This pair of jetsetters racked up international roaming charges totalling nearly $5000

These travelling companions had their trip of a lifetime end in distress when they returned home with phone bills totalling thousands of dollars.

TRAVELLING companions Olivia Cotterill and Cindy Sambola’s six-week European trip of a lifetime ended in heartache when they returned to Australia.

The pair had ratcheted up nearly $5000 in phone bills between them.

Bill shock is familiar to many jetsetters who learn the hard way about the excessive costs when using your mobile phone overseas.

Ms Cotterill and Ms Sambola, both 29, notched up bills of $3500 and $1100 each.

“When I was overseas I was checking my phone app and it wasn’t updating, I was using wi-fi so I wasn’t too worried about my data usage,” Ms Cotterill said.

“But when I landed back in Sydney as soon as I touched down at the airport I got an influx of text messages saying I had gone over my data.

“I was left with a $3500 bill.”

MORE: How to keep your child's mobile phone costs down

MORE: The best ways to save on your phone costs

This fear of an excessive phone bill is familiar, with a new YouGov Galaxy poll of 1000 Australians finding that:

• 63 per cent are concerned about returning home with a big bill.

• 41 per cent have been hit with international roaming fees.

• The average international roaming fee per person is $290.

(L-R) Cindy Sambola, 29 and Olivia Cotterill, 29, travelled to Europe in 2018 and returned home to get stung by whopping phone bills for using international roaming. Picture: Damian Shaw.

Customers can get hit with charges between 50c and $3 per megabyte of data when abroad.

Turning off your data roaming is one of the easiest ways to stop this and also sticking to using wi-fi.

Ms Cotterill and Ms Sambola both disputed their individual bills with their telcos and managed to negotiate discounts on the amount to be paid.

“I thought I was just being charged a certain amount each day but when I got back my bill was through the roof,” Ms Sambola said.

Vodafone chief commercial officer Ben McIntosh said customers could easily get stung by excessive charges “because there’s a lack of awareness out there” about the fees involved.

“People think they will be OK,” he said.

“But they don’t realise their iPhone is always working in the background, apps are always updating and using data and they can get caught out.”

Vodafone has one of the most competitive roaming deals on offer, charging customers $5 per day to use data, call and text inclusions on a customer’s associated plan.

Australian Communications Consumer Action Network spokeswoman Melyssa Troy said

“to avoid bill-shock when travelling consider if you need to have access to your phone

number while overseas”.

“If you don’t, you may be better off buying a local SIM card when you arrive at your destination,” she said.

This can often get users cheaper local rates and the credit on the SIM can easily be topped up.

@sophieelsworth

Stop high phone bills while overseas

• Turn off data roaming before you leave Australia.

• Switch off location services and push notifications.

• Buy a SIM card at the destination and remove your own SIM card.

• Find out if your telco offers international roaming deals before you leave.

INTERNATIONAL ROAMING DEALS

Telstra - (Post paid customers) $10 per day will let give you 200MB data per day in 70 countries, and unlimited talk & text. If you go over the 200MB limit they’ll add another 500MB at $10 for use within 31 days.

Optus - (Post paid customers) on selected plans $10 per day gets 100MB per day and unlimited talk and text in their Zone 1 countries for up to 31 consecutive days. More info here.

Vodafone - easily the best of the three. For post paid customers $5 per day lets you use your plan as you would at home in 80 countries, for up to 90 days in a calendar year. There are some variances depending on your plan, so check Vodafone for the details.

Source: Whistleout.com.au

Originally published as This pair of jetsetters racked up international roaming charges totalling nearly $5000