‘Minus BYN 3,000 Per Day’: Huge Sums For Mobile Internet Written Off Belarusians’ Accounts

The largest mobile operators in Belarus say that they are aware of the situation.

Subscribers: “I don’t have as much memory on my phone as the number of gigabytes that I downloaded!”

One after another, stories appear, as an impressive amount of money for Internet traffic is suddenly written off the balance of the phone. It seems to be due to the update of the phone systems. The worst thing is that the connection to the Internet is not via wi-fi, but via the mobile Internet. As a result, a large amount of traffic is eaten, and the bill comes impressive, writes kp.by.

- My mom is 70 years old, she does not surf the Internet, only uses Viber when relatives call once a week. She received a message about writing off 170 rubles for the Internet. With a pension of about 280 rubles! - says Yauhen Barouski. - My mother has a Lenovo brand phone. I turned to velcom | A1, I was told that this is a massive story, the phones themselves are updated. They said to wait, they will figure things out.

A similar story happened with the mother of Lidziya from Minsk. The total debt on her phone is almost 500 rubles! This amount was gained in 10 days. Usually it does not exceed 20 rubles per month.

- Mom has an HTC phone. At the end of May, she received a text message that for the Internet 146 rubles will be written off from the balance. We called velcom | A1, it turned out that the amount came from May 27 to May 31, and during the period from June 1 to June 5, another 350 rubles will be charged! According to the operator, my mother used the Internet for 1.5 - 2 hours every day in the evenings. However, outside the house, my mother does not surf the Internet, she has a kitchen garden, a greenhouse, and in the house there is wi-fi, says Lidziya. “Even assuming that Mom disconnected it and activated the Mobile Data service, the numbers are still big. How many gigabytes you need to download with such a sum in a bill? We left a statement, the operator promised to sort it out. In the meantime, we have disabled the data transfer function through a personal account.

This is not all the records. Valer from Hrodna had almost 3,000 rubles written off the phone balance.

- This is in one day! The day before I checked the balance, it was minus one ruble. The next day I practically did not use the phone, but the mobile Internet was turned on. The day after tomorrow I saw in the settings that 50 GB of traffic was downloaded in a day! - says Valer Yudzin. - I have a Huawei brand phone. There were no updates notifications, I don’t even have so much memory on my phone!

I looked at the balance - minus 2872 rubles. I was shocked. While I came to velcom | A1, the amount has already grown to 2936. I wrote a statement, they took the phone from me, they will figure it out. I have a traffic limit in my phone settings - according to my data plan. When the limit is exceeded, the data transfer function should be disabled, and it always has been. This time it did not shut down.

Similar stories happened with users of other operators.

- I have a Huawei phone, any auto updates are disabled. From June 8 to June 11, 20 GB of traffic flew away! I am an MTS subscriber, - a user shared the problem at the forum.

Operators: “Disable mobile data transfer function or put your smartphone in wi-fi mode”

The largest mobile operators in Belarus say that they are aware of the situation.

- Now we are analyzing the information received from our subscribers. For now, we recommend that subscribers check the settings of the data transfer and the relevance of the software version, and also use wi-fi if possible, explains the press-center of the MTS company. - Each case will be considered individually, and subscribers will receive feedback.

The velcom I A1 company also notes that recently there has been a sharp increase in the consumption of traffic among users.

“This is due to the updates to the operating system on smartphones of certain models of some manufacturers that have older versions of the Android OS,” the company’s press-center said. “Now, upon request velcom | A1, the specialists of the supplier companies find out the circumstances of the situation. Before finding out the reasons on the part of manufacturers, subscribers of velcom | A1, faced with the problem of a sharp jump in consumed traffic, are recommended to disable the mobile data transfer function or switch the smartphone to wi-fi mode.

There have been no similar situations with life :)

subscribers. Perhaps this is due to the payment system: with a negative balance with this operator, outgoing communication and mobile Internet are turned off, while with MTS and velcom | A1 many subscribers can use the communication and the Internet in debt, and pay upon the results of the month.

Both operators provide mobile Internet disconnection service. A citizen can do this by contacting the company's centers of operators with a passport, or using a USSD request: for velcom I A1 - 135 1 # call, for MTS - 111 401 # call.