Fuck mobile operators, this kind of cost should be illegal to exist at all.
So in the UK every mobile operator has to offer a spend cap. I roam a lot (and pay £10 a month for free roaming to the US and EU) so I set a £10 cap. It took seconds and I will never get a surprise bill. This was beyond careless.
They should offer a use cap. I don’t give a fuck about getting what I pay for, I just have a problem when they refuse to implement a facile safeguard on top of the legislationwhere you can ask to be forcably cutoff or subtract it from next month’s “allotment”. Jesus
Because it’s a government device, and account, they may not have that ability. The government could set the cap, I’m sure, but then if you really do need the data and have to call IT….
Yeah. A smidge under 4 GB and it’s was a five figure cost? That is complete bullshit. We all know the actual costs are miniscule. It’s mad price gouging because most people don’t need to roam and thus they can can prey on it. It shouldn’t be possible to get anywhere close to that kinda bill without multiple explicit approvals where the costs are clearly communicated (I can’t tell if they were).
“He failed to properly disclose”, that’s one way of saying that he bareface lied.
Its OK though he’s going to pay some of it himself so that the tax payer only has to cough up £8k.
He should be forced to pay it all and sacked.
Why wasn’t there security on the device? My works devices are password protected and it’s a disciplinary offence if I share passwords or give unauthorized access.
If he gave them the login creds, then he should be penalised .
If he logged in and gave the device to non parliamentary staff, he should also be penalised.
He got caught because it cost money, which is the lesser offence. Cyber security should be more robust for ministers than it is for most companies, but seemingly not.
The amount of times I’ve told clients to change their SIM or not take their work phone abroad only to be ignored like usual, and get called on their return saying “what the hell!?” We notified them, but just like all MSPs (managed service providers) CEOs or important members will just ignore us or criticise our advice. Now he wants to blame his family who shouldn’t even have access as you mentioned. If it’s his mistake, he allowed it to happen with warning, and he gave this to a family member unsecured, surely he should be held entirely accountable?
Nope. Politicians breaking all the rules we would get sacked for in an instant at work, or even arrested.
Great standards for us lowly law abiding poor folk. An 11k phone bill would kill me; I guess my taxes will pay for his mistake then. I’m so confused how he doesn’t feel like he needs to pay that? I can’t figure out how in the fucking world what I’d need to say or do or think to avoid being responsible for that?
It’s surely simple for him to figure out. Goes to show how warped morals are being protected here.
“…nearly 3.8Gb of data was used on 2 January, at a cost of £8,666.”
shut the up fuck what? i would like to see the itemized bill. and the telecomm companies transparency reports.
they are sand bagging this guy hard, for a simple mistake that all parents fumble with, use of tech when rearing kids. should he have let them? probably not but to then Super Saiyan 3 spirit bomb his ass is a little extreme.
The real question is, why is that even possible?
Ever watched porn while roaming outside of your mobile plan. Shit adds up fast.
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Learn to use phones. SMH there are a billion ways and warnings to avoid this. Boomer incompetence.
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His regret speech was hilarious. He was genuinely crying.
Oh lord how am I going to get away with this 😭
I did this once on a work trip in the early 2000s where I turned on data roaming to download an important document in a meeting and then forgot to turn it off and it downloaded a system update or something. It was like $7000 or something.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Michael Matheson, Scotland’s embattled health secretary, has apologised “unreservedly” after admitting he failed to properly disclose that his sons had largely run up an £11,000 iPad bill which he had initially charged in full to taxpayers.
In a personal statement to MSPs on Thursday, Matheson said he had referred himself for possible investigation by parliament for breaching its code of conduct, as he fought against mounting calls to resign from opposition leaders.
During first minister’s questions on Thursday, Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, called on Matheson to quit, and came as close as parliamentary rules allowed to accuse the health secretary of lying to MSPs.
The scandal erupted last week after it emerged that he had racked up a £10,935 data bill on his parliamentary iPad during a week-long Christmas holiday in Morocco, and refused to explain why.
Matheson told MSPs he had learned from his wife the previous evening – the day the row first blew up – that his sons had used parliamentary data to watch football.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said the saga raised “serious questions” about their judgment, in part because Matheson’s attention had been diverted from tackling NHS Scotland’s numerous crises.
The original article contains 620 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Why are politicans allowed to publicly spend while privately holidaying? God I would love a fucking real holiday like that
It’s his business phone, not like he expensed his hotel or something.
would you prefer politicians have zero way to be contacted by the outside world for weeks at a time?
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