Almost a third of the country (16.5 million mobile phone users) has at some stage received a higher phone bill than expected. A couple of these ‘surprise charges’ include customers calling premium numbers (29 per cent) and exceeding data allowance (25 per cent). The average ‘surprise charge’ costs customers £18.70, which equates to an additional £224.40 a year.

The survey also found one in six mobile users say they haven’t checked their bill in the last six months with nearly half (47 per cent) stating they assume everything is in order, while 1.3 million Brits admit they ‘could not be bothered’ to.

A further 3.5 million Brits don’t pay for their own contract and may not be aware of any extra or incorrect charges that they could be incurring.

uSwitch mobiles expert Ru Bhikha said: “This research shows the alarmingly high number of billing errors reported by mobile phone users, as well as an incredible 16.5 million Brits saying they have generated unexpected charges.” Mile billing errors