London - A SCHOOLGIRL who used her mobile to keep Facebook friends updated on her dream trip to New York ran up a £3,800 (about R57 700) phone bill.
Casey Snook, 14, eagerly told of trips to the Empire State Building, Central Park and Times Square and uploaded a series of pictures with her iPhone.
But it turned sour when her father’s bank account – which funded the phone – went overdrawn after the holiday.
Casey ran up the charges by using Facebook with data roaming – a service that enables internet access abroad.
Her phone company, Orange, says it sent her a number of warnings but her mother, Kate, 43, accused it of ‘extortion’.
‘I can’t believe that a company would let a bill which is usually £50 get up to that level,’ she said.
Casey, of Hengrove, Bristol, flew to New York with her mother on May 27. Mrs Snook said that four days into the trip Casey received a text from Orange warning her that she had gone over her data limit and her bill had reached £320.
It barred text messages and calls but did not block data roaming. Mrs Snook told Casey to stop using her phone.
They discovered the extent of the charges only when they returned home two days later.
An Orange spokesman said: ‘The customer received numerous text alerts which updated them on the roaming costs and their data usage.
‘The customer actively opted out of our roaming data cap so that they could continue to use data, effectively removing the in-built protection from large data roaming bills.’ - Daily Mail