By Andrea Petrie
Telecommunications companies are understood to have been inundated with complaints by Apple iPhone customers keen to find out if a software glitch was behind their escalating mobile phone bills.
After a story last week suggesting telcos were financially benefiting from a glitch in Apple's iOS 6.0 software, Fairfax Media has been contacted by customers who believe the glitch was responsible for their excessive bills.
Leaking cash: A software bug may result in Apple customers being overcharged.Credit: Simon Bosch
One customer, Gary Robins, said his daughter had unwittingly clocked up recent bills with Vodafone totalling $1000, despite her mobile data habits remaining the same. When she questioned the increase, the telco agreed to drop 30 per cent off the excess charges. But she still had to pay $700.
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Details of the glitch are on Apple's website.Credit: Bloomberg
Mr Robins said Vodafone made no mention about a software bug being the potential cause of the problem.
''I believed she was actually using her account and the data, only to discover after seeing the story in your newspaper that she had most likely done nothing wrong at all,'' he said.
He said he has lodged a complaint with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman.
Another Apple customer, Matthew Dawson, reportedly got the shock of his life when he opened a recent bill for his iPhone 5. ''It was $9600,'' he told Channel Nine last week.
Illustration: Matt Golding.
Mr Dawson said that when he took his mobile phone on a week-long business trip last month, he made sure he switched off the data roaming.
''If I'm turning off all the data on my phone, I expect that to be it,'' he said.
It wasn't. When he looked into the the charges, he discovered he had become a victim of a bug in the iOS 6.0 software Apple released in September that was later discovered to be causing devices to switch to the 3G and 4G networks when users were supposedly connected to Wi-Fi.
This meant customers downloading or uploading large data files on their iPhones - believing they were connected to a wireless network - were then faced with unexpected and expensive excess data fees.
Only one of the major telcos has admitted to advising customers to fix the problem by updating the software on their phones to what Apple subsequently released. An Apple spokesman refused to acknowledge there was a problem, despite details of the glitch, and how to rectify it, being covered on the digital media giant's website.
Mr Dawson's telco has agreed to wipe the charges.
A spokesman for the ombudsman said they were unable to provide statistics in relation to complaints but if there had been a spike they would still be under investigation, and therefore they could not comment.
From September, telcos will be required to alert consumers when they reach 50 per cent, 85 per cent and 100 per cent of their data usage.