I spotted a post on the reddit front page two nights ago about a guy from Kuwait who ran up a KD3,000 phone bill accidentally and I was going to post about it yesterday but the redditor ended up deleting his post. But last night he posted it again so here I am writing about it.
You can read his full story [Here] but I’ll summarize it for this post. A guy borrows his friends sim card since his friend had a Zain plan that included 10GB of roaming internet. He takes the sim card goes to Azerbaijan where he uses the internet all day long since 10GB is a lot of bandwidth and he wasn’t worried about consuming it all. What the guy and his friend didn’t realize was that Azerbaijan wasn’t part of the countries where he could take advantage of the 10GB of roaming internet so when he checked his phone bill he noticed it was over KD2,500. He freaked out and posted about it on reddit and then a followup saying when he last checked it had gone up even further to over KD3,000.
The guy is pretty screwed because he didn’t read the fine print and the worst part is, its not even his sim card it’s his friends.
Now the odd thing I find here is how his mobile operator in this case Zain allow him to rack up such a high bill. I have a Zain line I never use but I keep since I’ve had that number since 1996 and when I don’t pay my bill for a couple of months I get a phone call from accounting telling me I need to pay KD15 or they’ll disconnect my line. And thats just over KD15. If someones phone bill every month is say KD20 a month on average and suddenly in a week it hits KD1,000, wouldn’t that arouse suspicion? Shouldn’t some kind of alarm go off at Zain (or any other operator) when something like this happens? They would then freeze the account until they could contact the owner of the number to confirm they’re aware of what they’re doing or make sure their phone didn’t get stolen etc..
I had an incident once with Burgan Bank when they blocked my ATM card for security reasons because it was used in two different countries within 24 hours. I had used it once in the Kuwait Airport to exchange money and then again in London to buy a train ticket. I thought that was a bit extreme but the point is companies usually have security measures they take to make sure the customer is protected. I thought telecom operators would have similar security measures but I guess they don’t? Would be great if anyone can shed some light on this.
40 replies on “Running Up a KD3,000+ Phone Bill by Mistake”
“Now the odd thing I find here is how his mobile operator in this case **** allow him to rack up such a high bill.”
Simple…
1. Make it easy for unsuspected customers to have their bills sky rocket.
2. Impose travel ban on them and seizure of their vehicles. Which is easily done over here.
3. This is Kuwait, poor souls will beg friends, relatives or even take bank loans to pay the bill.
Win for the service provider, win for banks, win for politicians and member of parliament that serve on bank boards.
We get butt fucked… however that is the tax we pay for living in peace.
They should have a max roaming limit (which could be set by the customer before travelling).
Once they near 80% of their limit, the mobile operator could call up the customer giving him/her the option to:
1. Increase the limit (subject to a max of additional 50% of the original limit); or
2. Settle the roaming bill and refresh the limit
I know the second option would be a hassle, but then the customer is given enough time to make arrangements to make the payment.
Happened to me. I racked up 1055KD internet roaming charges for the exact same reason. Zain told me to go fuck myself. So yah.. fun…
In 2010, I traveled to Afghanistan and later when the bill came to me I found my Zain bill has reached up to KD 100/- for the 10 days I was in Afghanistan. Generally my bill never goes over KD 25/- and upon inquiry I found that Zain had charged me for calls which were never answered while in Afghanistan.
It happened to me few years ago when I used internet in Dubai for some 4 days.
when I came back, I found I had racked up a 300kd bill (I was npt even browsing that much)
I immediately disconnected the roaming feature on my zain line.
I once had a bill of 1000 KD due to charging problem from Zain side
After disputing they acknowledged the error and problem was sorted out
I had fun opening IVR and hearing my bill near my dad and family…priceless looks on their faces 🙂
Who the hell goes to Azerbaijan anyway?
People.
You’re asking a company to put measures to get less money.
First of all banks takes these issues different than mobile companies in Kuwait (and I say from experience as I worked for both)
If the bank suspected card theft in any kind, it could be because of security vulnerability in there system, so they would want to know and fix it ASAP, as it will hurt there reputation, these kind of news travel around the world fast (security vulnerability gives you the right to withdraw someones else account found in Kuwaiti bank), for that reason the banks invest in these matters, and the Central Bank of Kuwait does follow up with all the Kuwaiti banks to keep there security updated to the latest or they will have fine a violation
As for mobile business the story is bit different, for a start it depended with the other country the customer is visiting, maybe there carrier updated the Kuwaiti company that he used up all his data over night, it might tabbed into another package by misconfiguration from god know who (call center guy made a mistake from one call that was made, the original engineering who made the package did something wrong and nobody noticed, the planning guy who gave the instruction to the engineering to implement the package missed something that is related to global package…), maybe the call center or alarm hardware is old that it skips these events, or could be that the call center got the alarm, but were not able to contact that person, of course it can always be my personal favorite, the call center guy seen the alarm, but forgot to contact the guy 🙂
it is easy money for Zain. Someone will eventually settle the bill and Zain would have +3000KD.
a friend of mine traveled to south africa 2 years ago and he was using his work phone there for the entire month, using internet and just roaming, when he got back his bill was over KD5,000. luckily his work paid it and said they will pull it from his salary over a few months, so it wont be a big hit on him one time.
he doesn’t take his mobile with him anymore when he travels. lol
Ooredoo line, in dubai a couple of years ago, same story but about 250 KD charge.
I was furious when I got back, turns out the Mrs. switched off data but “use data while roaming” which is part of another menu was still turned on on the damn Samsung.
