A 26-year-old Tilbury, Essex-based builder - Chris Bovis - has recently revealed that phone operator Orange had wrongly billed him an exorbitant amount of £19,000 for the months of October and November, allegedly for using the Internet excessively on his iPhone 4S.

Disclosing that his bill normally is "about £43 a month," Bovis said that the wrong billing by Orange was a result of some issue with his iPhone, which apparently went on its own Web-surfing extravaganza, According to Bovis, the rogue handset sent as well as received large amounts of data even when he switched it off.

Bovis said that he came to know of the problem with his iPhone 4S only after his line was cut by Orange, which had unsuccessfully tried to take the bill amount from his bank, but the transaction got blocked due to insufficient funds.

The problem with Bovis' iPhone 4S was later confirmed by a member of staff at Apple's store at Lakeside Shopping Centre. The Apple staff at the store first tried, in vain, to restore the factory settings on the handset; and later, on not being able to detect the problem, gave Bovis a replacement handset.

When Orange received the confirmation that the `high Internet use' by Bovis was an upshot of a problem with his Apple handset, a spokesman for the operator said that Bovis' bill was being changed; and added: "We would like to sincerely apologise to Mr Bovis for any distress caused by receiving this unusually high phone bill."