Ian Templeman arrived at Corfu airport last Sunday from Great Britain for a holiday when he received a message from mobile phone company Sky Mobile welcoming him to Albania.
What Templeman didn’t think at the time was that this message was not just an “innocent” mistake, but that it meant he would be charged far more than what he calculated every time he used his cell phone.
According to the Telegraph website, the holidaymaker was charged €2.56 per MB of data, €2.56 per minute for every phone call he made and 60 minutes for every message he sent, instead of being charged €2.38 a day for unlimited calls and messages, as a visiting Briton would normally be charged.
That is, just to use Google maps for just 10 minutes, Ian had to pay almost €18.
This led to him receiving an exorbitant bill on Tuesday morning, just two days into his holiday,about 100 euros (£85). Immediately, he phoned the company to complain and tell them that a mistake had been made.
The company responded to his complaint, saying “no, we sent you a message saying you were in Albania and therefore you would be billed as if you were in Albania”.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was thinking, is this a novel…I’m in Greece, I’m not in Albania,” he reportedly said.
It is not true that I am not “in Estonia”, he said.
As for his short-lived hopes of getting back the money he lost, they proved fruitless as he received a response from Sky Mobile to his request, telling him that no money was going to be refunded and that if he didn’t want to incur roaming charges in Albania he should “avoid making calls or sending texts”, “turn off data roaming” or “try switching to the correct network by manually selecting a different network”.
The closest to a refund he received was around €23 (£20) as a “goodwill gesture” to “put the matter to rest”, which Templeman ultimately refused to accept. “This matter must affect many, many thousands of people. and then be accused of not being as tech savvy as an IT consultant. It’s a shameful practice and it doesn’t treat the client fairly.”
Many customers “victimized” by excessive charges
For its part, Sky Mobile warns customers on its website that Corfu is a destination that sometimes receives signals from Albania because it is quite close to the island, and because Albania is not an EU member, customers may be charged extra roaming fees. In fact, the Kalami area where the tourist in question was staying is about 32 kilometres from the country, there are areas of the island that are much less than that.
Templeman is not the first Sky Mobile customer to face an “inflated” bill from Albanian roaming charges.
Writing on the Sky Community help forum, one customer said he was charged around €47 when his phone was automatically connected to an Albanian network for one day of his holiday. “I had to fight tooth and nail to finally get Sky to agree to refund the money. There should have been some warning to travellers that this could happen.”
Eventually, Sky Mobile, after being approached by the British media that reported the incident, changed its stance and credited about €107 (£90) to his account two days later, but made it clear that this was not a refund. The company also explained that Templeman was able to manually connect to a German provider and has not incurred further roaming charges in Albania since then.
