Nearly half of monthly mobile contract customers pay more than their tariff every month

Research has found that nearly half of pay monthly mobile customers paid more on top of their contract fee every month.

Independent price switching and comparison service uSwitch.com found 48% of people with a monthly mobile contract paid more every month.

This was based on 38.4% of respondents saying they sometimes paid more, 4.9% saying they often paid more, 2.9% saying they nearly always paid more and 1.5% saying they always paid more.

£1 billion a year in overspend

Customers overspent on their contracts by more than £1 billion a year, the survey found, with those who paid extra spending nearly £100 a year more on average, and 9% overspending by more than £25 every month.

This was based on some prolonged maths – 8.2% of overspenders said they spent £10 to £15 more, typically, per month, 5.6% said £15 to £20, 4.3% said £20 to £25, 3.6% said £25 to £30, 5.4% said more than £30.

This meant 9% more than £25 and 27.1% more than £10, with an average amount of £8.32 or £99.85 a year.   Going from Ofcom’s estimate that 92% of UK adults had a mobile phone and 49% were contract phones, and that 48% of mobile users overspend by an average of £99.84, and ONS figures that there were 49 million UK adults, the overspend was calculated to be 1.058 billion, uSwitch.com said (for your mathematical pleasure, the equation would be (99.84 x (0.49 x (0.48 x (49,000,000 x 0.92))))

Premium rates and data roaming culprits

One in four pay monthly mobile customers or 26% made premium rate calls on their mobiles and 21% were charged for roaming abroad.

All those X Factor votes came home to roost with competition voting lines and texts affecting 12% of customers, while a further 11.5% just didn’t know where their money went (I can sympathise).

Get an education

Fourteen percent of users didn’t handle their bills themselves – when asked who paid the household bills, 86% said they took care of their own bills, leaving 14% who, well, didn’t.

Respondents who always checked an itemised bill came in at 42.4% but 11.2% said they received an itemised bill but rarely checked it, 3% never checked it and 18.3% said they did not receive an itemised bill.

Of the respondents who didn’t pay their own bills, 12% said they had never asked whoever organised the bill to see if they could save money by switching and 11% said they never thought to check what they were paying.

uSwitch.com telecoms spokesman Ernest Doku said while it was all well and good to have a mobile bundle of minutes, texts and data, things like calling premium rate numbers and roaming costs could render them useless.

“The problem isn’t necessarily a cavalier or complacent attitude to these charges, but the fact that people just aren’t aware of how much they are going to cost. Simply being aware of out-of-tariff charges can save pounds each month and itemised bills are a great way of monitoring usage, and keeping tabs on whether the deal you have is right for you.

“If someone else looks after the bills, lucky you – few enjoy extra paperwork. But if you are paying then it’s in your interest to see if you could get a cheaper deal by moving elsewhere.”

Methodology

Research was carried out online with the uSwitch.com Consumer Opinion Panel amongst 2,101 respondents in January 2013, the company said.