$566K “Shock” Data Bill

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › $566K “Shock” Data Bill

Goosey

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#319299 11-Apr-2025 13:39

And lessgo with your thoughts on this one…

https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-christchurch/shock-566k-data-bill-two-months

does it sound like the decision maker didn’t take into account software updates?

to be honest, I’ve always thought their terminals are slightly clunky to use…they don’t look, feel, work as solid as say the council owned ones.

wellygary

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#3362916 11-Apr-2025 13:56

"After complaining to the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution two weeks ago, One NZ contacted Howe to confirm the bills would be cancelled."

So its really a bit of a beat up headline,

But it sounds like something is screwy with their parking meter data use.... and they have limited internal IT support?

networkn

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#3362965 11-Apr-2025 14:09

I'd still maintain that any business allowing a customers account to get that far into the Red without someone/something red flagging it, is pretty irresponsible.

Obviously, it depends on usual spend, but if the usual spend is averaging at 50K and suddenly they are at twice that, someone should be red flagged.

Shit happens on all parties sides, there is almost certainly no intent on all parts and the best person to deal with that is the supplier, esp since it's almost certainly them out of pocket if the customer can't or won't pay. It's easiest for them to monitor and alert.

It's frustrating that I have been seeing these types of issues from ISP's my entire IT career and there are STILL no checks and balances.

It's hard not to suspect that many people who get bill shock just pay it, so it's overall, a profitable thing, to leave this the way it is.

MaxineN

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#3362967 11-Apr-2025 14:25

networkn:

I'd still maintain that any business allowing a customers account to get that far into the Red without someone/something red flagging it, is pretty irresponsible.

Obviously, it depends on usual spend, but if the usual spend is averaging at 50K and suddenly they are at twice that, someone should be red flagged.

Shit happens on all parties sides, there is almost certainly no intent on all parts and the best person to deal with that is the supplier, esp since it's almost certainly them out of pocket if the customer can't or won't pay. It's easiest for them to monitor and alert.

It's frustrating that I have been seeing these types of issues from ISP's my entire IT career and there are STILL no checks and balances.

It's hard not to suspect that many people who get bill shock just pay it, so it's overall, a profitable thing, to leave this the way it is.

There's 3 bits that are giving me red flags.

These plans would have been discussed and signed upon. At this ARR there should be a account manager looking after this customer. Discussions like these should also think about the "what ifs" to protect against this very scenario.
The fact that this is NOT the first time and is apparently the third. Why is nobody reviewing this? @jasonparis this is actually inexcusable. As both an ex customer and an ex staffer, why did this happen again and again?
Data usage alerts were not set up during the onboarding process for the new plan due to an error. I think this should be a default turn on during the onboarding process.

Once again, I'm saying the bit that I've always said.
This shouldn't be hard.

There is so little accountability...

Here's what I would have done differently.

Setup those alerts.
Look at the data usage and actually see if there's a cheaper and better plan in place.
Provide a full export and break down of all of the usage with all of the assets.
Provide suggestions on how to clamp it down.
See if a hard cap can be set so we don't immediately end up with half a mill of a bill.

I often defend the company I used to work for and I still help out as much as I can... but this is just too much.

wellygary:

"After complaining to the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution two weeks ago, One NZ contacted Howe to confirm the bills would be cancelled."

So its really a bit of a beat up headline,

But it sounds like something is screwy with their parking meter data use.... and they have limited internal IT support?

Something is a miss however providing a full export of all assets and as well as looking at the data usage would have shown something. We should be working with the customer and giving them the facts. Not a mega bill like that.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

nova

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#3362983 11-Apr-2025 15:47

From the article, it looks like it would have been smart to be a bit more proactive when the first bill shock happened in April last year. Excerpts from the article:

Howe changed his data plans with internet provider One New Zealand about a year ago from unlimited to limited in an attempt to save costs on his company’s devices.

The issue started in April last year when Howe was surprised to receive an about $9000 monthly bill when he expected to be paying less than his previous plans.

Bills under the previous unlimited plans were about $900 a month.

The $9000 bill was addressed with One NZ and withdrawn.

Howe received bills of about $900 a month between May and December.

He thought the issue was resolved – until he received the big bills in January and February.

It's unclear how many devices the company had, but if it was $900/month on unlimited then presumably there were not that many devices.

I think telco's should put a dollar cap for on-network data usage and then they wouldn't have to waive fees every time something like this get's published. The cap could be higher than the unlimited plan, but if it was say $100/month then someone who made a mistake would just pay up rather than running to the media and making you look bad. The actual cost to provide the service in this case is the same regardless of what plan the customer is on.

boosacnoodle

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#3362991 11-Apr-2025 15:54

Just how much data was consumed? Regardless, what business gives a 10x credit limit increase - without being asked?

yitz

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#3362998 11-Apr-2025 16:14

Sounds like he needs 2degrees flex

Kinda wondered why a telco would be running adverts about their billing system but I can see why now lol

Gordy7

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#3363006 11-Apr-2025 16:55

To me the business made a bad decision to switch from unlimited to limited plan just to save money.

