650 Euro Mobile Broadband Bill

squitely

The broadband stick in our house has run up a 650 euro bill in 2 months. we are on a 25 euro a month package.

They are charging 2 cent per megabyte over the limit.

This can't be fair, surely they should be obliged to notify us that the limit is being reached?

What can I do?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

The charge would have been clear in the T&Cs. You can check your usage any time on-line.

The Lovely Muffin

Do you have a monthly allowance? If you do, are you maybe running over that allowance?

Scrutinize your bill (and every bill that you think you were over charged on) and see if you can spot anything out of the ordinary.

Maybe even contact your provider and ask why your bill is so expensive if you are on a €25 monthly plan, see if they'll tell you why your bill is so expensive.

barone

downloading much?

Nody

squitely wrote: »

The broadband stick in our house has run up a 650 euro bill in 2 months. we are on a 25 euro a month package.

They are charging 2 cent per megabyte over the limit.

This can't be fair, surely they should be obliged to notify us that the limit is being reached?

What can I do?

Call them, plead innocence and ask them to reduce it as a one off and then go and get proper broadband and/or get individual connections instead.

jor el

You have used more than you were allowed to, and they are charging you the rate that they said they would charge you if you used more than you were allowed to. Next time, be more careful, and learn to read the details of the service you sign up for.

What you can do now is;
A. Plead with them to reduce the bill
B. Pay it.

What's not fair is that you went 32GB over your limit, which will have an adverse effect on everyone else in the same cell sector.

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

dudara

Do you know why so much stuff has been downloaded over your connection?

Plus, you're saying that the bill has been run up over 2 months. Those things are billed monthly, so why didn't you query it after the first month?

muireann50

Something similar happened to me a while back. The reason my bill got so huge was that although I was keeping an eye on my usage, I was using stats that stated they were not 100% accurate and it turns out they were way off so I ran up a bill of a few hundred euro in a few months (it was my own fault for not checking the proper usage). I got onto the Commission for Communications Regulation www.comreg.ie
I went through what had happened and they got me to make a formal complaint to the provider. I got half the bill credited to my account which helped a great deal, so I would recommend trying this.

ZENER

I'm glad I use PAYG !!

Ken

NIMAN

Your contract is €25 per month, but your bill is 650 for 2 months, so you are €600 over your agreed contract.

€600 extra is 30,000 x 2c, so you downloaded 30,000meg over and above what you were allowed to do.

That's 30gig of data. Thats quite a bit if you are not a very heavy user of the net.

Have you any idea where this all came from?
Was someone watching films, or downloading films/music/games etc?
Or listening to radio stations for hours on end?
Or watching YouTube for hours?

In theory it would be nice if the providers cut you off when you reached your limit, but as you can see its in their interest for you to break your cap, as it pays them.

NIMAN

More crucially, is your service password protected?

Could a neighbour be using your service?

Cabaal

NIMAN wrote: »

More crucially, is your service password protected?

Could a neighbour be using your service?

This would only apply if it was wifi, if it was a mobile dongle then password or not it wouldn't matter. Usage could only be created by the OP or other people physically using the dongle.

The OP says Broadband "stick" so its likely a dongle not a wifi router

McLoughlin

squitely wrote: »

The broadband stick in our house has run up a 650 euro bill in 2 months. we are on a 25 euro a month package.

They are charging 2 cent per megabyte over the limit.

This can't be fair, surely they should be obliged to notify us that the limit is being reached?

What can I do?

It is up to the consumer to read the T & C's and monitor there usage it is not the internet provider responsibility to inform the consumer if they go over there limit.

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

ShooterSF

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

To be fair though they aren't the only product that is billed and the customer is responsible to watch their usage. Gas? Electricity? Telephone? None of these warn you when you reach thresholds though most, along with broadband, come in prepaid options for those that can't keep an eye on their usage.

McLoughlin

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

The consumer should take responsibility and educate themselves regarding how much mb watching a youtube video is and how that effects there usage limit rather than blaming someone when they go over because "no one told me"

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

demakinz

Melendez wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'm with 02 mobile dongle and went over my limit after a few months only by €40(2gigs) . I rang them and now I get a text message when i go over my usage limit by €1, €5, €10 and so on which is handy.

I would recommend signing in to your account online and check your proper usage every couple of days. But going over your limit by 30gig or more is crazy you must be downloading a lot of movies and music.

keithclancy

IMO going over your monthly allowance should be an opt in not an opt out.

With calls etc, you know how many minutes your using.

With data its hard to know, some pages could use a few hundred KB, another page could use 50MB as it has a video ad embedded or something.

You can cut your web browsing down by a huge amount with Opera Turbo:

http://www.opera.com/browser/turbo/

Compresses all the Web Pages coming over the wire

I use it all the time on 3G and its a fairly good improvement, plus it saves your data allowance.

squitely

muireann50 wrote: »

Something similar happened to me a while back. The reason my bill got so huge was that although I was keeping an eye on my usage, I was using stats that stated they were not 100% accurate and it turns out they were way off so I ran up a bill of a few hundred euro in a few months (it was my own fault for not checking the proper usage). I got onto the Commission for Communications Regulation www.comreg.ie
I went through what had happened and they got me to make a formal complaint to the provider. I got half the bill credited to my account which helped a great deal, so I would recommend trying this.

That's interesting because our statistics screen says that in total, since we first got the stick on the 08/06/2011 there has been 47.36GB downloaded, and 2.25 GB uploaded.

So that would completely contradict the bills we are getting....

I called meteor there, and they advised me to send in a formal written letter outlining everything.

Tomorrow I will call comreg.

Max Power 2010

squitely wrote: »

That's interesting because our statistics screen says that in total, since we first got the stick on the 08/06/2011 there has been 47.36GB downloaded, and 2.25 GB uploaded.

So that would completely contradict the bills we are getting....

I called meteor there, and they advised me to send in a formal written letter outlining everything.

Tomorrow I will call comreg.

Fair Play,

But as far as I know there is a disclaimer at the bottom of the statistics page along the.lines of, this is only a guide to your usage not actual usage or something.

But, as most of the posters are saying it is your responsibility to monitor your usage, you can check by logging in to MyMeteor, texting "Data Balance" to 50104 or by calling Customer Care.

crazyderk

sure its not 2c a kilobyte rather than 2c a megabyte?

Stinicker

I often downloaded this amount in a day, ditch Three and get yourself a proper service on DSL or Cable on a high end package.

Cabaal

Stinicker wrote: »

I often downloaded this amount in a day, ditch Three and get yourself a proper service on DSL or Cable on a high end package.

- Not everyone lives in a cable area
- Not everyone can afford to spend 25e a month for a phone line BEFORE paying for ADSL
- Not everyone is in a DSL or cable area and as such only have "mobile Broadband" options