£31k phone bill? Give us a ‘prison break’!

11:26am Thursday 3rd July 2008

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A MANCHESTER holiday-maker ran up a £31,500 mobile phone bill after downloading the series finale of a popular TV show while away in Portugal.

Iayn Dobsyn said he was staggered when he opened the letter. His normal bill is £150.

Mr Dobsyn had run up the charges after not realising that his contract deal did not include unlimited web use abroad.

While holidaying in Portugal, he downloaded the series finale of hit US drama Prison Break, shown on Sky, by hooking up his laptop to the internet via the mobile phone.

In addition he also downloaded some music tracks. Mr Dobsyn, an IT contractor, said he was determined to fight the bill.

And thanks to Blackburn-based legal firm Farleys Solicitors LLP, he managed to get it knocked down to £229.

Mr Dobsyn, 34, said: “The figures looked like they had come down from the moon. I just laughed. There had to be some mistake.

“I knew I had used a lot of data while abroad, but not to the tune of £31,000. The figures just didn’t make sense.

“It was ludicrous, but I was going to take this all the way to the end.”

Danielle Mestraud, from Farleys Solicitors, was given the task of investigating the bill from Yes telecom, a Manchester-based telecoms company.

She said: “When Mr Dobsyn came to the Farleys free advice clinic I was not surprised to hear that he wanted to dispute a bill from the telecommunications comp-any in relation to usage whilst abroad.

“The European Commission is currently looking to reduce the rates which telecommunication companies can impose upon their clients for usage whilst abroad in the EU, in some cases by more than 50 per cent.

“This highlights the importance of taking legal advice in disputed debt cases, but we would advise everyone to check the small print on their mobile phone contracts to avoid being overly charged.”

Yes telecom said in an email to Ms Mestraud, from Manchester: “We accept the bill was very high compared to Mr Dobsyn’s normal usage, but we would have expected Mr Dobsyn to make himself fully aware of the charges associated with using his data card abroad before he went.”

The company was unavailable for comment yesterday.