I've been Robbed!!! Just had my mobile bill and got robbed £60 by some app accessing my data during the night - Talkmobile stood by and let it rack up 100's of data charges throughout the nights so they could coin it

dunno which app it was because I reset my mobile to factory as soon as i seen bill but I dont install apps willy-nilly so it would be a popular an app from playstore - check your data before end of the month - I heard horror stories of rogue apps booking £1200 worth of data so I got off lucky

Talkmobile doesnt give a toss because they are making money out if it and despite them holding al the cards with the information & power to stop this in one second they choose instead to be an accomplice to this theft

I think the built-in data usage settings are good but I don't think it differentiates between free Wi-Fi and pay for mobile data

Nobody at a mobile network monitors your bill just in case you install an app that uses a lot of data, and then in the middle of the night turns the service off. You can see which app used the data by going to the Android menu. The problem is you used to the data, or installed the app that used the data.

You can normally have your credit limited adjusted by an operator - I called up Three and now I can't go over £25.How much data did you use, and what is your allowance?

Talkmobile were not (as you dramatically exclaimed) "an accomplice to the theft", they just did exactly what their agreement with you entitles them to do, and that is charge you for the data that your device uses.

So you installed a dodgy app and you want to blame Talkmobile? Should blame yourself not the network, or blame the app but at least blame the right person.

I agree
If I was running a network and Ofcom just decided I was suddenly responsible for monitoring every app downloaded by all my customers, I don't think I would be in the industry very long...Hahahaha
You either need to have a limit, regularly check what you're using or have an unlimited plan.
Once you know which ones are doing it either delete it or close it's background process once you've finished using it.

If it helps you can disable background data on any app from the app manager.

Let's be fairer, here. As I said in the other thread, there's been issues with some handsets doing regular things like downloading updates in quiet hours whereupon the phone doesn't use the (available) WiFi connection whilst in standby mode and instead uses mobile data.

So it would be interesting to know which phone it is.

As for me, I enable mobile data when I need it, otherwise relying on my home WiFi.

Is there any particular reason your phone isn't connected to WiFi during the night? (Edit after seeing TheSloth's reply - did you know your phone isn't/wasn't connected to WiFi during the night?)


Assuming you have a new enough version of Android, you would have been able to go into the Data Usage menu and identify exactly which app was running up these charges. Why you didn't do this is beyond me - at the very least it would have given you something to warn people about when you came on here with your new completely useless "warning".
Other people have pulled you up on this hyperbole but isn't it you that's holding the vast majority of the cards in this instance? It isn't like Talkmobile installed the app, and then switched your WiFi off at night for no apparent reason. (Edit again - see previous edit)


Yes, it does. By default it only shows mobile data, but a checkbox enables WiFi retroactively. Mine shows 40MB of data used this cycle and 9.18GB of WiFi usage in the same period - I'd know about that if it were the other way around!!

Shame the OP never tracked down which app was the culprit.

Wifi sleeps when the screen is off to save battery, unless you set it not to in the settings menu. It will be interesting if the OP comes back and tells us which app used this data, what their allowance is and how much data it used.

They have 100MB deals.

I'd suggest a small proportion of customers provide a largest source of income.
A 1 in 10, a 1 in 5, who knows but it is lucrative for them, that is exactly why they give no user control.

Oh, and there is also the legendary lag where the data allowance info is occasionally 24 hours out.
I'm extra careful yet they managed to get me for £12 that way. I certainly never renewed the contract.
(Well, I always assumed it was 24 hour lag, always seemed more likely that than them scamming me some another way.)

100 megs!! In this day and age... Might be suitable for the Nokia 3210 on WAP, hardly any good for a smartphone with app updates though unless you're extremely careful and disable mobile data most of the time.

The original thread mentioned calls rather than data ...

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...481&highlight=

To be honest I have no idea about it, but I always ensure my phone is setup correctly with limits to turn off data when I'm close to my maximum.

Three one plan... I just don't care about data usage anymore.

Agreement shmagreement

Talkmobile captured evidence of data abuse longer than your arm and "chose" to let this go on for a month - that makes them complicite in the theft of £60 from me
Thats akin to me watching an old lady cling to the edge of a building and "chosing" not to lend her a hand and intead prefering to watch her dangle for a few hours until she fell

If you dont get it I cant help it

What are you on about!! Your mobile phone provider charges you for the data you use, that it their business. Your phone used the data.

Have you found the culprit?
How much data was used and what is your allowance?
Do you understand what a robbery and theft actually is vs a provider selling you a service? Maybe if you posted a little more supporting information I'd be more sympathetic, nothing you have posted so far shows the provider doing anything wrong.

