A few minutes on YouTube for 50 francs: a customer chokes

The Swiss know it well: when it comes to making calls or surfing the internet abroad without a specific subscription, unpleasant surprises are never far away . Roaming prices can be very expensive. A Swiss man recently had a bitter experience in Germany, reports "20 Minuten." Although he had a contract with TalkTalk that included a mobile data base abroad, after a few days, he received a message from his operator.

He was informed that he had used his basic plan and would now be billed at the "standard rate." The word standard reassured this reader, who continued to use his phone normally. But he couldn't do so for long. While watching a YouTube video, his internet access was blocked after just a few minutes. A new message from the operator: the usage limit worth 50 francs has been reached.

Our witness did a quick calculation. The amount billed allowed him to use approximately 250 MB of data. "It's absolutely not fair, it's 40 times the original price," he gasped. To continue surfing, he had to pay another 25 francs to purchase a 5 GB data package. TalkTalk responded that it had done everything by the book, a point confirmed by Oliver Zadori of the phone comparison site dschungelkompass.ch.

The latter even suggests that the traveler was lucky, as the default limits set by operators can be higher than 50 francs. The bill could therefore have been much higher. A German-speaking consumer protection association says it has already dealt with cases concerning TalkTalk's tariffs, but recommends that customers without a suitable subscription abroad purchase data packages to avoid unpleasant surprises.