TikTok obsession leads to ruin: Family dragged into debt

Andrew Alty, the owner of a curtain company operating in Manchester, faced an unexpected situation during a family trip to Morocco that brought his company to the brink of bankruptcy. During the vacation, Alty's daughter spent a total of 8 hours on the social media app TikTok; however, the fact that the data usage limit for outside of Europe was not enabled resulted in a disaster.

While on vacation, Alty initially thought he was the victim of a cyberattack when he began receiving a series of high-amount bill notifications on his phone. However, a detailed investigation revealed that the cause of the bills was his daughter's high-cost internet connection while abroad. The data charges, which cost several thousand liras per minute, reached a total of 42 thousand pounds. This corresponds to approximately 1.8 million liras at the current exchange rate.

The small-scale family business, which continues its operations with only five employees, faced the danger of closing down due to this debt. Following the incident, company owner Andrew Alty stated that there were insufficient warnings regarding data overage and billing, and he took legal action against the network provider O2 and the intermediary company Currys. He also took the matter to the UK's financial regulatory authorities.

DEBT COMPLETELY ERASED

After long negotiation and appeal processes, the expected positive response came from the two companies. Taking into account the extraordinary nature of the situation and technical glitches, O2 and Currys canceled the entire 42 thousand pound debt. Andrew Alty stated that his company was saved from bankruptcy at the last minute and expressed that other business owners should learn a lesson from what happened.

This incident once again highlighted the importance of taking precautions and implementing necessary limits when using data abroad.

News Source: 12punto