Most phones do NOT turn off wifi when the screen is off by default, this behaviour usually has to be turned on by the customer.


The Nokia 3210 did not have WAP or any form of internet access. It couldn't even be used as a data modem. To be fair the average monthly data use on mobile a year or two ago was only 250-300MB. Which meant for every person using 1GB there'd be 5 people using only 100MB.


While I wouldn't call it fraud myself, all operators and ISPs are known to block spam, fraudulent, and illegal activities whether by SMS, phone, or IP data. It wouldn't be far fetched to expect them to intervene in case of sudden increases of usage from a known suspicious IP.

You could also draw a comparison to credit card companies, where again most issuers would block transactions when they see a sudden surge in usage or unusual usage patterns, and most certainly block known dodgy sales points as well. A mobile contract is a form of credit agreement similar in many ways to that of a credit card in fact.

Finally, you seem to be brushing this off as a "non issue", yet most mobile and fixed line providers have moved towards billing systems that do not charge users for going over any specified usage allowance, instead requiring users to explicitly "opt-in" to further usage. The EU has even enforced this for roaming charges. "Bill shock" is clearly something that concerns many people and regulators and the industry as a whole has been actively working to prevent it. To lambaste someone for thinking this is the way it should be is frankly out of place when it's clear that most people, including the industry and regulators, actually think the same way.

I don't believe the OP frankly.

If it has happened and you have an Android phone, simply go to settings and look at data usage. It will show which app has done this.

Other phones will i assume have similar.

It depends, some manufacturers default that setting to wifi sleeping. I was joking when I said 3210 to make the point that these days 100 megs of data on a smartphone is not enough. Even if you only used the phone for basic web browsing you would have to be careful, without even considering downloading apps, or anything else.

I'm still curious what the OP's data allowance was vs what they used, and what app used the data, and how much etc. I'm curious why the OP thinks the network should know that the data being used by his device wasn't what he wanted and how he thinks the provider is liable, rather than himself.

Some do, yes but not all. And not even most. Android and iPhone both do not by default - unless changed by the manufacturer. The biggest manufacturer of Android devices doesn't make that change.


Meh, most people call me a heavy user and discounting speed and network testing I usually use less than that a month. Mainly because I do zero video or audio streaming on mobile, except when doing network testing.



Indeed. Android does also offer per app and system wide data usage limits, but as I said above, when you compare other credit industries and industry trends in mobile, it's not that far fetched to expect providers to limit or prevent usage patterns that are unusual or suspect.

You certainly aren't a heavy user at 100MB! A few app downloads could use that, or like you say less than 10 speed tests, emails with attachments, or just browsing could use 100MB a month easily alone.

I wonder if the OP will come back with more information?

Well he did say he can't find out what app it is because he factory reset the phone already.

As for me being a heavy user - most of that comes down to the amount of time I spend on my phone and the number of different things I do on it - rather than data usage volume.

I regularly spend many hours on my phone every day, reading, checking bus times, navigating, emailing, Facebooking, organising and checking on events, texting, banking, listening to locally stored music, and so on but all of those things use very little data, either small mobile websites or mostly pre-cached map data.

Then I could only use my phone for 5 minutes a day but watching HD Youtube videos and easily rack up several gigabytes a month. That might be "heavy use" from a data perspective but a person spending 5 minutes a day on their phone could hardly be considered a heavy user.

It does look like calls based on the OPs previous thread. I notice they are all under 3 seconds and very regular and often in the day. I would hope his network should be able to decipher and that bill and explain or investigate who exactly are TKCONTRACT. It may even be a billing error. Usage like that should really be flagged up as suspicious.

That looks like the per megabyte charge for out of bundle data. It's quite conceivable that a handset could be downloading at that rate.

Of course, the OP has conveniently destroyed their usage history preventing anyone from finding out what they have done. (To use the emotive language the OP is so fond of)

The OP downloaded the app in to his phone and used the data over a month. From Android 4.0 up there has been a built in method for warning of data usage. There are also numerous apps that will perform the same function. If you are on a limited data allowance contract it beggars belief why you wouldn’t avail yourself of such a service. I used TM for 12 months with a 1gb data allowance without any issues and my son is now using that account on a 500mb data allowance, again without any issues. TMs terms and conditions make it clear you will be charged if you go over your allowance.

But I don’t even think this happened. Who wouldn’t have looked to see what app was eating the data?

Still waiting for the OP to let us know how much data was used vs their allowance.