Telecom admits over-charging

Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

A Telecom customer who complained after being overcharged by nearly $700 has prompted the company to admit more than 500 customers may have been billed too much.

Dong Choi, who is on Telecom's mobile share plan, has been reimbursed for the $689.99 he was overcharged, but only because he complained, he said.

But Telecom spokeswoman Emma-Kate Greer said yesterday it's "certainly not correct to say that customers need to complain to make this happen".

Greer said Telecom was aware there was an issue with the share plan, which had affected a "small number of customers".

Of about 500 affected, some had also subscribed to add-ons such as My Favourites and Freedom, and not all had been overcharged, she said.

"We are in the process of identifying these customers and ensuring the correct refund is applied to each customer. As soon as we have established this, we will contact customers directly and will apply the credit proactively without their needing to contact us.

"We are also working to fix this issue to ensure it does not occur in the future."

Choi said he knew he had been overcharged the minute he opened his monthly statements.

He created a spread sheet of each call based on its duration and then worked out the amount owing at 33c a minute for a call off the plan.

"If it happened to me, it will have happened to others," he said. "They have millions of customers."

He said he was shocked that he had been overcharged by such a large amount. Share plan customers pay a monthly fee, plus $15.28 for the extra mobile they want to share the plan with.