DAMIEN BYRNE recently moved from Vodafone to 3 Ireland. “There is much of a muchness in all the networks’ bill pay tariffs as far as I have made out over the years, but I moved to 3 as I spend a lot of time outside Dublin, and 3’s 3G coverage is supposed to be excellent,” he writes.

His first bill came with what he calls a nasty suprise. “While voicemail is either free or can be called out of your inclusive minutes on other providers, and while 3’s voicemail number is an 083 number and 3 to 3 is supposed to be free, way down in the terms and conditions, 3 states that voicemail on an 18-month contract is charged at 15 cents a minute.” He spends about four minutes a day listening to voicemails and over the course of a year this is probably going to cost him nearly €220.

There is a lot to be said for reading the terms and conditions, although we think this charge is particularly sneaky and unnecessary. We do have a plan though. If he downloads a natty little app called Hullomail, he can circumvent the charges. It is a very simple idea, but one which works. It uses your bundled minutes to capture all your voice mails at no cost to you and then simply emails them to you as an mp3 file.

Admittedly, it is a lot more hassle than listening to your voicemails on the hoof and won’t save you a whole lot of money – unless you listen to your voice messages obsessively – but it will save some people something.