I’ve been charged £2,250 for using my phone to connect to Dubai airport Wi-Fi: SALLY SORTS IT

I had an urgent call from my 28-year-old daughter, who lives in Dubai, telling me she had split up with her partner. 

He came on the phone and warned me that she was in an emotional state, and I should come out to see her urgently. She suffers from anxiety, so I was keen to get to her as soon as possible.

I swiftly made domestic, work and flight arrangements, and managed to get there from London in 26 hours.

On arrival at Dubai airport, I turned on my mobile phone to get the airport wifi, but it would not work. I gave up and took a cab to my daughter’s flat.

My mobile did not work the whole time I was in the Emirate, which has never happened before in the 20 years I’ve been making trips there. 

When I got home a few days later, I was shocked to receive a bill for £2,250 for apparently just accessing wifi while at the airport. Please help.

J. S., Molesworth, Cambs.

Sally Hamilton replies: It can be all too easy to make mistakes with mobiles when travelling abroad, and the financial fallout can be painful, as tariffs and charges are often eye-watering – especially when you’re outside of the EU.

But I could not understand how you ended up with such a massive bill just for attempting, unsuccessfully, to get on to wifi at the airport.

You told me that you are used to travelling and would not fall into the trap of incurring high charges for using data abroad.

You typically set data caps on your usage to prevent such nasty bill surprises, so you were furious when this charge appeared on your account. I suspected there must have been a mistake, as accessing wifi should use very little, if any, mobile data.

You contacted the provider of your mobile phone contract, Plan.com. Its customer service staff seemed nonplussed by the excessive charge but offered no explanation. When I contacted Plan.com, it got the message loud and clear that you were unhappy with the jumbo-jet-sized charges and quickly carried out an investigation of your account.

Its findings revealed that there had been an error in its system that had stopped your spend cap from being applied when you recently renewed your contract.

I’m happy to say it acted quickly to put your account on the right path. It has now credited you £2,329 for various costs, including the £2,250 for the mysterious data-roaming bills. It also sent you a hamper as a goodwill gesture.

A spokesman says: ‘Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. We are sincerely sorry to hear about the situation affecting J. S., who has been a loyal customer of Plan since 2015. We regret that this has occurred.’

The error does not entirely explain how you managed to rack up such a high data-roaming charge without apparently using much data in the first place.

Perhaps some apps were being updated on your phone in the background without your knowledge and gobbling up

data. Or maybe the phone automatically switched to data roaming when the wifi didn’t work at the airport. Whatever the reason, you are just relieved that the bill has been wiped.

Your experience is a lesson to all travellers, who should check their mobile contracts before going abroad to avoid a bill shock.

Applying a spend cap is one sensible step, and many

big-name providers will do this automatically for customers, setting it at about £45 a month for international usage. Customers wanting more data can contact their provider to raise the limit.

Buying international add-on packages from the network can also help manage costs. Another option for guarding against giant bills is to buy a local network SIM card at the destination and insert it into the phone. These SIM card deals should be cheaper for both data and calls.

To take advantage of this, phone users need to have their phones ‘unlocked’ so they are no longer tied to their usual network and can accept other SIMs. Some networks unlock phones free of charge while others charge a fee of, say, £10 or £15.

Travellers worried about excessive roaming charges can protect themselves by turning off roaming altogether in their phone settings. They can then use wifi rather than the mobile network when they need to make calls, go online or send emails.

 AA’s £266 battery didn’t get us moving 

The AA will not reimburse us for a £266.64 battery it installed in our van that didn’t work properly. Please help.

J. C., Luton, Beds.

Sally Hamilton replies: You told me that you have AA breakdown cover as part of your Lloyds Bank current account package. Two weeks before the MOT was due on your van you found you were unable to start the engine and called out The AA.

As you have home start cover, a mechanic duly turned up within two hours and told you the van needed a new battery. They fetched one and fitted it for £266.64. On the day of the MOT, the car didn’t start again.

But when you phoned The AA it said it couldn’t attend because the vehicle did not have a valid MOT certificate. You weren’t best pleased to be put in this Catch-22 position. In the end you paid for the van to be towed to the MOT centre at a cost of £50.

The vehicle failed the MOT because the battery would not retain a charge. The garage fitted a new battery for £224.99 and the van passed the test.

When you complained to The AA that you had been sold a dud battery you couldn’t get anyone to understand your point of view and turned to me for help in persuading it that you had been hard done by.

This I did, and I am pleased to say its customer service team accelerated its response and agreed that you should be reimbursed. It has now sent a cheque for £266.64.

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email [email protected] — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.