Okay, so a few days ago I woke up to find a series of about 20 messages on my phone (which I found odd, I'm not usually that popular). I read the messages and most were from my network provider: 3.
The first message stated "You've nearly used your internet allowance" and was sent at 4:40am, while I slept. A few minutes later at 4:56am another message was received stating "You've reached your internet allowance". Again, a few minutes later at 5:07am I received another which reads "You have spent £2.54 on internet". Then a load more messages all the way up to "You have spent £47.53 on internet".
Just so you know, my phone runs an Android operating system and I have 500MB included in my plan, plus a 2GB addon which was a freebie "good will gesture" when I phoned up a few months ago complaining that my 500MB (originally advertised as 'unlimited') wasn't upgraded to 1GB when 3's 'unlimited' data was changed to 1GB. So in total I have 2.5GB of data usage, but I'm sure you could've worked that out yourself.
The (almost) £50 that they charged me on top of my bill is equivalent to about 500MB of data outside my allowance. I've just been on the phone to 3 for the third time since this happened. I asked what my previous data usage has been like and the most I have used is 600MB in a month, and on average 400-500MB a month. I'm currently halfway through the billing month, so going by those figures, assuming I normally use 200-250MB per half month, this month I've used 12-15 times my usual amount
Obviously something isn't right here, 3 tell me that the data usage did come from my phone but I have no idea how that can be possible. I've had the contract for over a year and nothing like this has ever happened before. I checked what apps I had open after discovering the messages and the only thing I can think of that should have had internet access was my Google mail account, which is constantly open and syncing, and I've never had problems with it (and of course it wouldn't download hundreds or thousands of MB over night). My browser (dolphin mini for anyone who's interested) was also open in the background, which isn't that unusual so again shouldn't really be the cause of the problem, especially considering there weren't actually any tabs with content open.
Apart from those 2 apps I can't really think of anything else that could've had any internet access, other than other syncing with my google account (e.g. calendar and contacts, neither of which would have changed). There were no updates to the phone made overnight, or to any apps on the phone, so I'm really confused.
The 3 representative that I spoke to said that they can't access information on what was downloaded, what gobbled up all my data. Does anyone know if that's true? I find it hard to believe that an internet provider doesn't keep logs of what their customers do.
They offered me a £20 "goodwill gesture" so that I only have to pay £30, as they can't explain what used the data, and I'm convinced it's not my fault. But really, £20 just isn't good enough. I'd still have to pay £30 and go for the rest of the month without internet access. I haven't yet accepted this goodwill gesture and said it was unacceptable.
Another thing I'm annoyed about is the time that I got the warning messages. Starting at 4:40 am and continuing for a couple of hours until I'm charged £50 is ridiculous. I was asleep, no way to react to the warnings. Had I been awake I'd have disabled my data when I saw that my allowance was used up. At a time like that ideally I'd have liked the internet to have just cut off to prevent the £50 charge, but of course they're only interested in making money. I mentioned this on the phone and apparently the only way they can do this is by putting a £0 limit on the account which wouldn't be internet data specific, it would mean I can't spend anything outside my plan, which I may sometimes want to do (e.g. international calls/texts), so that's not really an option.
Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? I don't understand what happened with this huge amount of data usage and they say they are unable to find out what the data was. Can I somehow convince them, or argue my point in a way that will let this ridiculous charge go? Or is there anyone I can complain to? Ofcom or some other kind of organisation maybe? And would complaining to people like them actually help me?
Thanks for reading.
The first message stated "You've nearly used your internet allowance" and was sent at 4:40am, while I slept. A few minutes later at 4:56am another message was received stating "You've reached your internet allowance". Again, a few minutes later at 5:07am I received another which reads "You have spent £2.54 on internet". Then a load more messages all the way up to "You have spent £47.53 on internet".
Just so you know, my phone runs an Android operating system and I have 500MB included in my plan, plus a 2GB addon which was a freebie "good will gesture" when I phoned up a few months ago complaining that my 500MB (originally advertised as 'unlimited') wasn't upgraded to 1GB when 3's 'unlimited' data was changed to 1GB. So in total I have 2.5GB of data usage, but I'm sure you could've worked that out yourself.
The (almost) £50 that they charged me on top of my bill is equivalent to about 500MB of data outside my allowance. I've just been on the phone to 3 for the third time since this happened. I asked what my previous data usage has been like and the most I have used is 600MB in a month, and on average 400-500MB a month. I'm currently halfway through the billing month, so going by those figures, assuming I normally use 200-250MB per half month, this month I've used 12-15 times my usual amount

Obviously something isn't right here, 3 tell me that the data usage did come from my phone but I have no idea how that can be possible. I've had the contract for over a year and nothing like this has ever happened before. I checked what apps I had open after discovering the messages and the only thing I can think of that should have had internet access was my Google mail account, which is constantly open and syncing, and I've never had problems with it (and of course it wouldn't download hundreds or thousands of MB over night). My browser (dolphin mini for anyone who's interested) was also open in the background, which isn't that unusual so again shouldn't really be the cause of the problem, especially considering there weren't actually any tabs with content open.
Apart from those 2 apps I can't really think of anything else that could've had any internet access, other than other syncing with my google account (e.g. calendar and contacts, neither of which would have changed). There were no updates to the phone made overnight, or to any apps on the phone, so I'm really confused.
The 3 representative that I spoke to said that they can't access information on what was downloaded, what gobbled up all my data. Does anyone know if that's true? I find it hard to believe that an internet provider doesn't keep logs of what their customers do.
They offered me a £20 "goodwill gesture" so that I only have to pay £30, as they can't explain what used the data, and I'm convinced it's not my fault. But really, £20 just isn't good enough. I'd still have to pay £30 and go for the rest of the month without internet access. I haven't yet accepted this goodwill gesture and said it was unacceptable.
Another thing I'm annoyed about is the time that I got the warning messages. Starting at 4:40 am and continuing for a couple of hours until I'm charged £50 is ridiculous. I was asleep, no way to react to the warnings. Had I been awake I'd have disabled my data when I saw that my allowance was used up. At a time like that ideally I'd have liked the internet to have just cut off to prevent the £50 charge, but of course they're only interested in making money. I mentioned this on the phone and apparently the only way they can do this is by putting a £0 limit on the account which wouldn't be internet data specific, it would mean I can't spend anything outside my plan, which I may sometimes want to do (e.g. international calls/texts), so that's not really an option.
Does anyone have any advice on what I can do? I don't understand what happened with this huge amount of data usage and they say they are unable to find out what the data was. Can I somehow convince them, or argue my point in a way that will let this ridiculous charge go? Or is there anyone I can complain to? Ofcom or some other kind of organisation maybe? And would complaining to people like them actually help me?
Thanks for reading.



