TelstraClear Download Blowout: A $6,000 Bill?
12:40pm May 10
Gulp! An email from TelstraClear arrives advising that my HighSpeed Internet usage has exceeded my traffic allowance by an additional 1,964 blocks. At $2.95 a block, that makes an $5,793.80 in extra charges - and there's still two-thirds of the month to go!
12:41pm
A quick check of their online usage meter confirms it! OMG! When I last looked it was barely at 6GB. I hastily shut down Azureus.
12:42pm
According to the detailed stats, I've downloaded 1,498,554 and uploaded 524,802 megabytes this morning. Well, I knew it was fast but...
12:43pm
A call to TC's Help Desk (0508 888 800) results in a recorded message that there are "issues" with the online usage meter and that "some customers are showing excessive usage".
12:44pm
A cautious return to the torrents with fingers, legs and eyes crossed that I'm not really up for a $6,000 bill.
Comments
why on my telstra dial up can't i send or recieve e-mails.My anti-virus is blocking incomming and out
going WHY????
COLIN NZ
Posted by: John pemberton | October 2, 2007 4:14 AM
want to change the traffic
Posted by: le van son | September 21, 2007 9:07 PM
My friends dad, found out that he could use his cell phone to access the internet. Since it was faster than whatever he had been using at the time put it to good use. Down loading large amounts of data. He ended up with $3000+ (It may have been $13,000 in fact but i would need to double check) bill that month. He was able to convey his ignorance to the Vodafone (I think) and the let him off the hook as this was his first time. He was a very lucky man
Posted by: Darcy Thomas | May 16, 2007 12:08 PM
When I first looked into ADSL I searched around the major providers for the best deal. I download TV Shows through bit torrents and on average I use between 50 - 60GB per month.
The one provider that I found offered the most flexibility to increase my data cap without having to take out a mortgage was Slingshot. It costs $40 for an extra 50GB Block, and overall I spend around $80 for max speed connection.
So I say if you don't like the amount that you are charged by your ISP, there are providers out there that deserve your business. Just maybe if enough people switched their service form telecom or Telstra clear, they will be forced into reviewing the way they do business and the prices the charge.
Posted by: David Rider | May 15, 2007 2:55 PM
God what a frightning story. Being seriously lazy and having an overal laid-back she'll be right attitude I have never cheaked my usage or discovered how I'd do it, (I'm sure I could if I had to). Instead I rely on the fact I,ve not exceeded my monthly allotment in the past. Why can I not tell Telstra that I don't want extra MB's and once my monthly qouta is exceeded I only want extra bandwidth if I specificaly ask for it?
Posted by: Adam | May 15, 2007 6:53 AM
Bryan, Telstra have their own fibre optic cable network in Wellington and Christchurch. Thus they don't use telecoms network, but they still charge $3 per GB, and in some cases double this.
Other ISPs provide 1 GB at $1 or less, and these are ADSL providers that use telecoms adsl network. Therefore it is Telstra that is being greedy, not telecom in this case.
The UK can provide cheaper broadband, because they have a far larger population, and they aren't an isolated country like NZ is, in the middle of the pacific ocean. There are also a lot of other conditions that make it impossible to compare NZ with the UK. Our entire countries population is the same as Londons and geography has a lot to do with it.
Posted by: Rob | May 14, 2007 10:45 PM
Seems as though IHUG are having the same problem at present. Coincidence ???
Posted by: Bryan Flanagan | May 14, 2007 5:19 PM
Referring to Dave Lane’s Post :-
43GB a month in NZ = $7580.00
40GB a month in UK = FREE
Thus :-
NZ Telecom = Greedy
Posted by: Brian | May 14, 2007 1:40 PM
IIRC I think someone got a $1,000,000 bill!
Posted by: Alex Burgess | May 13, 2007 9:37 AM
TelstraClear says it's just the usage meter that's stuffed and not the billing, so maybe not panic quite yet...?
Still pretty sad effort by TCL.
Posted by: Juha | May 12, 2007 10:35 AM
No wonder the net was so slow yesterday - Bloody Palmer was hogging all the bandwidth :)
Posted by: chris | May 11, 2007 8:03 AM
Sounds like you might be lucky if they've had a billing system screw up... A few years back I got a bill for $7580 from Telstra Clear for an overrun (43GB) that occurred while I was away over a weekend. Sadly, it wasn't a billing error...
A server I had on my home connection (providing DNS for my company) was also used sometimes as a desktop, and upon returning from the weekend I discovered that the browser I'd left running had choked early in the weekend and was busily requesting the same ad banner on a random web page I'd been visiting a few hundred times a minute (780 MB worth/hour for 48 hours).
Luckily, as it was a Linux machine (just the browser was dodgy - the machine - unfortunately as it turns out - itself held up famously!), I had full logs of all the traffic generated, and was able to demonstrate to Telstra Clear that it was an unintentional download.
After letting me sweat for 2 months during which I conducted delicate negotiations, they finally agreed to give me a break as it was my first "incident"... (afterall, they don't pay by the megabyte at all, they just pay to maintain the infrastructure, so the overrun wasn't really leaving them out of pocket). Apparently, there are many repeat offenders?!
Needless to say, subsequently I've been quite vigilant, and definitely recommend flat rate broadband plans and non-beta browsers... I've got the actual invoice on my wall at work as a reminder...
Dave
Posted by: Dave Lane | May 10, 2007 11:08 PM
i got a 9000 dolar bill so far
Posted by: Regan | May 10, 2007 6:08 PM