The employee was on a three-week holiday in Sri Lanka when he generated the gigantic phone bill on his company cellphone. Photo / iStock
A man fired after racking up a $23k bill on his work phone and returning to work late from a holiday was justifiably dismissed, the Employment Relations Authority has found.
The Mighty River Power employee, who cannot be named because his wife's name is suppressed, was on a three-week holiday
in Sri Lanka when he generated the gigantic phone bill on his company cellphone - most of which was due to roaming data charges.
He was charged around $6 for international phone calls and texts, with the rest of the charges came from 1.5GB of roaming data.
The data used on various applications, including iTunes, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Gmail, Akamai and Dropbox.
An analyst who reviewed the data use information described it as "quite consistent" and suggested it was due to apps syncing in the background, rather than normal internet browsing.
