Just imagine how your stomach would lurch if you received a £9,000 mobile phone bill.
The utter horror at discovering that you’d accidentally spent several times more using your phone on holiday abroad than you did on the trip itself. Ugh! It makes me shudder.
So I feel real sympathy for Money Mail reader ‘L. M.’ and her family who found themselves in this position, and whom our consumer champion Sally Hamilton helped this week.
Yes, L. M. should have kept closer watch on her 12-year-old daughter, who accidentally ran up the charges by using her phone while they were on a family trip in Egypt.
But L. M.’s phone provider, EE, doesn’t exactly cover itself in glory. Sally asked EE to show pity and it did cut the phone bill. But it is still demanding £4,500.
Roaming charges: A reader received a £9,000 bill after her daughter used her mobile phone while on a family trip to Egypt
This is a life-changing sum for a young family, but a drop in the ocean for EE, whose parent company BT made more than £1.3 billion profit last year.
Do you think it cost EE even a fraction of that sum to provide the data services to L. M.? Did it heck! I would like to see it cut the bill further still.
When I read unflattering stories about broadband and phone companies at the moment, I find them especially galling. Because almost all the big providers have pushed up their customers’ bills this month by inflation-busting sums.
Your first bill at the new, higher sum will likely have landed in your inbox or on your doormat in recent days. Mine certainly did.
When justifying the massive hikes, providers mumbled wishy-washy excuses about having to invest to offer the best experience and service to customers. So where is this top-notch customer service, EE?
I ask the same question of O2, which my colleague Jessica Beard reveals this week is woefully lagging behind its peers in the fight against fraudsters.
And I ask it of any broadband or phone provider that is failing to tell its low-income customers they could be eligible for a cheaper deal.
Around 4.3 million households that receive government benefits such as universal or pension credit are eligible for a cheaper broadband or phone tariff, which could save them around £200 a year.
But just 5 pc of those eligible have signed up to one because millions don’t even know they exist, the regulator Ofcom revealed this week. I’m not surprised uptake rates are so low. Few providers choose to promote them.
If you think you may be eligible, ask your provider to switch. And if you get fobbed off by customer service representatives who claim to know nothing about these tariffs, persist. And let me know.
By the way, if you want to use your phone abroad and dodge expensive roaming charges, there is a simple way, as I discovered on a holiday to Senegal last year.
When we landed at the airport, we each bought a local sim card for around £8, loaded with plenty of minutes and data.
We simply popped these cards into our handsets and used them for the duration of the trip. Then, switched back to our old sim cards as before. No hassle, no admin, no charges.
From little acorns
Want to know one of my best-ever investments? Ceiling rosettes.
They cost around £30 each to buy and have installed on the ceilings of our home.
But as they add character and recall the history of our old Victorian terrace house, they could add thousands of pounds to its value.
This week, we investigate the home improvements that offer the greatest return on investment.
But as property expert Anne Ashworth reveals, sometimes it is the little changes, such as our rosettes, that can have the biggest impact.
Have you made a low-cost, maximum-impact improvement to your home? I’d love to hear.
I’ll fight for you
This is my first edition as Money editor of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. And I couldn’t be happier to be here.
I look forward to continuing Money Mail’s magnificent and unparalleled tradition of fighting your corner, helping you to grow your wealth and eke out every last drop of value from your hard-earned cash.
We love to hear from you. Tell me what you love reading about, which companies make your blood boil — and how Money Mail can help you get on top of your finances.
r.rickardstraus@dailymail.co.uk
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