Mystery ~19 GB of data used in one day
Last month, my mothers line on Google Fi saw a massive spike in data usage on a single day with no explanation, and with nothing shown in any of the usage tracking in the Fi app or the phone itself, aside from the overall usage reported by Fi.
We contacted support 3 times, first less than a week after via phone where they were they seemed confused because the bill had not yet locked in and wanted to speak with the account owner (myself), but I wasn't available at the time. Some searching seemed to indicate this confusion was common and we should just wait (and that the issue might just resolve itself once the bill locked in).
Well, May 8th the bill closed and the usage was still there, so I reached out to support via email. After some back and forth they told me the owner of the line needed to contact them (opposite of what phone support said). So my mother then contacted support again via email with the same information and was told:
- The bill is already closed so they can't do anything.
- It was my mothers fault somehow because Android magically started using cellular data for that singular day and then immediately stopped.
Now, I sure don't see where ~19 GB of data usage would have come from. The whole OS is only 15 GB so doesn't seem like an update would account for this, and the grand sum of videos plus images is ~3.5 GB (and backup isn't even turned on), so that couldn't have been it. Google Fi's own app shows tethered devices used 0 GB. Never mind my mother hasn't used over 1 GB of mobile data for at least a year (I didn't feel like reviewing years of bills one at a time, but I suspect she's never gone over 1 GB in a month).
So anyway, here I am posting on social media because that seems to be the only way to get something done now a days, and to make others aware you may randomly get a surprise additional $100 bill from Fi.