Asked Ooredoo to limit her line to 15 KD tops and call us should she exceeds that LMAO, but of course why will they help? Turns out 150 KD is the lowest cap.
Next holiday in Dubai I went alone.
hahahhahaa
That’s why I don’t use Zain, it’s money sucking, bad service, overcharging.
I don’t get it why can’t you get country sim’s card, we do that buy prepaid one and get internet from it when we travel.
in Japan for example u can’t buy a sim card. when I went there I had to “rent” a sim card and then give it back to the rental place at the airport before i left the country.
True, its a security measure ever since the Tokyo subway attacks. However, to T-rex’s points, that rented sim still gives you blazing fast and truly unlimited internet for about 700fils/day. So its always better not to data roam.
its still waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than 3000k.d. :p
plus we kinda dispose of sim…
its the same
I’ve seen this happen so many times over the years that I’m surprised this still goes on.
Unfortunately for the guy there’s not much he can do except try to work out a plan to pay it in installments, or borrow money for it.
Zain calls me if I have a few dinars overdue, and tells me they would cut my line if I don’t pay.
don’t you hate their SMS or calls and threats of cutting your line, even if they cut it, they will keep charging you even though your not using.
READ THIS!! I was sent an Ooredoo bill for 1600KD (US$5000) for the 6 days I spent in Europe. I had NOT used my phone but the data was not turned off. Plus I had been very sick so when I thought I sent the SMS to extend the KD10 roaming service it had in fact failed. I was told the payment was unavoidable because (quote) Ooredoo ALREADY paid the European telcomm provider (unquote). I sent an email to the Euro phone company and they told me this was absolutely NOT TRUE, the payment would go to Ooredoo. So this means firstly Kuwaiti phone users are not being told the truth and secondly, telcomms then use the untruth to charge customers huge amounts. PLUS under European law if a roaming bill of a European person reaches €50 a warning is sent. The telcomms authorities should investigate how Kuwaiti phone companies are abusing the system. Kuwait should implement the same roaming limits/alerts here as under EU law. Shame on all of these unscrupulous telcomms companies!
Consumers have 0 rights in this country which is why you should always be extra careful dealing with anyone.
Looking at all this. Thank goodness I use a Prepaid telephone line.
prepaid FTW
True, everybody looks at me weird when I tell them I have a prepaid line and I dont want to change it. Guess now I’m reminded why 🙂
every month on my cooperate line there is 2.5 kd charge extra,when asked ooredoo why are they charging 2.5kd for a duration of 00:00:01 sec under premium services. their explanation maybe you clicked on some link in the ooreedoo app. i don’t even have the ooreedoo app on my phone. they say they will cancel but that never happens.
there’s an extra charge on all the cooperate line. there goes a lot of money for no reason.
I am told that GSM roaming has lag – the billing comes over to the original operator several hours, in some cases weeks later – depending on the inter roaming arrangements and SLAs – so there is nothing operator can do. however, I always wondered why prepaid connections won’t run out into same issue as the delay should be on that type of connection too! no one gave me a satisfactory answer!
Stay Pre-Paid! Don’t fall for new Device gimmick, a cell phone is mode of communication, not a status symbol.
I switched from Zain waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay long back
They do have alarms that go off when this happens, but they sound a bit like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194
Whatever country you’re visiting, just buy a local sim card from there.
If you still need your sim card from Kuwait, just be careful, usually prepaid is the way to go.
VIVA Kuwait had this issue fixed a long time ago.
That’s how the zain employees get their bonuses
VIVA has a very good package for the Gulf countries in my opinion. 1 week of unlimited data for 7 KD.
I’m a happy Zain customer for 18 years by sticking to prepaid service. Its sometimes tempting to change to post paid with all the offers, but I have managed to keep my resolve.
I had elite line (blackberry) in 2011 with roaming free feature, switched provider at destination country than the one I usually default to, was charged 60 KD for data roaming of a data roaming free line, how ironic! anyways I settled it and tweeted to their CEO the incident, the next thing I was contacted the week after to collect my VIVA elite card, which lasted me 2 years of lounge accesses and postaplus US box which i still made use of as well as concierge service which I never bothered about, but yea.
Moral of the story: power of complaining… gets you somewhere, sometimes !
This is not peculiar to Kuwait or to Zain. Mobile companies everywhere are notorious that way. My rule of thumb is to SWITCH OFF roaming the minute I land in a foreign country and then rely solely on wi-fi, including locally sourced portable devices or I get a local sim. In case of urgent need, I switch on roaming for a few minutes and then switch it off again.
VIVA Kuwait never has this issue. Your bill will never exceed your limit even if you roam and use data like crazy. The moment you hit your limit, it will stop and you will get a message. Its the best of worlds, free devices from postpaid and cost control of prepaid.
Cheers,
Roaming is expensive, always confirm with your provider for plan details and discount packages for all countries to be visited (dont forget any country you might have a layover in if you turn on phone with data roaming active). Roaming charges are delayed as it is relayed from roaming provider to your provider.
All consumers should scrutinize their bill every month. Sometimes third party “content service” charges appear such as games, contests, ring tones so forth that may not have been subscribed into by end user. These charges are small and go unnoticed but collectively it must sum into a lot of revenue. Someone mentioned not having consumer protection, be that is it may this should encourage us all to be vigilant consumers in the market.
The solution is easy and it is our there and it wont cost them anything. Once installed it will do 1 of 3 things:
a- Send a warning when you are reaching a specific limit (can be set by the user)
b- Notify customer service who will call and verify
c- Stop the service
But as many said before me, why would they not want to get free money from unsuspecting users.