My Daughter has a contract via Phones 4U with Vodaphone. She's only had it a month. She doesn't have broadband in her new flat, so she asked in the Hartlepool Phones 4U shop about connecting to the internet via her mobile, and how much it would cost. She was told that it would be about £1 per day. She has just received a bill from Vodaphone for over £1000! That is for less than 3 weeks use - surely that can't be right? Don't Vodaphone have a fraud check system to alert them to excessive uses? Is there anyone she can appeal to to have this bill reviewed? Does she have any comeback on Phones4U? How about contacting OFTEL? Any help from anyone is greatly appreciated.

Before taking things further, you need to put what has happened to Vodafone and Phones4U in writing and see what response you get.

... and of course, you need to stop the usage.

The usage stopped very, very quickly. I am drafting a letter to both Phones4U and Vodafone, watch this space...

Hiya,

Firstly, you need to write and complain to Phones4u. They have misadvised you on the prices of connecting to the internet using your mobile phone - the £1 a day is for if you want to view the internet on your phone, not using your phone as a modem - using the phone has a modem costs alot, lot more as you have seen for yourself.

I would get in touch with Phones4u, they have misadvised on the charges - Vodafone I'm sure will be happy to help with some sort of resolution, even if its a spread payment option and to put a spend checker on the account for any future usage so it can't happen again.

With our daily rate it costs £1 per day for up to 15 megabytes of data, with additional usage charged at £2 per megabyte. For further information about our data prices please visit www.vodafone.co.uk/datapricing/. If you are browsing the internet on your computer and using your phone as a modem you can quickly exceed the 15 megabytes of data. If you are using your phone as modem for anything other than very occasional light use then one of our Mobile Broadband packages would be a better option. We offer a USB modem with a 3GB usage allowance for £15 a month.

I'd recommend contacting the Hartlepool store in the first instance to see what they say. You may also want to contact the Phones 4U Customer Relations Team on 0870 906 1830.

We do monitor accounts for unusual spending activity. As our billing system does not process usage information straight away we are unable to guarantee that we will contact you before the spend reaches a certain point.

If you need any further help please contact our Customer Care Team on 08700 700 191.

Vodadrew
Vodafone UK

Good answer.

It is a complete con this happened to me I specifically confirmed when I bought my mobile phone when they said it was £1 max per day I said are you sure the most I can pay for internet in 1 day is £1 is what i was told in the mobile phone shop and in the space of half an hour 70 meg of data was showing on my bill and this is impossible i would like to know what the person at vodafone replies to this because they certainly had no answer when called vodafone as speed of data is not possible on 3g in fact my bill listed 3 lots of 3 meg on one time slot which is 9megs in 1minute there is no internet connection in the country that can go that fast by the sounds of things i am lucky as I had over £100 pounds added to my bill this was all in a 30min time slot!

luckily for me i didnt use the net that much but I still dont know why i should pay this is astronomical for 30mins net usage i get 10months usage at home for £100 pounds it is a complete rip off and there issomething wrong with the way that they read how much data is downloaded

Negotiated with Vodaphone and got £400 off the bill, still not satisfied. Due to my wife volunteering her card to guarantee the contract, the bill was in HER name, consequently, I've had to pay the £900 bill, so that I don't get blacklisted. Contract name all sorted out now, but the matter is being referred to ADR, if that fails, it'll be appealed at OFCOM. Should that fail, I must go to BBC Watchdog and at least make sure that everyone who watches is aware of this.