Australian woman hit with $1600 in fees two minutes after landing in London

An Optus customer has accused the telco of charging her extortionate fees for services she never used - just two minutes after she touched down in London.

Optus slapped a customer with a $1600 fee two minutes after she touched down in London and told her it was a standard international roaming charge.

Well-known Melbourne activist and author Sally Rugg claimed she didn’t even touch her phone after arriving in the UK’s capital and only checked it when it starting pinging with texts from Optus about the “insane charges”.

Fed up with Optus allegedly telling her the charges were legitimate, she took her complaint online, uploading screenshots of the telco’s messages.

“Wanna hear another Optus horror story? I landed in London 2wks ago & within 2 MN I’d been charged $1600 … didn’t use my phone at all, it was in my pocket (pinging w texts about insane charges),” she wrote.

“Optus tells me the charges are ‘valid’ so won’t waive them.”

One of the messages told her she had spent “$1600 outside of your plan’s monthly inclusions”.

“This may include charges for roaming, making international calls, using premium services, or purchasing content (like Fetch),” the text continued.

Sally Rugg was slapped with $1600 in international roaming fees. Picture: X/sallyrugg

Ms Rugg added in another post that, “This isn’t even one of those old-timey Returning From Overseas To A $1600 Bill (because) You Didn’t Realise Roaming Was On situations — this happened within 2 mins without me even touching my phone”.

Optus’ X account responded to the post directing her to fill out a complaint form, which she swiftly responded saying she had already done.

“I’ve already spoken to one of your staff and they told me the charges were valid,” she replied.

Sally Rugg said the eye-watering charges came through mere minutes after touching down in another country.

Ms Rugg said she was refusing to pay the charge, had taken the matter to Consumer Affairs and removed Optus’ ability to take money from her account via a direct debit.

An Optus employee named Kartik replied saying that if she submitted another complaint, it would be “referred to our Customer Relations Group who’re the highest point of escalation within our organisation and they handle both internal and external complaints”.

Several others claimed they too had been invoiced huge fees after arriving overseas, despite not using the Optus network while there.

Optus is still recovering its reputation after a nationwide blackout that lasted almost an entire day. Picture: Emma Brasier

“Similar thing happened to be recently while in Switzerland! I had my SIM card out of my phone but put it back in for maybe 2 hours, I didn’t use it but was charged $650 to my bill,” one said.

“This also happened to me today! Within 5 minutes of landing in Dubai I had three emails and messages in succession telling me I had spent $150 on roaming (which I have switched off on my phone). Ticked off? You bet,” another said.

Others were quick to put the fees down to Ms Rugg being an “inexperienced” traveller.

“Your experience sounds more like that of an inexperienced traveller rather than an issue with Optus,” one suggested.

Some weighed in with a reminder for travellers to switch off their phone’s data roaming prior to arriving in an overseas country.

The issue came after Optus’ network blacked out for almost an entire day, severely impacting travel networks and preventing people from making emergency calls.

Optus apologised and offered customers a few months of extra data, but many felt the offering was disproportionate to the inconvenience that was caused.

The telco has been contacted by news.com.au for clarification on its roaming fees.