A 22-year-old university student, William Harrison, has been left stung after mobile operator Orange UK billed him £8000 for using his Mobile Broadband connection outside of the country. This is despite last year’s introduction of new European laws designed to prevent "bill shocks" (here).

Last year operators were given until March 2010 to put a new cut-off limit in place, which some promptly introduced. The new rule, one of several in fact, was designed to protect consumers from "bill shocks" by introducing a cut-off mechanism once the bill reached 50 Euros (£44) (users can also specify a different cut-off limit).

However, according to the Guardian, Orange's customer service agent apparently told Harrison that the modem would work fine in France. However the agent failed to inform him that its 3GB usage allowance would not apply outside of the UK. Bizarrely Orange initially claimed that it would have infringed the company's customer privacy policy to monitor Harrison's usage.


It's understood that the customer has since had his bill cut in half. Luckily March is now only one week away and this should serve as a vivid reminder of how roaming Mobile Broadband usage outside of the UK remains prohibitively expensive.