UK consumers waste £5 billion on wrong mobile phone tariff

ANALYSIS ENGINE Billmonitor has revealed that UK consumers are wasting a total of nearly £5 billion on mobile phone bills by signing up for the wrong contracts.

The survey scientifically analysed 28,417 customers' mobile bills in the UK and found that a whopping 76 per cent of mobile subscribers are on a contract that is unsuitable for their monthly usage. On average consumers in the UK are spending £194.71 more than necessary on their mobile phones per year.

It seems that we can't find the right contract, instead getting one with a tariff that's either too large, too small or not the right length.

Fully 52 per cent of us are apparently on a tariff with too much allowance, wasting £2.62 billion on calls and texts that don't get used.

And 29 per cent of us have a tariff that doesn't give enough allowance, wasting £1.53 billion, and the remaining 19 per cent of us have the right level of allowance but have an unsuitable contract length, wasting £0.74 billion.

Even the founder and director of Billmonitor was surprised by the findings, saying, "We knew when we started Billmonitor that considerable savings could be generated by being on the right mobile phone contract but even we were surprised by just how many UK subscribers are on the wrong contract."

According to Billmonitor, the cause of all this overspending is that consumers are unaware of their usage, so they don't know what the right contract is for them, combined with the overwhelming choice of different tariffs available in the UK.

Breaching the tariff allowance apparently accounts for £3.47 billion wasted each year, with the top five per cent of users, who we assume don't have to pay their bills themselves, making up over half of this figure. µ