A young businesswoman from the West Midlands was left in a state of shock after returning from a work trip to America to find a mobile phone bill totalling a staggering £153,000.
A Staggering Sum From a Short Trip
Karenjeet Kaur Johal, a 27-year-old property company owner, travelled to San Francisco for business meetings between May 5 and May 18, 2025. Using her phone as normal for work calls, she had no idea of the financial catastrophe brewing. The first warning came when her provider, Currys Business, which manages her O2 account, emailed her a bill for £57,386 for May.
When she complained, she was told the issue was under investigation. However, her June bill then arrived, demanding a further £96,098. The combined charges of £153,484 were triggered by data usage on calls abroad, with a single call allegedly costing £37,000. Karenjeet stated she had requested a £100 data spending cap when setting up the contract, but Currys said there was no record of this in call transcripts.
The Fight to Stop the Payment
The crisis escalated when Karenjeet received an alert from her bank, Monzo, stating the full £150,000-plus sum was scheduled to leave her account. She immediately blocked the payments. Despite visiting O2's offices in London and repeatedly emailing, she was initially told she would have to pay the colossal fees.
"I was just so shocked," Karenjeet said. "My bill has never gone above £68 and I travel abroad every month. I received no warning, no alerts, and no spending notifications during my time in the US." She described the situation as "completely unacceptable", arguing it showed a failure to protect customers from catastrophic errors.
Goodwill Gesture Fails to Fix Lasting Damage
Following intervention by the SWNS news agency, O2 agreed to waive all the disputed charges "as a gesture of goodwill". A spokesperson for the network stated that when Ms Kaur signed her contract, she had "actively opted out of spending and roaming caps" which would have prevented the charges.
However, for Karenjeet, the ordeal is far from over. The attempted payment caused a default on her company, Hush Hush Ltd, severely impacting its credit rating. She claims this has cost her firm over £200,000 in lost revenue from cancelled contracts. "That decision does not begin to address the damage caused by their failure," she asserted, remaining deeply unhappy with the outcome.
She also questions the billing logic, pointing out that the details listed around 50 calls made in a single minute, which she says is simply impossible. The business owner of five years believes it must have been a profound billing error that has had devastating real-world consequences for her enterprise.
