phone and setting up the GPRS over the phone with O2 that I would be quite a large user of mobile internet. Then I told them to sort it out, or else my custom would be taken elsewhere.

So I rang up, ranted away for about 2 minutes. The customer service girl was quite sympathetic, noted my points and told me her manager/supervisor would look at my bill and get back to me. This was 5pm.

Her manager rang me back at 7pm, but I missed the call and she left quite a sympathetic message on my phone and told me to ring whenever I got the chance and ask to be put through to a Supervisor.

The following day, I rang again. Got speaking to a different supervisor. She looked at my file and told me I could be put on a data pricing tarriff and it would be applied to my last bill (reducing the bill to €414 (for 2 months)). My bill was updated by the time I got home to €414 (online).
I was put on the monthly rate of €20 for up to, I dunno, maybe 25mb or so per month.

Generally though, my bill would be €250 or so.

eth0_

Not being told the price of data on the network when you bought the phone is a laughable defence.

Why would you use the data service if you had no idea how much it cost? Would you ring premium rate phone numbers without checking the cost, or sign up to a mobile subscription service without first checking how much it cost?

I can't believe you and the OP believe YOUR ignorance should be compensated for by your mobile network!

board om

conZ wrote: »

Generally though, my bill would be €250 or so.

you see with a bill of €250 upwards a month they would be eager to keep you as a customer. it would be worth making the sacrifice of a few euro if it meant keeping you happy in the long term. and they did give you a pretty good service so i would say you are pretty happy with the outcome.

but the OP's average bill is only €50 per month so i cant see them being as generous. based on the OP's monthly spend, if they were to let him iff the charges for data for the month, it would mean crediting back nearly a third of what he would normally spend in a year.

Sam Vimes

Solair wrote: »

If they're not interested, tell them you'll move network and take your friends/family with you too.

a customer care agent is on a fixed salary and will continue to be on a fixed salary if the OP and his friends leave. basically he doesn't give a crap if you leave and making threats like that just makes him less inclined to be sympathetic towards you. OP, don't make threats. you used the service without checking the price and now you're trying to get out of paying for it. pleading for mercy is what's called for here. not threatening them because you made a mistake

would you walk into a car showroom, take a car, bring it home, drive it around for a week and then look at the price tag?

Solair

Actually, not informing customers of the data prices and advertising bundle prices is misleading.

They are obliged to be very clear and up front about all pricing.

Would you shop in a supermarket that didn't display prices and sometimes charged €1 for a loaf of bread and othertimes charged €2000 for the same loaf ?!

chrislad

Solair wrote: »

Actually, not informing customers of the data prices and advertising bundle prices is misleading.

They are obliged to be very clear and up front about all pricing.

Would you shop in a supermarket that didn't display prices and sometimes charged €1 for a loaf of bread and othertimes charged €2000 for the same loaf ?!

Completely different. In a supermarket, you don't have someone on every aisle advising you of the price every time you put something in your trolley. The data prices are on the Meteor website, and that's enough. If the OP didn't make himself aware of those, that's his problem. There's also very clear in store literature that states all costs.

Gillo

Solair wrote: »

Actually, not informing customers of the data prices and advertising bundle prices is misleading.

Yes, and I'm quite sure you'd be happy to wait half a hour per customer, while all the pricing and T's & C's are fully explained. With any mobile network there are numerous tariff's which can be chosen again there are numerous "add on's". Don't get me wrong I'm nothing trying to make an excuse for poor service but in my experience the majority of customers turn off after a few minutes.

At the end of the day it's up to the OP to pay for what he used.

Paulw

Solair wrote: »

Actually, not informing customers of the data prices and advertising bundle prices is misleading.

They are obliged to be very clear and up front about all pricing.

All their rates and T&Cs are listed on their website. I'd put money on the fact that that is stated in all literature too.

The OP can't plead ignorance here, and would have to pay up.

311

The same thing happened to me on vodafone ,it could have cost me a lot more if I hadn't have noticed what happened.

It's stated that they charge by the kilobyte ,so the least it's going to be is a tenner for a meg @1c per K.

My laptop had decided to use the modem on my phone via bluetooth,as I was downloading a 150MB file:eek: .Only by the speed ,did I realise something was odd.

Cactus Col

311 wrote: »

My laptop had decided to use the modem on my phone via bluetooth,as I was downloading a 150MB file:eek: .Only by the speed ,did I realise something was odd.

Didn't know that was even possible!

switching off all blue tooth now.

311

Cactus Col wrote: »

Didn't know that was even possible!

switching off all blue tooth now.

I had installed the phone software and all modem drivers ,when I bought the phone.

It won't just use your phone ,unless the phone is installed that way.

BUT ,I didn't realise how easy the laptop could choose the phone over other connections:eek:

Sam Vimes

Cactus Col wrote: »

Didn't know that was even possible!

switching off all blue tooth now.

your computer has to be set up in a very specific way for that to happen but you should turn off BT anyway because it wastes the battery and people can send you viruses, if you accidentally accept them