HK$10,100 phone bill while travelling? Hong Kong consumer watchdog warns users against roaming charges, compensation terms for mishandled baggage

Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog on Thursday urged travellers to be extra vigilant amid increasing complaints over roaming services and inconsistent compensation amounts for mishandled baggage across airlines.

The Consumer Council said it received 1,213 complaints against telecom services between January and August, a jump of 70 per cent from 711 in the same period last year, and nearly equalling the 1,246 reports logged for the whole of 2021.

“With the vast variety of services available on the market, if telecom service providers offer an overly simple explanation during the sales process, discrepancies with consumers’ understanding of certain details may give rise to disputes,” vice-chairman of the council’s research and testing committee Victor Lui Wing-cheong said.

“Don’t purchase hastily and don’t assume it’s very straightforward,” said council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han, adding that objections to changes related to account settings or services should be voiced promptly and directly with telecom providers.

One complainant reported a whopping bill of about HK$10,100 (US$1,290) for roaming calls on her Hong Kong mobile number in Canada, between January and February. For those two months, she was charged three times over the next three months – at HK$170, HK$4,900 and HK$5,050.

The complainant said the two- to three-month delay in invoicing, with both her April and May bills detailing calculations only to the end of February, could mislead users into continuing with the roaming service.

The telecom provider involved in the case had explained that the delay was due to dilatory data roaming usage from local service providers in Canada.

At the intervention of the council, the telecom provider offered a 20 per cent discount on the total bill in question, and deactivated call and roaming services at the complainant’s request.