It is no longer just phone calls and texts that are sending families broke — your phone could be racking up thousands of dollars without you even knowing about it. Now experts and consumers are issuing an urgent warning for all smart phone owners.
Responses to our story:
DODO:
Dodo had informed the customer of the charges before travel, and to help him deal with the huge bill have offered to pay half the charges ourselves.
We recommend all travellers switch data roaming off.
We feel for the customer and are happy to help by sharing the pain.
TELSTRA:
Telstra has been in contact with Matthew since early October when we were alerted by our systems to his high level of usage while overseas.
Telstra and Matthew reached agreement on a heavily discounted amount, based on what he would have paid for his usage with our discounted overseas roaming data packs. The remainder of his bill was waived at that time, at Telstra’s cost as we must still pay the wholesale charges levied by the overseas carrier.
Unfortunately, Matthew did not purchase a data pack that would support his high level of usage, almost 2 gigabytes.
We encourage any customer travelling overseas with a smartphone to ensure they either turn off global roaming, to avoid unexpected data usage which such phones can accrue automatically, or purchase a prepaid international data pack.
Also, in the new year we will be launching international roaming usage alerts, to help customers manage their usage overseas.
If you wish to make a complaint about your mobile phone provider, visit the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's website.
