The Orange user at the centre of the controversy over the high cost of using the Internet on a mobile while abroad has lost his action to get his bill reduced.
CISAS, the Communications and Internet Adjudication Scheme, has rejected an appeal from British businessman Roger Steare who was contesting an unexpected bill of £769 for using his Orange 3G card in France and Germany.
Steare argued that while he expected to pay a higher rate when using his 3G card abroad than he would when he was in the UK, he thought the rate might be "as much as ten times" the UK rate. In fact, each megabyte of data cost close to 80 times as much.
In his evidence to CISAS, Steare said that it was unreasonable and unethical for Orange to continue to let him run up an extremely large bill when he had received no notification of what he was being charged.
In making his decision, the arbitrator said that "it is generally known that overseas usage is more expensive than UK usage and that costs of usage were available to be checked". Therefore the arbitrator found that "there was nothing improper in the actions by Orange".
According to the arbitrator, the responsibility lies entirely with the customers.
"By not checking, the customer runs the risk that the costs may be more expensive than they anticipated as opposed to what they actually [sic] and that they may be higher than in comparison to the costs charged by other providers," the judgement said.
Steare, though, argued that he had no reason to believe that Orange's charges would be as high as they were.
Steare also freely admits that he did get a verbal message via his phone about roaming charges when abroad but says that he believes it was read out to him when he made an earlier trip to the Channel Islands. "The disclaimer did not include any specific rate information," he told ZDNet UK, "it just said different rates are charged."
The adjudicator said that it was "unreasonable" for Steare, without knowing the rate he was being charged, to expect that it would be roughly in line with other charges. This was on the grounds that "the provider would have to anticipate in advance what the individual perception of a customer was which would vary according to knowledge experience and background".
CISAS was set up to resolve disputes of this kind under the auspices of the Institute of Arbitrators. Under the terms of arbitration, Orange had agreed to wait for adjudication before pursuing its action.
After going to arbitration, Steare has now paid the disputed bill. He has also cancelled his Orange data roaming contract.
Talkback
Bye bye Orange.
As it happens, I'm currently looking at getting my first ever mobile (gasp!).
Orange have lost my possible future custom over this. Given the circumstances, they could have at least taken this as useful 'test case' for their terms and conditions and agreed to waive most of the charge even if they won. They've had their pound of flesh now; I hope they're happy with the loss of reputation and custom it will cost them.
As for the arbitrators - it looks like they would have supported Orange even if the bill had been £10,000 or even £100,000 and the customer was made bankrupt. At the very least they should have told Orange they had a duty to provide clear warnings - e.g. a simple text message every time (say) £100 is clocked up in a 'short period'.
Unbelievable. I was considering going back to orange after a short stay with 3 but not after this. What a stupid greedy company. Fancy not telling the poor bloke - they're happy enough to text about offers this and download music ringtones blah blah that, but a simple bit of customer service? no, the system isn't set up for that.
What orange have failed to realise is that consumers have CHOICE and are on the whole pretty fed up with foreign call centres and stupid offers.
Mark my words - the first company to offer a stripped down phone service - just talk and text - no flippin video, no flippin cameras - and a phone that people actually WANT - by which I mean a small earpiece and a separate simple keypad for texting and browsing the contact list and then they charge a reasonable price for airtime - they'll make an absolute fortune.
Smart one Orange. Enforce a bill of £769 whilst throwing away tens, if not hundreds of thousands of good marketing dollars that you've used to get mobile users to adopt data services in the first place.
I'd fire the genius who decided to let it get to the legal stage in the first place.
Given the terms and conditions and the prices on their web site (they were there when I was working abroad a few years ago) it was a foregone conclusion.
As to allowing him to clock up a bill of 700UKP+, well depends on what his normal bill was, but when I was working abroad a bill of over 1k per month wasn't unusual.
My girlfriend in Germany at the time used to get warnings from T-Mobile at the time when her account exceeded 2000€
Maybe users should be able to specify in the contract a warning limit, where they receive a call or SMS when they exceed their personal limit.
Orange lost my business when they refused to transfer my £15 credit from a broken phone to a new one. I took the decision on the basis of lack of exhibited customer care and the overriding importance of maximising their revenue and refuse to even speak to Orange Sales about the company's business phones. After 4 years they still haven't got customer care right.
Nice to know these independant arbitrators are there to protect us. Did anyone check the provider?
Similar thing happened to me in Spain last summer. Although I kept my phone tuned into Vodafone ES I still managed to run up a £650 3G data bill.
I must say though Vodafone did keep calling me when the bill reached a certain amount. A bit of an insult though to ask a 15+ year customer with perfect credit rating to clear the bill on the phone by credit card.
Now dont use data when abroad its just too costly even with the same telco.
I have to admit i am somewhat at a loss as to the the validation for such ripoff prices for mobile data whilst out of the country .
I have not travelled with my phone yet (T-Mobile) and untill these stupid problems are sorted out i dont think i will and as for the Adjuicator well someone please stick his nuts in the fire for 20 mins please that ought to bring a few tears to his eyes..
Pete .
Although I thoroughly detest regulatory bodies there certainly seems to be a call for an EFFECTIVE international one to approve and agree all such charges BEFORE they can be introduced.
I can in way understand what financial justification (other than corporate GREED) any telecom company can offer for such ridiculously high charges when the technical aspect is elementary.
Greed, pure greed.
Having spent so much money on the 3g licences, it seems that he telcos would often rather try to stitch up their customers, when it should be clear that the only way to ever get data services to pay for themselves is to price them so that everyone uses them all the time -including when roaming. This would suggest that the geniuses who have established the contracts with other telcos need to go back and work out an effective roaming charging structure.
My wife passed away suddenly whilst we were on holiday in Spain in 2004. Naturally, my mobile usage rocketed with calls to family and friends, arrangements etc.
I received a call from my provider's Credit Control section enquiring into this abnormally high usage and asking that I make a payment towards the high costs.
At the time I was not impressed, but in hindsight, I see that it was an entirely sensible thing for them to do. It could have been abuse by someone having stolen my phone and at least it raised my awareness of the costs I was incurring.
Orange, take note!