Hi all, yes you read that right....seventeen and a half thousand pounds! Story goes like this....my friend has an iphone 4 company phone. One evening he noticed it had been cut off. The IT man at his company contacted EE who said 20GB of data had been uploaded from the iphone over a period of two days (impossible on an iphone?) , and that they owed £17500. They point blank refused to give any information about how it could have happened. My friend downloaded an app which tells you how much data you've used. The app said that only 8MB had been used over the previous month! Eventually EE said they would wave the £17500 fee, but wanted a payment of £300 for their trouble, or the phone would not be reconnected! I just don't understand EE's attitude at all. How can they justify that kind of treatment when it seems blatantly obvious it was an issue at their end? As EE is a new 4g network, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a few gremlins to sort out.
I'm wondering if anyone else has had any similar experiences, or has an opinion on this. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated...

cheers

It's not impossible to transfer that much data, especially on 4G! However, with them not providing any details on what the data was, they can't really hold the charges up if they have no proof as such. They're new in name, but AIUI, they use T-Mobile's tried and tested backend systems that give real time data usage and the like. Good luck to them getting it sorted though!

EE cut you off if you go over you limit. Even on business.
You have to give authorisation ie text etc to purchase another bundle.
T-Mobile works on a similar basis... So was this an Orange contract, an easily spotted screw up a CS manager could should sort out or utter bollocks story?

Plus you don't need an app on the iPhone. The it tells you in the phone!

Hi,

I actually work for T-mobile( a lot of us are EE) when did this happen? Has your friend contacted T-mobile? I will forward this at work tomorrow and find out if this did happen and what exactly went wrong. We are a new brand but we use a tried and tested system so this needs looking into as it maybe an attempt to slander our brand.

I would quote this phrase: "And if you manage to burn through your data, we'll let you know when it's running low - and when it's run out. Then you can choose to buy a data add-on or stop using data until your next bill."

From this:
http://shop.ee.co.uk/mobile-tariffs/pay-monthly/

Of course, believe it or not, there are people who ignore such warnings, or cannot do basic arithmetic, or have no knowledge of the implications of how phone usage gets through data. Whilst it is entirely possible that EE have screwed up-I work for them too, and boy, can it happen-consider this.

It's just possible your mate's a pillock. Or Lying.

Just possible.
Also, the fact that you can't get 4g on an iPhone 4 tends to reduce the believability of the tale.

Or possibly an error was made?

Its sounds like the OP is confused between EE on his phone and who is contract is with, T-Mobile, Orange or EE.

Sounds like he's with Orange. You can ask them for the amounts of Data used between periods and they can provide this for sure. Go to Settings - General - Usage - Network Usage i think on iPhone to get the usage since it was last reset.

If they say they couldn't have the wrong figures that's BS. It happens. Not often, but it does happen. I got texts all the time when I was with O2 telling me I had went over my 1GB data limit and It was 3 days after my bill date... So i have first hand experience of it happening.

To avoid it happening in the future, text Bundles, Balance and Usage to 150 if it's Orange and it'll get you what you've spent and what you've got remaining on your allowance.

EDIT EDIT EDIT - The EE thing for not going over data is only on an actual EE contract, not T-Mobile or Orange - Orange charge you, T-Mobile never stop your browsing.

If its a business account make sure it's not a sharer as it may not have been YOU that ran up a data charge it may have been someone else on the account hence why your phone would say hardly any data has been used. Also any app you download can only record data usage from the time it was downloaded.

Even if 20GB of data had been used a bill for £17500 is totally disproportionate. EE charge £20 for a 4GB data add-on so the bill should be £100 at most.

Yeah this post stinks... In fact reeks. If it were 17k it would have been passed to way earlier than that to a department that deals with high bills.
It would have already been investigated if it were a monumental f**k up. I call bulls**t or the whole story isn't being told. Ie it's a multi phone account and the whole companies mobiles all got cut off.. Even then it makes no sense.

T-mobile uses the same system as EE btw.

This is NOT an attempt to slander EE. I've told it just as my friend told it. He is a lawyer and works for a legal firm. It happened about 6 weeks ago. Yes, of course they have contacted EE and are asking for it to be investigated. btw EE are saying the data was uploaded not downloaded. And yes, it's an iphone4 so no 4g. Is it possible to upload 20GB of data on 3G over a period of 2 days? I think that's quite unlikely, but I'm no expert.I started this thread to get opinions as I was pretty shocked at the story! I say again, this is a genuine story and certainly not an attempt at slander. Sallyamy, if you wish to take this further please feel free. As I said, my friends company have written to head office. Thanks for all the replies....I'll let you know the outcome....

