Consumer Focus shows red-card to World Cup mobile phone fees

Consumer Focus is warning that thousands of England fans travelling to the 2010 FIFA World Cup could face huge mobile phone bills. Costs for calls, texts and data use could add up to over £100 on a match-day, more than the £55-£80 face value of a ticket.

Figures compiled by the consumer champion show that customers could face particularly big fees for uploading photos or videos to social networking sites during the contest. Costs to use mobile internet of £1.25 to £8 per MB could leave customers paying, for example, up to £80 just to upload ten photos to Facebook. Charges to make calls range from 80p up to £1.50 per minute and texts cost from 25p to 50p.

These costs are substantially higher than those for UK travellers in the EU, where costs are capped at 37p per minute for making calls, 9p for a text and £42.50 for data roaming. These caps have been imposed on firms to stop excessive roaming rates for consumers travelling in Europe, but consumers travelling outside the EU can still face huge fees.

The network offering the best World Cup call rates is Vodafone. By opting into its free ‘Passport' scheme before they leave the country UK customers pay a 75p connection fee to make or receive calls and then pay their normal UK rates. 3 UK offers the cheapest data roaming fees of £1.25 per MB and Vodafone Passport offers the best value texts at 11p each followed by Virgin Mobile at 25p per text for pay monthly customers.  T-Mobile's free ‘World Class' scheme offers calls to the UK for 55p per minute for customers roaming on the MTN network in South Africa.

The worst rates for making calls are offered by Virgin Mobile pre-pay at £1.70 per minute, T-mobile at £1.50 and Orange at £1.45 per minute. T-mobile is also the most expensive network to receive calls on at £1.50 per minute to receive a call from the UK. The highest data charges are from Orange and Tesco, with costs for customers on both networks of up to £80 to upload ten 1MB photos, closely followed by T-mobile with a similar figure of £75.

Nick Hutton, telecommunications expert for Consumer Focus, said: "England fans need to be on the ball to make sure they don't get caught out by hundreds of pounds of hidden mobile phone costs at the World Cup. We want to see mobile phone firms play fair by customers travelling abroad and cut these extremely high fees. In the meantime consumers should check their network rates before they fly and look into the add-ons or bundles on offer, which could save them much needed cash."

The watchdog is calling on mobile phone firms to cut their mobile-phone roaming costs and set prices at a similar level to those in the EU. Consumer Focus is also urging consumers to find out about charges, and look at bundles for data, calls and text costs, before they depart for South Africa to ensure they don't get hit with a huge bill on their return.

Consumer Focus's top five mobile phone tips for England fans:

Check your rates before you go, as these will be much higher in South Africa than in the UK and Europe, and ask what add-ons or bundles your mobile phone company offers on calls, texts and data as this could make you considerable savings

Remember that while abroad you won't be able to use your inclusive minutes, texts and data allowance (except inclusive minutes under Vodafone's passport service) and will pay to receive as well as to make calls which could add up

Photos and videos can be expensive to upload on mobiles while abroad so consider other options such as uploading using a computer at an internet cafe or hotel instead

You could consider getting a local SIM card for use in South Africa if you will be making calls to numbers within the country

If your phone is lost or stolen while abroad report it to your mobile provider as soon as possible as you will be liable for any calls made. Make a note of the emergency contact number for your network and keep this separate from your mobile.

Note - 3 UK also offers its mobile customers free Skype to Skype calls, so these customers could look into using this as an alternative way to contact friends or family, but will need to enable this facility on their phone.