How did Vodafone slash a £31,000 bill to £229?

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

You may remember our story from earlier this week, when a customer of Vodafone-owned Yes Telecom got home from holiday to find a £31,000 phone bill on the mat, all because he’d downloaded an episode of Prison Break and a couple of songs whilst laying on the beach in Portugal.

Vodafone might have thought it was a nice piece of face-saving PR to cut the poor chap’s bill down to £229, but as PC Pro forum member Amnesia10 rightly commented on the article, “From £31,000 to £229!!!!  How could it afford to write this off?  If it were a genuine cost it would not write it off so easily.”

Quite. So we asked Vodafone how it managed to wipe more than 99% off the bill? A company spokesperson assured us that Vodafone did take a financial hit on the write-off. How much? She wouldn’t say.

Anyone want to bet it’s £229?

Update: Vodafone says the bill was actually from last September and new measures put in place since then would have prevented our intrepid Prison Break fan from running up such a colossal bill.