One Brick at a Time

When I visited Montreal at the beginning of April, I found myself facing a mobile phone bill of nearly £1,000. This was due to the fact that my T-Mobile G1 phone constantly polled the internet while I was there, racking up huge bills without me knowing.

I cancelled my Direct Debit (figuring it was easier to fight charges before payment, rather than try to get them back after payment) and sent them a letter.

I recently received a letter from T-Mobile confirming all the charges have been waived.

This was the letter I sent:

Dear sir/madam,

I have just returned from a weekend away in Montreal. While I was there, my telephone racked up around £950 of charges.

The first I knew of this was when I received a text message informing me that I was approaching my credit limit, and that I should make a payment to receive continued service. As I had sent a few texts and made one telephone call, as well as check my email (text only) on a small number of occasions, this did not unduly concern me. My bills have always been between £40 and £60 a month, so I naturally assumed that I had been assigned a credit limit of around £75 to £100.

You can imagine how surprised I was to discover when logging on that my bill was significantly over £700! £238 of this was added to the account the previous evening when I was busy hosting a party.

I immediately turned my telephone off, and switched it on only sporadically during the day to see if I had any texts waiting, immediately turning it off again, afterwards. During this time, my bill increased from over £700 to around £950.

I queried the bill, of course, by email, but was informed by one of your representatives that the amount billed was mainly due to downloads while abroad. As already mentioned, I checked my emails only very occasionally.

When I returned home from Montreal, I discovered that the service had been switched off completely, despite the fact that my calling plan has inclusive minutes/texts/web time.

On my return, I checked online to see if others had experienced this problem, and it appears that it is a known problem with this telephone, and one that T-Mobile have encountered many times before. Why, then, when I called T-Mobile before travelling, to ensure I could use my phone when abroad, was I not informed that my phone would be constantly polling the internet when I was away, racking up almost a thousand pounds worth of charges (the G1 does not come with a manual)? Why, also, was my credit limit set so ridiculously high, when normal usage on my account has always been within the £40-£60 a month range? Why, also, have I never been informed of my credit limit? If I had, I would have insisted it be reduced to a more sensible level.

I did not download a large quantity of data when abroad – my phone automatically did this without my knowledge. I do not expect to be billed for this usage – particularly as T-Mobile were aware that this was likely to happen, and chose not to inform me.

I also do not expect to be billed for the time when my service has been switched off (for both phones on my account).

I would be grateful, therefore, if you would re-issue my invoice with these excessive charges removed. If you choose not to do so (though a reasonable response would be to accept your error in this situation), please inform me of the next stage in the complaints process – I assume I will need to contact OFCOM and work through their complaints process.

I look forward to receiving your response.

Yours faithfully,

Lee Harris

and the moral of the tail? No matter how big the organisation, when right is on your side you should always fight and try to win.