Man fined £11,000 for downloading Friends

The wife of a city executive cost her husband £11,000 after she downloaded four episodes of the sitcom Friends through his mobile phone while abroad.

The woman used the broadband package on his Vodafone mobile phone to order the programmes, which would have been free had the download taken place in Britain.

However, her husband flew to Germany on business while the download was still in progress and it resumed after he touched down, incurring the massive fees.

advertisementThe pair, who have not been named, discovered the unwelcome bill after the executive arrived back in the UK and Vodafone called his firm to alert him.

Ed Richards, the chief executive of industry regulator Ofcom, said it would investigate the huge fee.

He said: "We will be looking to take action."

The news came as European Commission officials prepare to take action against mobile phone providers who make "unjustified" charges.

Viviane Reding, the European Union commissioner for information, society and media, has given phone companies until July 1 to cut their fees for downloading data and texting while abroad.

She said: "Sending a text message or downloading data in another country should not be substantially more expensive than at home.

"Higher retail charges abroad must be justified or they will have to disappear."

This is not the first time Vodafone downloads abroad have cost the unsuspecting user thousands of pounds. Company director Ray Elmitt, 63, got a bill for £1,150 after using his phone's broadband internet connection in Spain to connect to his company's website for an hour.

Mr Elmitt, of Hampton Wick, in Surrey, said: "It really annoyed me because I think most people would treat mobile broadband as they would their home or work-based broadband and not worry about download limits."

The debate on the cost of data transfer on mobile phones abroad has become more heated as new technology makes internet access faster and more reliable.

A spokesman for Vodafone said the firm informed customers of the charges and alerted people who exceeded their quota in Britain. However, he acknowledged it took longer to alert customers overseas.

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