Mathematically it probably is possible to upload 20GB over roughly 2 days although the phone would likely have to constantly be uploading and you would expect this level of constant use to drain the battery pretty damn sharpish

If Correct, then they have admitted they are at fault by waving the entire charge. They are just trying it on with the £300. I doubt they could enforce it as a legitimate charge.......I doubt the phone uploaded 20GB of information and they have noticed the error (hence the waiver).....
I guess the firm will be changing it's provider at the end of the contract????

call100, yes as they've 'waved' the £17500 charge it implies that they see it as an issue at their end. That's why I don't see how they justify the £300 charge 'for their trouble'. Seems outrageous to me! My friend's company has 40 phones on contract with EE (originally with Orange) and yes, I believe they intend to cancel the contract at some point.

btw I have received a threatening personal msg on this site from someone claiming to work for EE saying they can force digital spy to give them my IP address if this is criminal slander! Who are these people????!!

Is it possible that there is some sort of additional charge that is owed on the account but, after investigating, it's £300 and not the £17.5k they claimed before?

As far as I know the £300 charge is 'for their trouble', not an outstanding amount owed...
My friend uses hardly any data on his phone. I doubt he'd even know how to upload 20GB of data! The whole thing is bizzare...hence this thread. I started this thread purely out of shock and curiosity.

Report the issue to DS if its threatening - if the message stated they worked for EE then make a complaint to EE as well.

What was the username?

Hmmm I smell a farmyard on behalf of your friend.

Mate this is a genuine story. I saw his phone was cut off myself. He's a lawyer and a trusted friend.

Yes though that is, no offence, information you're getting second-hand, so it's impossible to know how true it is.



He almost certainly uses far more than either you or he think.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, the app he installed is essentially useless as it can only measure data used since it was installed, not what was used before that.
Also, smartphone naturally use data in the background, so even if he thinks he's not using any, that won't be the case. Not to mention, I would wager he actually uses more himself than he believes - I'm sure he'll be doing something on the phone which requires data, there must be a reason why he's been given an iPhone as a company phone and not a basic non-smartphone handset.


Separate to that, as others have touched upon in the thread, a lot of business contracts are for a group of handsets. If that's the case here, it may not be your friend's usage that's the problem.
And, unless your friend is the person responsible for managing the mobile account on behalf of the company, I would be surprised if he has access to all the information.

Thanks for your thoughts but I'll leave it for now, I'm not too bothered.
If you read all the posts in this thread you can figure out the user name...

Are they certain they are on EE4G? Orange is well known for it's non realtime billing which can result in these bills.

Also if they state it was upload, get your friend to contact Apple.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...-of-19000.html

No problem. If you get anymore though, report it.
Although I doubt she works for T-mobile / EE.

I guess they use iphone as it has good features for business.

My friend has obviously spoken to his IT man about the issue, so I'd say he has access to all the info available. As i said before, EE are refusing to give specific details on how the data was uploaded.

Yep, he probably uses more data than he realizes, but not 20GB in two days over 3G! That would have melted the phone!? Anyhoo, we'll how how it all shakes down....

Words out of my mouth.

There's been something odd about how Orange apply data charges for some time - when I had a contract with them, I used an amount that was within my inclusive allowance. When the bill was issued Orange had calculated the amount used correctly - but had used that same figure as the amount to be paid (e.g. 304.8876MB data use would have been applied as £304.89, if you follow me) despite it all being within an inclusive allowance. To this day I don't know how they managed to do that, and despite the first CSR on 150 who I duly reported it to saying "oh yes, that's quite obviously wrong isn't it?" had hell of a time getting it resolved.


Quite right - bear in mind that Orange's systems don't update in real time though, so the responses given when using this method to check allowances could be up to 48 hours out of date.

Those features almost certainly will require a data connection.


So the information your friend has given you is actually third-hand?
I'm not calling him or yourself a liar but we all know how Chinese Whispers work...


Yeah, definitely, the 20GB figure is clearly wrong.
But it seems to me at least that it's well within the realms of possibility that the contract's included usage has been exceeded in some way and the £300 is a charge due for that.