RACHEL RICKARD STRAUS: Three mobile phone traps that can cost you a fortune

Just imagine how your stomach would turn if you were given a mobile phone bill of £9,000.

The utter horror of discovering that you had accidentally spent several times more on your phone during your holiday abroad than during the trip itself. Ugh! It makes me shiver.

So I feel sincere sympathy for Money Mail reader ‘LM’ and her family who found themselves in this position, helping our Consumer Champion Sally Hamilton this week.

Yes, LM should have kept a closer eye on her 12-year-old daughter who accidentally used her phone during a family trip in Egypt.

But LM’s phone provider, EE, doesn’t exactly cover itself in glory. Sally asked EE to show compassion and it reduced the phone bill. But it still asks for £4,500.

This is a life-changing amount for a young family, but a drop in the ocean for EE, whose parent company BT made more than £1.3bn in profits last year.

Do you think it cost EE even a fraction of that amount to provide the data services to LM? Did well! I’d like to see it lower the bill even further.

When I read unflattering stories about broadband and telephone companies at the moment, I find them extremely irritating. Because almost all major carriers have been inflating their customers’ bills with inflation-limiting amounts this month.

The first bill of the new, higher amount has probably arrived in your inbox or on your doormat in the past few days. Mine sure did.

When justifying the massive increases, providers murmured flimsy excuses about having to invest to provide customers with the best experience and service. So where is this top notch customer service, EE?

I ask the same question of O2, which my colleague Jessica Beard reveals this week falls woefully behind its peers in the fight against fraudsters.

And I ask any broadband or phone provider that doesn’t tell its low-income customers that they could qualify for a cheaper deal.

Around 4.3 million households receiving government benefits such as universal or pension credit will qualify for a cheaper broadband or telephone tariff, which could save them around £200 a year.

But only 5% of those who qualify have applied because millions don’t even know they exist, the regulator Ofcom revealed this week. I’m not surprised the withdrawal rates are so low. Few providers choose to promote them.

If you think you qualify, ask your provider to switch. And if you get fobbed off by customer service representatives who claim to know nothing about these rates, persevere. And let me know.

By the way, if you want to use your phone abroad and avoid expensive roaming charges, there’s a simple way, I discovered last year while on holiday in Senegal.

When we landed at the airport, we each bought a local SIM card for around £8, packed with minutes and data.

We just put these cards in our handsets and used them for the duration of the trip. Then switch back to our old SIM cards as before. No hassle, no administration, no costs.

From little acorns

Want to know one of my best investments ever? Ceiling rosettes.

They cost around £30 each and were installed on the ceilings of our house.

But if they add character and recall the history of our old Victorian terraced house, they can add thousands of pounds to the value.

This week, we explore the home improvements that yield the most returns.

But as real estate expert Anne Ashworth reveals, sometimes it’s the small changes, like our rosettes, that can have the biggest impact.

Have you made a low-cost, maximum-impact improvement to your home? I like to hear it.

I will fight for you

This is my first edition as the money editor of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. And I couldn’t be happier to be here.

I look forward to continuing Money Mail’s magnificent and unparalleled tradition of fighting your corner, helping you grow your wealth and extracting every last drop of value from your hard-earned money.

We would like to hear from you. Tell me what you love to read about, which companies make your blood boil – and how Money Mail can help you take control of your finances.

r.rickardstraus@dailymail.co.uk