As if the J1 wasn’t expensive enough.
A mother was hit with a massive phone bill of £4875.69 for spending just 40 minutes of data roaming in the US.
‘Denise’ took to the airwaves and expressed her surprise and anger on one of Ireland’s flagship radio shows, Joe Duffy’s Liveline, and warned others about using mobile data while visiting the United States.
On Thursday, she explained how her daughter had inadvertently racked up the bill while on a J1 student visa for the summer.
Her small family business used several phones, including her daughter’s, all of which are now cut off until the bill is paid.
€5,500 on Roaming Charges in the USA! And that's just for one day….
We discuss #roaming on #Liveline after 1.45pm w. @talktojoe1850
— RTÉ Radio 1 (@RTERadio1) June 8, 2017
According to Denise, her daughter had turned on Google Maps and WhatsApp in order to arrange the delivery of a mattress. Soon after, she closed down the apps immediately.
She then received a text message from the carrier which informed her that her usage appeared to be quite high, but the text did not outline the total cost of the bill.
Her daughter’s usage for the 40 minutes was 1.5 gigabits and the carrier charged her £8.87 for every megabit that was used, something that’s stated on their website.
This made the charge valid and non-negotiable.
Denise has asked the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) to try and help her situation but they will only intervene after ten days have passed to allow issues to be sorted out.
Given that roaming charges within Europe are to be scrapped from next week (June 15th) under new EU laws, it’s still worth noting that travellers should still check which countries are included as roaming charges out of the EU could soon face a 20% VAT on top, making other countries much more expensive to use data.
