Are you on the right tariff?

A fairly disturbing report suggests that Britons are wasting £8.45bn per year through being on the wrong mobile tariffs.

From the release:

The study by price comparison website moneysupermarket.com reveals a typical user enjoys 166 free voice minutes and 133 texts per month as part of their tariff or top up package. However, on average, British mobile phone customers use 23 voice minutes and 23 texts over their inclusive allowance, which means they could be paying up to an extra £130 per year.

The results also show that half of the respondents did not know how many minutes (27 per cent) or texts (23 per cent) they use each month, leaving them prone to additional charges. However, customers are confused about what their tariff includes as one in seven (16 per cent) don’t know how many free minutes they have, and one in six (17 per cent) don’t know how many texts are included.

There are two reasons I'm blogging this rather than writing a full-blown news story about it: firstly, it's based on an online survey (not a good start if you want to be scientific about things); secondly, we write about business users - if you as a professional whatever aren't paying attention to how many minutes etc are included in your tariffs, you deserve to pay over the odds.