Sister got hammered with large O2 bill

looperman1000

what way would you go about it?

1st two bills were fine. The third bill she got was for a few hundred euro. She has a 15Gb allowance and has 3 young daughters that connect to the web. They say they are innocent and haven't been downloading. Its unlikely even Youtube streaming of songs would bring them over there 15Gb allowance, surely?
I told her to get more info from O2, demand it from them. How have i downloaded this much, show me. As the mother of the household she doesnt download. I told her the first thing i would do is change your internet password. She said she doesnt know how to, and was asking an O2 rep chatting online, and said that its in the management interface and nothing more. She told them that she did not know where this was and they didnt help any further.
Any help appreciated guys, anyone else have his prob?
Oh and btw she has checked what the amount is on her current bill and its crept up past the 100 mark!!
Could it be possible malware on a laptop could be the cause, also?

kaizersoze

3 users on the same internet connection would suck up 15 gig no time.
Not much help to you I know but they would.

Sulla Felix

Firstly she really needs to educate herself. If she's going to have a communication service installed in her house and she has children, she needs to be on top of it, for their safety as well as the safety of her wallet. Now O2 might be remiss by not giving her a bit more of a help but honestly, googling it throws up a lot of places for her to start.

Secondly, three kids will eat 15GB for breakfast. I live on my own and have to nurse the tail end of my 20GB package toward the end of the month. To give you an idea of how little 15GB is, it's about 20-25 hours of high def youtube viewing. Split between 3 tech savvy kids? Not a lot at all.

phog

Halfway through the month and I've used 32GB, last month we topped 72GB but we trialled Netflix. For April and May we used around 45GB.

During week two adults using it for browsing, emails, twitter and forums like Boards. Weekends, 2 young adults plus us two using it for same but Facebook and YouTube probably get a bigger hit.

Not sure how if any if this helps your sister other than give her an indication of usage. Can she get O2 to give her an alarm as she approaches her monthly limit.

No Pants

I've downloaded nearly 24Gb in the past 24 hours.

johndoe99

15Gb is nothing, don't forget that this is downloading and uploading combined. 3 daughters saying there innocent and haven't downloaded anything, like there telling the truth. Malware can of course add to that figure too.

There's plenty of mags and books that will bring her up to speed.

jay93

Watching youtube is downloading anything you ''load'' online is downloading .

Youtube eats into data allowances for just one person using it not to mention 3 people using it!

Would suggest they look into getting a provider with a higher allowance maybe.

bealtine

3G is not broadband get a real provider...

Media999

Move to Sky or UPC with unlimited usage. 1 person just on youtube would easily use 15gb a month. Learn a lesson and move on. If youre really broke just cancel direct debit and tell them to get lost.

colm_mcm

I have heard of 02 refunding 90% of the excess charge on the first instance.

Mr. G

To put this in perspective I've gone through over 120gb last month but my grandmother wouldn't go over 1gb. 3 young daughters would go through that in no time. My advice is to get a different plan and query usage further with O2. Just as another posted said, she needs to educate herself with this sort of thing.

O2 may be able to provider her a free upgrade or if she threatens to pull the plug a better deal.

Also make sure she isn't using it abroad. If she did, it would go through the roof.

GarIT

looperman1000 wrote: »

what way would you go about it?

1st two bills were fine. The third bill she got was for a few hundred euro. She has a 15Gb allowance and has 3 young daughters that connect to the web. They say they are innocent and haven't been downloading. Its unlikely even Youtube streaming of songs would bring them over there 15Gb allowance, surely?
I told her to get more info from O2, demand it from them. How have i downloaded this much, show me. As the mother of the household she doesnt download. I told her the first thing i would do is change your internet password. She said she doesnt know how to, and was asking an O2 rep chatting online, and said that its in the management interface and nothing more. She told them that she did not know where this was and they didnt help any further.
Any help appreciated guys, anyone else have his prob?
Oh and btw she has checked what the amount is on her current bill and its crept up past the 100 mark!!
Could it be possible malware on a laptop could be the cause, also?

They don't download? Nobody in the house has connected to the internet?

O2 can not and do not have to provide the information you mentioned.

If you watch YouTube videos in HD each music video would be 0.1GB that's 150 YouTube videos = 15GB, that's 50 videos a month each for the kids, is it that unlikely the kids might watch 1 and a half videos each day or listen to music on YouTube?

A relative has 4 kids and the kids break 300GB per month not doing anything unusual.

There are also things you wouldn't notice like windows updates are up to 1GB per month, Internet security updates 3GB per month.

PoolBall

Sorry to say that this is an education issue. 15G is only for light browsing, the occasional video, small amount of music streaming. Its definitely not suitable for family use in this day and age. My family would use that in one or 2 evenings on Netflix, youtube, consoles etc, etc ... It all adds up fast. Your sister should really see if she can move to a real broadband provider with a much higher data cap. Just as a side note beware of ISP offering unlimited data caps. Always double check what unlimited means and what the costs are outside the cap. In the case of Vodafone Unlimited is 300 gigs and Eircom Unlimited is 500 gigs I believe. Unfortunately your sister has learned the hard way, but maybe O2 will do something for her.

Is you sister using O2 because she cannot get DSL or Fibre?

looperman1000

sorry to come back so late guys. Thankyou so much for all your input and feedback. She is in Applewood in Swords. I think they have UPC coverage there, so she should perhaps opt for that. When you say about the dloading and uploading and youtube usage, yep it makes sense alright.
Thanks again to you all!