Sky-high cost by using Wechat abroad

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Sky-high cost by using Wechat abroad

(Chinanews.com) 08:43, August 22, 2013

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A Weibo microblog post showing the sky-high prices charged by mobile phone operators for the use of social networking service WeChat outside China, has attracted widespread discussion online, Beijing Youth Daily report. [Photo: YNET.com]

A Weibo microblog post showing the sky-high prices charged by mobile phone operators for the use of social networking service WeChat outside China, has attracted widespread discussion online, Beijing Youth Daily report.

The post says that a lady surnamed Yang in Chongqing, China's southwestern municipality, had to pay 2,095 yuan in network bills to her mobile phone service provider during her 6-day trip in Thailand. This amount is significantly higher than her travel costs, which only totaled 1,980 yuan.

According to Yang, she only used the WeChat application twice to share 10 photos during her travels.

Local operators in Chongqing confirmed the bill total, saying that mobile network costs abroad are charged separately from the domestic package, and prices are at least 10 times higher in foreign countries than in China.

Actually, it is not the first time China's mobile users have received such sky-high bills for using their phones abroad.

On Tuesday, a Netizen said he was charged over 2,000 yuan for publishing several Weibo posts in India, and his operator sent him a SMS warning him about the high network costs during his travel.

Insiders at China Mobile and China Unicom told a Beijing Youth Daily reporter that some operators will not inform their customers by SMS about their high prices in foreign countries or in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, leaving many customers surprised to find such high bills after their trip.

They suggest that smartphone users use WiFi and monitor their network flow during their trip, especially when traveling in a foreign country.

An expert from China Mobile also recommended users to temporarily disable multimedia message capacities and mobile e-newspaper applications besides Weibo and Wechat when abroad.

（Editor：WangXin、Chen Lidan）