BRUSSELS: Despite the introduction of EU-wide mobile roaming caps designed to protect UK holidaymakers, one in six Britons are forced to pay £100 or more after returning from holiday.
The extra charges to British mobile phone owners amounts to £573 million collectively, a survey has revealed.
The average Briton is slapped with an extra charge of £61 on-top of their normal bill – although this rises to £72 for 18 to 34-year-olds.
Holidaymakers who go to an EU country and opt-out of the roaming cap can quickly amass a roaming bill of more than £74 in just two weeks.
The survey was commissioned by online and telephone comparison and switching service, uSwitch.com.
A fifth of UK mobile users have been hit with roaming charges in the last year – in spite of caps on roaming charges imposed by the EU and implemented by UK networks, it revealed.
Of those who experienced the post-holiday bill shock, only half told uSwitch they remembered being notified about the additional charges by their mobile network.
And a staggering one in seven (some 14 per cent) of those who were stung with a larger-than-average bill said they were caught out because they had not switched-off their voicemails – some mobile networks charge customers if someone leaves them a message, even if they do not listen to it while abroad.
Ernest Doku, a telecoms expert for uSwitch, said: “What’s clear is that a real lack of awareness persists when it comes to using mobiles abroad.
