I cant pay my mobile phone bill

Do not spend extra on existing contract mobile phones deals

In short, if you take minuts and dial customer service number to check your usage, you could save up to 100 pounds in a month. Here is how you can do this.

Step 1 Find out what exactly they charged you for: mobile phone bill analysis 

Step 2 Reduce the upcoming bill to normal

Step 3 Take measures to avoid similar situations in future

Conclusion

What was wrong?

I am an Orange customer and I have an 18 months contract with 700 minutes and unlimited landline minutes. I used to pay a standard amount of 35 pounds per month untill recently. Recently, I realised that Orange started charging me about 150 pounds. I was in a shock.

Step 1: Find out what exactly they charged you - mobile phone bill comparison 

This is a short description of my discussions with Orange and details of how I dealt with this unfair situation.

Me: Hi, I have noticed unusually high charges on my account, can you explain me the reason? Orange (as expected): Hi, you must have talked too much, let me have a look for you? It will not be too long. After about 3-4 minuts, Hi yeaa, in total your mobile phone bill comparison shows for the last month 150 pounds including VAT and your unlimited bundles. Me: But, I dont remember talking more, so why do I have to pay almost 5 times more than normal price? There was a mobile phone bill dispute. Orange: Ok, I see here that your out of bundle charges include five pound off-peak internet package, twenty minutes oversea calls and 30 premium messages. In total this charge comes too 97 pounds plus VAT 17.5%. So, I am afraid, in total this comes to 150 pounds. Me: I did not send any messages, I did not do any calls abroad, I did not use internet at all. This everything is wrong. Orange: If you want I can give you details of these calls and texts but I am afraid you will have to pay this amount by the end of your billing cycle. Me: Incredible, this is horrible (I was still polite), go ahead give me those details. How about that internet? Can you explain me that? Orange: The calls were made to Japan to this number :------ a minute call to Japan will cost you 1.5£ and the text messages were made to 55533 premium number to company called Flexy each costs 2.5£. The calls and texts were made on 23rd of the month. After short consideration, I realised that I gave my phone to my Japanese friend for an evening to use. I called my friend and asked him about the calls. He agreed that he called his family that evening and texted to get some business news. When I told him about the extra charges on my account he agreed to pay me 100£ for the bill.

Step 2: Reduce mobile phone bill to normal

It is necessary to reduce the next bills too. The compensation for that evening is enough for that month only. If my friend subscribed for the business news on regular basis future bills will include these charges too.

Switch off the subscription.
I again called the customer service and asked them to switch off the subscription for those news. However, Orange said that they could not do this because the company Flexy was independent of Orange. So, I had to call my Japanese friend and ask him for ways to cancel the subscription. He told me to send a message to 55533 with a word OFF.
S witch off the off-peak internet bundle. When I asked Orange to take the internet bundle off for me, They did so with no problems. Only, then I learned that internet bundle was a must with all 18 month packages Orange was offering. The bundle was free for the first two months and 5£ thereafter. So, I had to cancel it 6 months before. In other words, I had been paying for this bundle every month not even knowing about it. In total Orange charged me 30£ for 6 months. So my average mobile phone bill was normal again.

Step 3: Take measures to avoid similar situations in future