86 year olds monthly data usage shot up from average of between 10 to 20gb per month to 90gb a month

[nemu]

Can any one help explain why my 86 year old fathers monthly broadband  allowance has been blown to smitherines 

i only noticed when he mention he had a high bill this month due to excessive charges of £63 due to exceeding Augusts 25gb allowance

turns out August usage was 90gb and worse is that Sept’s usage was 88gb so he will have another stageringly high bill next month

now to be fair to BT there were emails warning he was approaching and exceeding his monthly allowance but he didnt understand the significance and ignored them

nor unfortunately did he understand the email offer to increase to unlimited for a £5 extra a month

so he now has approx £120 extra charges over 2 months  

We changed it now to unlimited usage which  will be activated by 23 Oct but what the hell has caused his usage to rocket ?..?

No videos 

no music

no gaming

no catchup tv 

no netflix

just email web surfing facebook and webchat 

wifi is secure as far as we can tell   And only the family have the password

[nemu]

[nemu]

Strangly he was charged £63 extra changes for exceeding August broadband allowance and has just paid that bill and the current charges for Sept is also £63 which he will have to pay next month

That is just too much of a coincidence having both months excessive charges the same when his normal usage is shown in the table above and was always within his allowance

[_dreamer_]

Do they have Windows 10? Microsoft have been releasing very large updates recently.

[nemu]

Yes he has a win10 PC  and it should have had the latest updates applied but 90 gb a month for 2 months   I can’t see that its due to a microsoft download 

most of he time  on line these days is via an ipad 

[Keith_Beddoe]

When Windows 10 is installed, Microsoft will use your download and upload bandwidth, to distribute
Windows updates to other users. This will rapidly use up any allowance.

See https://www.howtogeek.com/224981/how-to-stop-windows-10-from-uploading-updates-to-other-pcs-over-the...

[nemu]

Ok 

 thanks for this information i will check this out

though from the usage profile it was all download not upload so perhaps not relevant in this case 

[nemu]

On thw win10 PC the settings are ok

Though the link mentions clicking on “Delivery Optimisation” on this pc its “Choose how updates are delivered”

And its set to PC’s on my local network

[Frustrated111]

Currently wrangling with BT over massive increases in my elderly mum’s data usage. After a lot of complaining, they ran a report that shows what websites and apps have used this data. I’d suggest that you request they do this. Although they wouldn’t share the report with us, they read out information on daily data usage and websites. So have been able to establish data is being used on things that she has never used, and subscription only services for which she doesn’t have an account. The report also highlights other devices that are or have been connected to the network so you can check there is no unauthorised access. In her case, no other devices so this points to a technical glitch that is allocating someone else’s data usage to my mum’s account. Still under investigation, and has taken around a week and over 5 hours of calls to BT to get this far. Good luck

[nemu]

Hi Frustrated111 

Thanks for your comments - your elderly mums experience sounds similar to my fathers 

I was expecting two calls back from BT last week

the first from an overseas callcentre  after my enquiries via the CHAT service   and the second from UK staff after my call to BT

they both told me they would run a report and gather the information regarding the disputed usage and call me back in a couple of days to discuss it

neither called me back  !

how are you getting on with your enquiries ?