Hitting MB limit brings a painful surprise

[DashDave]

500MB data per month seems like plenty for my business mobile, with mostly e-mail and such.  But imagine the shock of getting a £250 bill for exceeding the 500MB limit last month by 124MB.  This was caused by me stupidly not realising that Google Maps keeps on downloading data even when I thought I had closed it.

However when asked, BT said that I was not their policy to send out a text or e-mail warning that the limit is close, or stopping the service once the limit is reached!

£2.00 per MB is what you pay in this Man Trap obviously designed to extort money from businesses who cannot accurately predict data use.  Worse is that fact that the BT service desk said that I could have another 500MB for £5.00 per month!!!   How about charging me double this for the first occasion as a reasonable warning, NOT £250.00

I will think very carefully about who our business mobile contract is placed with when its next due.  BT Beware, businesses have long memories when ripped off

[DashDave]

500MB data per month seems like plenty for my business mobile, with mostly e-mail and such.  But imagine the shock of getting a £250 bill for exceeding the 500MB limit last month by 124MB.  This was caused by me stupidly not realising that Google Maps keeps on downloading data even when I thought I had closed it.

However when asked, BT said that I was not their policy to send out a text or e-mail warning that the limit is close, or stopping the service once the limit is reached!

£2.00 per MB is what you pay in this Man Trap obviously designed to extort money from businesses who cannot accurately predict data use.  Worse is that fact that the BT service desk said that I could have another 500MB for £5.00 per month!!!   How about charging me double this for the first occasion as a reasonable warning, NOT £250.00

I will think very carefully about who our business mobile contract is placed with when its next due.  BT Beware, businesses have long memories when ripped off

[Seraphsailor]

It may not help your current data/payment issue but I use the app "3G watchdog" to keep track of smartphone data usage (both 3G type and wifi).  Very flexible to set up.

My provider (has a large T in the provider name but no B) doesn't charge anything for data allowance overusage in my month; what they do is slug access between 8:00am and midnight and deliver normal service between midnight and 8:00am. Fair useage applies for this rule but I'm not one for huge downloads, tethering etc.

[DashDave]

I too have a personal mobile data account with said Th***, for my iPad.  Its a 15 gig/month contract for little money and I have never managed to exceed it, but if I did, they send me a " you getting close to your limit" warning e-mail.

My real complaint is that this "policy" by BT is designed to punish the occasional transgressor. I have never even got close to my limit before, so was not even aware that they had such a customer unfriendly policy.  Working in partnership with customers means helping them avoid situations like this, not building traps for them to fall in.

I now have to explain to my boss why this has happened and I'm not looking forward to that.  But when our contract is due for renewal next year I'll certainly be adding this to the mix of factors to consider.  Any savings we may have made by joining BT Mobile have been negated on just one bill!

[knobbster]

That seems to be a lot for an extra 124MB. Any other plan that would fit this?

[MHC]

Why not complain to Google - after all it was their application that you closed but Google decided that you actually wanted to carry on downloading and their software ignored your instructions.

The penalty for going over your limit is fairly well publicised so why blame BT.

I had a similar situation recently when trvelling - I had email sent up to gather headers only and then just once per day.   Yes I was going to be hit for data charges but I knew and accepted.

Then, an email I need to rread arrived and rather than wait until I had WiFi available, I asked the phone to download just that one email ... thinking the connection was slow I made a coffee and returned.  The email was there with a small attachment.   I then checked data usage - 20MB which was enormous for the email - but then I noticed,  small GIFs in the signature - they totalled almost 20MB.   Who is to blame?   In that case, the company sending themessage with enourmous attached (useless) images.

They will not see me offering them any work!

[aguess]

although we have a fair amount of BT Data dongles (hence me browing this forum), our main provider is a colour you get by mixing red and yellow together.

this method of extoring money has been a bone of contention for us for a year or so now.  several of our penalty charges have been far greater than £1000 for what is these days a very small amount.  there is no way of knowing that you are approaching your limits and generally you don't find out until you get the bill the next month and then you have no recourse because they won't show you what you were browsing to achieve it.

however, they have just this month introduced a £50 spending cap per month now, which hopefully will mean no more shock bills in the £1000's for us.

however, their data cards still have limits and we get charged for steping outside them.  our BT one's don't appear to have them (I guess they're fair usage so if it's a little one off they ignore it) - if only they'd provide MiFi devices I'd swap all my Orange dongles to BT in a heartbeat.