Telecommunications Parol

I'm presently on T-Mobile's version of what one might refer to as telecommunications "parole" and working on a story for the Hampstead Village Voice which will expose a system so complicated and inconsistent that even T-Mobile's own staff can't make head nor tail of it.

Their billing system is a quagmire of terms and conditions, Boosters and inconsistencies so unfairly weighted against the unwitting consumer that it would require hours of study to avoid being financially disadvantaged by it. That's a polite way of saying they are ripping us off! In short, T-Mobile and other allegedly reputable telecom companies plying their trade on the High Street - whilst hiding behind their lightly printed terms and conditions - are taking us all for a hideously misleading and expensive ride.

If you think you're still paying per second for your calls, think again. For a 10 second call you'll be charged for 1 minute. Sound tedious? it is! But that's how the phone companies in Hampstead High Street are fleecing Hampsteadites for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

It gets worse... Think you have 600 free minutes? You don't, because all those quick 15 second calls you make count as an entire minute of those allegedly 'free minutes.' It was a very tedious and boring thing to have to do and I ended up with a headache, but I did the blasted sums and discovered that what T-Mobile counts as 150 minutes of calls can actually add up to only 100 minutes or even less. So 600 supposedly free T-Mobile minutes can, in reality, be only 400 minutes - or even less depending on how many of your calls were only a few seconds long.

And it gets worse... But you'll have to read edition 14 of the Hampstead Village Voice on the shelves of Waterstones and all good Hampstead newsagents from September 15th 2011.

Tediously yours,

Emmanuel Mustafa Goldstein

Editor on T-Mobile parol

PS. If I end up floating at the bottom of the Whitestone Pond you know who it was...

* After the first minute, terms and conditions apply, a second equals one minute and we have you by the short and curlies for two years you suckers!