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Mobile firms net £64m from data charges: here’s how to avoid them

daniellelevy
Written By:
daniellelevy
Posted:
Updated:
19/11/2018

Mobile phone operators have netted an extra £64m from pay-monthly customers who are overpaying for additional data after they exceed their monthly allowance.

Comparethemarket found that more than 18 million people are affected, equating to 44% of pay-monthly customers. Of this figure, 56% purchased additional data from their provider, typically a bolt-on data package of 1.72GB at an average price of £6.38.

Meanwhile, close to a fifth spent more than £10 on additional data, while 13% admitted to not knowing how much they were paying for the extra data.

Despite the high number of people who are paying additional costs for data every month, 88% said they had never switched mobile provider. What’s more, close to three quarters said they had put off switching – even though they believed they were overpaying for their mobile tariff.

Mubina Pirmohamed, digital expert at comparethemarket, said: “The fact that millions of people nationwide are using more data than their contract allows – and paying extra for it – suggests that many may not be on a tariff which is best suited to them.”

She added that mobile providers should take better steps to explain to their customers how much data they will need at the point of purchase.

“If you find yourself regularly overpaying for, or running out of data, the best way to pay less is often to shop around and switch to a more competitive tariff,” she said.

How to cut your data charges

If you are looking to cut your mobile phone bill, Ernest Doku, mobile expert at uSwitch, suggests working out your average phone usage over the space of a few months to find a package that best suits your needs.

“There are now a number of ways that you can monitor how much you’re consuming every month – from apps like Walletsaver which analyse usage in real-time and provider-owned apps to simply checking usage in your settings,” he explained.

Doku added that users can set data usage warnings or a cap to make sure limits aren’t exceeded. Plus, for those whose monthly usage varies, providers are offering a growing number of packages which allow customers to adjust how much data they are using on a month-by-month basis, or to carry a proportion over into subsequent months.

“These flexi or ‘roll-over’ contracts give users a degree of control over what they are spending each month, but a word of warning: they often require customers to actively update their usage at the end of each month,” he said.