Teen on 2-hour transit in Turkey incurs $9,000 roaming charges
A 41-year-old mother was shocked when she received a notification from M1 alerting her that her phone bill had hit $9,029.72.
The message on Nov 15 last year came just days after Ms Lin's son had a two-hour transit at Istanbul en route to Hungary from Singapore.
The teenager had sent a message to his family to update them on his journey on Nov 9.
According to Ms Lin's phone bill from the telco, the charges included $8,944.80 in roaming charges, the monthly fee of $84.12 and an additional 80 cents for SMS roaming.
Her son's phone line goes under her phone account.
Ms Lin told Shin Min Daily News that she cancelled her Giro arrangement before the auto-deduction kicked in for the bill, which she received on Nov 22.
"I called customer service and went to the store to ask for help, but I still couldn't figure it out, and no one told me how much data was used in Turkey," she said.
Ms Lin paid her bill except the roaming charges. As a result, their phone lines were disconnected on Jan 26.
Following a discussion between Ms Lin and the telco, M1 granted a one-time waiver and reconnected the phone lines after Ms Lin paid a fee of $500.
An M1 spokesman told Shin Min that the user had switched on the roaming function before travelling to Turkey, resulting in the mobile services to be linked to the Turkish telco Vodafone Telsim and incurring roaming charges.
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