Gordy

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CamH

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#3363155 12-Apr-2025 12:47

I mean, it's a bit of a beat up really.

If a customer has unlimited plans, and then moves to limited plans, their devices download TB's of data, is it really the Telco's fault? I mean, yes, data warnings would have been nice, but I'd never consider relying on the telco to send me reliable notifications.

It sounds like the devices are misconfigured, and while - yes, someone at One NZ should be looking into an issue before it racks up $566,000 worth of usage - it does come down to the fact that the customer's devices are misconfigured, not the telco.

RunningMan

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#3363156 12-Apr-2025 12:56

He is not certain why so much data was used but it appeared to be due to software updates to the company’s operating system, which were downloading in terabytes instead of a lower byte count.

What on earth does that mean? The units of data usage are misconfigured somewhere? OneNZ aren't accounting for data correctly? Something downloaded more than expected?

That conclusion is pretty ambiguous as to what the specific issue was and where it lay.

MaxineN

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#3363157 12-Apr-2025 13:08

RunningMan:

He is not certain why so much data was used but it appeared to be due to software updates to the company’s operating system, which were downloading in terabytes instead of a lower byte count.

What on earth does that mean? The units of data usage are misconfigured somewhere? OneNZ aren't accounting for data correctly? Something downloaded more than expected?

That conclusion is pretty ambiguous as to what the specific issue was and where it lay.

That's where the provider should be working to ensure the usage is valid and also ensuring they can provide the customer the raw data (which can be done) to find how that is even possible.

A LTE IoT device operating on a single band...... yeah it could probably do a terabyte over a month, but that's going to show up on an opti's radar as the cell sites are getting constantly smashed.

It also could be a massive billing error, this can happen, no system is perfect. But let's not lose focus on the fact that this happened over several months.

There's a lot of eyebrow raising and yes it is true... whatever software those parking meters using could be faulty too... but again. These are all questions a carrier can answer and at least point the customer in the right direction.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

richms

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#3363160 12-Apr-2025 13:37

CamH:

I mean, it's a bit of a beat up really.

If a customer has unlimited plans, and then moves to limited plans, their devices download TB's of data, is it really the Telco's fault? I mean, yes, data warnings would have been nice, but I'd never consider relying on the telco to send me reliable notifications.

It sounds like the devices are misconfigured, and while - yes, someone at One NZ should be looking into an issue before it racks up $566,000 worth of usage - it does come down to the fact that the customer's devices are misconfigured, not the telco.

There should be a credit limit. It should not be able to get the this point. If everything stopped working they would have it resolved right away.

Richard rich.ms

ANglEAUT

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#3363394 12-Apr-2025 21:21

RunningMan:

He is not certain why so much data was used but it appeared to be due to software updates to the company’s operating system, which were downloading in terabytes instead of a lower byte count.

What on earth does that mean? The units of data usage are misconfigured somewhere? OneNZ aren't accounting for data correctly? Something downloaded more than expected?

That conclusion is pretty ambiguous as to what the specific issue was and where it lay.

While I haven't seen terabytes of OS updates downloaded myself, I can tell you this

I've seen failed OS updates for Android. Each update is 1-2GB. The devices starts the download, it glitches or fails to install correctly and starts the OS upload again. Repeatedly.
Do this multiple times a day on a decent cell connection
Do this across 50 000+ parking meters across the city

Easy enough to get to TB of data. Even at a failure rate of 0.01%, thats still 500 parking meters downloading multiple OS updates over a month. It all adds up pretty quickly

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Behodar

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#3363414 12-Apr-2025 21:54

ANglEAUT:

Do this across 50 000+ parking meters across the city
Easy enough to get to TB of data. Even at a failure rate of 0.01%, thats still 500 parking meters

0.01% of 50 000 isn't 500, it's 5. Although on the other hand, if all of the meters are configured identically then I'd expect that if any are going to fail then a lot of them are, so 0.01% is probably a very low number.

Goosey

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#3363491 13-Apr-2025 08:35

Looking at their website, they would have no more than 15-18 physical payment terminals and that’s being really liberal.

Bung

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#3363494 13-Apr-2025 09:02

They also manage overstaying on other sites so there'd be cameras involved.

I once ran up a modest excess charge when i accidentally left the bach tv hotspotting to my phone. Even though not apparently on the tv was attempting to download a firmware update and i kept going out of range. But Terabytes beggars belief.