Bewildered tourist racks up £115,000 phone bill while on holiday after sending family text messages
A BEWILDERED tourist has been left red in the face after racking up a £115,000 phone bill while on holiday.
Rene Remund was left shocked when he came home from a peaceful holiday to Switzerland to a long list of “crazy” charges he was being forced to pay after sending a very pricey number of text messages.
Rene – originally from Switzerland but living in the US – flew away last September and thought his phone was covered from international rates which typically see bills soar through the roof.
And after a trip full of beautiful walks through the Swiss countryside Rene managed to send hundreds of pictures and vivid descriptions back home to his loved ones.
Something he knew would cost him when he returned home but was nonetheless worth it assuming it would be a few hundred pounds at most.
So, when he stepped off the jet back home and saw a £115 bill from T-Mobile, Rene was actually pretty pleased at the low charge.
I look at the bill again and I say, ‘excuse me’ £115,000 … are you guys crazy?
Rene Remund
Until he looked closer and saw a few extra zeros on the end of the bill – taking the total cost to £115,312.
He said: “I get this T-Mobile bill and it doesn’t bother me very much because I was reading £115.”
“I look at the bill again and I say, ‘excuse me’.
“£115,000 … are you guys crazy?”
Typically, travellers are advised to notify their phone providers when they’re going away so the relevant steps can be taken to avoid big bills.
But as Rene has been a loyal customer to T-Mobile for over 30-years and went in store to tell them before he flew out to Europe he assumed he was completely covered.
According to the phone bill, Rene had managed to use up a whopping 9.5GBs of data.
This meant he was burning through thousands of pounds every day.
For many people, 10GB isn’t seen as a ridiculous amount of data to use up over a fortnight but when overseas any data used gets hit with a roaming fee.
Rene continued: “I called [T-Mobile] and the girl put me on hold for a while.
“She said let me check this out and I’ll get back to you. She gets back and says, yeah this is a good bill.
“I said, ‘what do you mean it’s a good bill?’ And she says ‘well, this is what you owe’.
“I said ‘you’re kidding me … you’re crazy’.”
How to avoid roaming fees abroad
MONEY Saving Experts have given the following tips to people to help avoid racking up nasty bills when they go on holiday.
- Always check your network’s roaming rules before you leave
- Look out for free WiFi when out and about
- Keep an eye on your phone to make sure you aren’t accidentally using up data
- Download music, videos and apps before you travel
- Use a data roaming cost cap when abroad
- Look to get a separate local SIM card to use when going away
- Try to use messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger to make calls other than text messages
- Simply turn off your roaming data all together
After the back and forth over the phone, Rene made no progress with lowering his bill and was still stuck needing to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Determined to avoid the hefty debt he hired a lawyer.
Together, they argued that Rene was assured he would be “covered” for international roaming and didn’t deserve to pay such “exorbitant” charges in the first place.
T-Mobile finally replied to the claims allegedly apologising for the bill.
Rene told local media, the service provider said “sorry” and promised him he would receive a full “credit” amount to wipe the entire phone bill clear.
T-Mobile has urged customers to always “check the travel features of their plan, such as international data roaming, before departing” in the future.
They also warned people to be aware that older phone plans that might not include international roaming exceptions.