Man nearly fainted after using his phone for just 16 minutes and receiving bill over $200,000

We all know that roaming data can be very pricey.

When on your travels, it's best to either arrange a special roaming plan with your service provider or stick to Wi-Fi to avoid hefty fees.

Back in 2022, one man learned his lesson after he "almost fainted" finding out how much he spent on roaming costs.

BT informed John Nisill, from Skelmersdale in Lancashire, that he'd used 43GB of data causing him to rack up a bill of £192,000 ($238,872) while on his family break to Marmaris, Turkey.

During his four-day family holiday in October, the 40-year-old claims he sent no more than a few emails and spent just 16 minutes making phone calls.

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But the exorbitant charges came as a surprise when his employer told Nisill to switch off his phone because the "bill seems a little high" - which was an understatement.

“I said ‘What is it?’ He said £100,000. Next day he phoned back and said, ‘Definitely switch it off, it’s now £192,000’," the car salesman reflected.

Paul Trotter of AAA Performance in Rainford, Merseyside, aka Nisill's boss, said he "nearly fell off my chair" when BT shared the bill.

"It’s obviously a computer error," Trotter stated.

"I’ve had a look at the bill and it shoots up £80 every 30 seconds or so. That’s just not possible.

“Even if John was downloading Hollywood blockbusters there’s no way he’d have gone that much over.”

Luckily for Nisill, BT decided to forgive the excessive charges on this occasion.

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“We understand this is a very significant bill to receive, so, on this occasion, we are waiving the surplus roaming charges," a spokesperson for BT said.

“In this case, the customer was on a BT Business mobile plan which included a monthly data allowance of 250MB. When travelling in Turkey he far exceeded his agreed limit by consuming 46GB of data.

"We alerted him several times that he had exceeded his data allowances, that standard roaming charges were in place and that he was incurring high usage.

According to the broadband provider, their records show that the "customer chose not to include a data cap as part of his plan" which explains why he went over the limit so easily.

“We always recommend customers opt for a roaming cap, as the vast majority of our business customers do. We also urge customers to pay attention to any notifications we send them around their data allowance.”