Bill of £1,000 for five-minute mobile download
A horrified mother was left with a bill of more than £1,000 from Orange for downloading five minutes of cartoon film Madagascar on holiday.
Stacey Withers from Tipton was charged more for the cartoon clip than she was for a week's luxury getaway to Turkey. The dental nurse had downloaded the DreamWorks film to cheer up her three-year-old son Joel, who fell ill with an ear infection during the holiday two weeks ago.
But she was astounded when she discovered the short clip had cost her £1,118.05p – £101 more than the family holiday and the equivalent of £223.60 for every minute of the film. The mother-of-one, who had saved for two years for the trip has refused to pay out.
The 25-year-old said: "It's absolutely disgusting. My three-year-old son had been crying for nearly six days because of an ear infection. He is mad for Madagascar and I knew it was the only thing that might get him to calm down.
"I turned on data roaming for about five minutes and started to download it and got about 18 per cent. I started to worry it would cost me a few hundred – so I stopped the download and waited until I had wifi inside the hotel to download the rest. When we landed home on Monday, I got a text from Orange updating me on my bill.
"I was expecting it to be bad, maybe up to £300 for the download but I couldn't believe it when it said £1,118. It has completely ruined the holiday – that's more than I earn in a month." Stacey had gone on holiday with her partner Danny Langford, 23, and Joel earlier this month.
A spokeswoman for Orange said: "Customers are automatically capped to ensure they are not charged more than £51 for roaming data in a given month. In this instance the customer contacted Orange to opt out of the cap."
