How to challenge a surprise phonebill?
July 26, 2010 3:33 AM   Subscribe

Can I reclaim my £400 Blackberry data charges from Orange?

I took my Blackberry to Paris for 5 days and was very careful to limit my calls, texts and emails. However, a month later, my phone bill has arrived and is over £400; I was unaware that Blackberries send constant data requests to email servers. My phone has been cut off, as I can't pay it.

Is there any way I can contest the charges? If I had known, I would have left the thing at home; I am angry that there wasn't clear information about this. I've been with Orange for around 10 years. Is there any consumer power possible in this situation?
posted by King_Wang to Technology (5 answers total)
 
When was this? As the law changed recently for cases like this. A maximum charge was set at around the £50 mark. Do a quick search on BBC news I'm sure you will find the relevant information.
posted by moochoo at 3:39 AM on July 26, 2010


This is the new EU law that moochoo is talking about. And its €50, not £50, so even better. There's even a quote from Orange!
Referring to the €50 cut-off point introduced on Thursday, an Orange spokesperson said the operator's customers would be alerted to the cap by SMS.

"Pay monthly customers will be alerted when they have used 8MB of data, and again when they are approaching their 16MB allowance," the spokesperson said in an email. "Pay-as-you-go customers will be alerted when they have used 6MB of data and again when they are approaching their 12MB allowance."


The question is when did you go to Paris? Before this new law came in or after?

If it's after then let Orange know they are breaking the law. If before... well you might have to pay the whole amount BUT if you write a letter detailing that a) you cannot afford £400, b) you are a loyal customer with no other bill defaults, and c) you had no idea that you would need to turn off data roaming, then you might get the amount reduced.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:49 AM on July 26, 2010


Response by poster: I went to paris between May 31st and June 4th - so I think I'm a few weeks short of the law.
posted by King_Wang at 4:09 AM on July 26, 2010


I've contested data charges from other companies by playing completely dumb; I told them that I had no idea that the data charges would be so high, it was my first time using it and I had no way of paying that much. I pointed out that I had been a customer for ~ 6 years, had no plan to stop being one in the future and always paid my bill on time.

They bumped me down from ~ $2000 to $25 (the data plan that would cover my usage) and made it clear that it was a one time reduction; if it happened again, I'd be liable for the whole amount.

I'm not sure how effective this is from company to company, but they were completely honest that losing a customer from not paying a huge data bill isn't worth it, long-term. YMMV, but this worked for me, as cellphone customers are expensive to get and they don't want to lose you.
posted by Hiker at 4:45 AM on July 26, 2010


Oh, and I spoke to a front-line CS agent who put me on hold to talk to a supervisor. I didn't need to escalate, as this seems fairly common.
posted by Hiker at 4:46 AM on July 26, 2010


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