Don't Wait For Cellphone Bill Shock

Out-of-bundle data rates have left many cellular contract customer out of pocket. Customers should ensure that their package suits their needs – because cellphone service providers are unlike to do it on your behalf.

- Lloyd Gedye

To keep a customer demands as much skill as to win one,” goes the American proverb. In the past few months it has become abundantly clear that this is a lesson my cellphone service provider has yet to learn.

I am deliberately calling my cellphone company a service provider in this column, because that is what it does. But it seems to have conveniently forgotten that.

I have also not named the company, because I am pretty sure that there are plenty of consumers reading this who have had similar experiences with other service providers. This is not a company specific problem; the industry has a culture of trying to get away with whatever is it can.

A few months ago, my cellphone bill was abnormally high, more than one-and-a-half times my usual bill. I popped into one of my service provider’s retail stores to check what was going on.

When I did, I discovered that I had used a tiny amount of data over my allocation and had been charged more than half my normal bill for this infraction. To say I was peeved would be putting it mildly.