Company phone - do i have to pay £3k back to my company?

[seaniie]

Hi,

I Have a company mobile phone that i used for "Internet Tethering" at home as i was required to do an on-call shift a few nights a week which required me to look at e-mails and connect to resources at work.

My employer didn't include a data allowance with this so i have used approximately 1.3GB in one month and this is costing them in the Regon of £3,000? My company doesnt have a mobile phone policy and i was not made aware of any allowances on the contract sim.

Occasionally i used the internet for personal use e.g facebook etc but a majority of the time it was used for work e-mails and to work.

If i am right, it's their fault for providing me with a contract that includes no data allowance, which they expected me to use to check my e-mails and work from home which uses data.

Where do i stand in this situation? Do i have to pay back £6,000 worth of data allowances as I didn't legally agree to any terms regarding this mobile phone contract?

[lcg]

lord knows....but the price seems to be a bit steep! you may well have to pay for the data you used for facebook etc...and if that has led you to go over the data limit and cost them money, then you probably will have to pay. if you are being chased for that amount of money, you should go to a solicitor pdq. have you got legal cover through your household insurance or a union (if you are a member)? if not, go to a brief that offers a free consultation to get advice. make sure you go with all the relevant documentation to ensure you are representing yourself and the claim properly. good luck.....i suspect you will need it.

[boxtops]

It will depend on the terms and conditions of your phone use - when I got my work smartphone, I had to sign an agreement saying it was for work use only (and I'm on-line a lot of the time, checking and dealing with work emails). It's hard on you if they impose conditions on you retrospectively, particularly if your browsing history will prove that you were looking at work emails during all this downloading.

[Twenty20]

1.3GB for 'e-mails and connect to resources at work'? That's an enormous amount of data.

Must have been extremely large 'resource' files you were looking at!

I think any responsible employer would be asking for an explanation and looking for you to repay this if a reasonable explanation wasn't forthcoming.

[tonywiltshire]

If there is no express conditions concerning you reimbursing your employer you are within the terms of your contract of employment not to make the payment, it is probably too important to be taken as an implied condition. The ERA 1996 protects you from having a deduction made from your wages provided you have not agreed in writing to the deduction and it is not an over-payment of work related expense.
But in the position you describe surely you should be talking to your employer and establishing what they expect of you and how you should be using the equipment provided, most work related difficulties can be improved by negotiation.

[factor-fiction]

It seems very odd to me that the bulk of the bill could be for genuine business use.
It also seems odd that there is no policy on personal use as this is a problem any employer should foresee. You will probably find you have agreed to the condition- maybe it was in the Conditions of Employment handbook.
If you are sure of your ground then resist payment