A 72-year-old small business owner has been left horrified after being hit with an £18,000 phone bill for exceeding her mobile data allowance, with O2 insisting she must pay every penny. Roz Dean, who owns drainage firm RGR Facilities, initially believed a £12,000 charge in January was a mistake and blocked the transaction. However, after an investigation, O2 confirmed the bill was accurate and sent two more invoices totalling an additional £6,000 for the same phone line. The charges stem from a work phone exceeding its 50GB monthly data limit between December and February.
Threatening Legal Action
Roz, from Shepherd's Bush, West London, is now threatening legal action. She claims O2 customer service workers verbally assured her the enormous fee would be waived, only to later uphold it after their investigation. O2 stated that the decision was made because the device received text alerts warning it had used 80 per cent and then 100 per cent of its data allowance, and there was no spending cap on the account. However, Roz argues that the warnings should have been sent to her as the account holder, not to the device used by an employee.
Her work phone contract includes unlimited data for just £48 per month, making the £18,000 bill seem 'ridiculous' to her. The bill must be paid within two weeks. Invoices show that the employee used 54GB of data on November 17, costing £1,586.14, and 33.4GB on New Year's Day, costing £978.96 – averaging £29 per GB used outside the allowance.
Impact on Small Business
Roz says a typical monthly bill for one of their phones on the 50GB data allowance is £37.62, and the entire company bill for 11 work phones is around £550. She believes O2 is targeting small businesses, adding, 'It makes me angry. I've never not paid anything but I'm adamant not to pay it and if I need to take legal action then I will do. We're a small business and they shouldn't do that.' She notes that the £18,000 could have been used to hire another apprentice, especially given that youth unemployment is at its highest rate in almost five years.
Roz says she wants to leave O2 once the issue is resolved. An O2 spokesperson said, 'While we consistently provided the customer with warnings about their data use and all charges are valid, we accept we could have handled this case differently. As a gesture of goodwill we are reviewing their bill and working with them to reach a satisfactory outcome.'
