A south London father was stunned to be landed with a bill for a £3,309 after letting his young son watch watching six episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants on his mobile phone during a rainy camping trip.
Conan Sturdy, from Streatham, received a bill from BT shortly after the August camper van trip to Kent – which cost £7 a night – for watching the popular children’s cartoon.
Sturdy, a self-employed blacksmith, 42, had exceeded his data allowance by 5.4GB – which meant BT had charged him at the rate of 50p per megabyte, or £612 per gigabyte. The bill for his BT business contract – which includes a 2GB data allowance – is normally £50 a month.
Sturdy says he received a text warning from BT that he was about to exceed his allowance when he started the SpongeBob downloads for his 10-year-old son Felix. But there was no indication of the likely cost.
In a letter to the Guardian, he wrote: “One afternoon it was pretty miserable so I let him watch SpongeBob SquarePants on Netflix – it was an afternoon’s worth. I thought there’d be a charge – maybe £30 or £40 – as I received a text saying I had gone over.
“A charge is one thing but £600 per gig is another. I had no idea that the bill could be so high.”
He added: “I understand that BT is a commercial enterprise and has to make a return on investments for shareholders, pay for staff etc, but this seems massively disproportionate.”
Sturdy lodged a complaint via the website A Spokesman Said.
The previous month BT had cut off his data access when he’d exceeded his allowance – by just 175MB. “When I pointed this out, they said that department no longer exists,” said Sturdy. “I am just in complete shock. I took my son on a quick and cheap, £7-a-night camping holiday and I end up owing thousands. I’ve complained to BT that this is just an unreasonable amount and they have at least put payment on hold while they look into my complaint. I am self-employed and I don’t have the money to pay this bill.”
Sturdy said he signed a business-to-business contract “so I should have known and read it. So far, when I’ve spoken to BT, they just say it’s there in the terms and conditions. I don’t doubt it, but is it fair to be able to charge such a huge amount?”
The Guardian contacted BT for a statement. It confirmed that Sturdy’s account had been put on hold while it investigated his case.
A BT spokesperson said: “We appreciate that Mr Sturdy may not have been fully aware of the cost of exceeding his mobile data allowance, and as a goodwill gesture are willing to waive the charge on this occasion.
“If business customers exceed their data limit we send them a warning text message every 250Mb. We are arranging for Mr Sturdy to switch to a more suitable mobile data allowance.”
