Advice on friends problem

[luke]

Hi all
A friend of mine has just informed me that his telco called him and notified him of his phone bill. He is about half way through his billing cycle, and his phone bill totals $11,000.

A bit of information:
He's on a 3G cap plan, i think it's $49 for several hundred dollars worth of calls etc. You get the idea.

A person from a call centre sold him the deal with handset and plan over the phone. They explained all the details to him and he entered into a verbally signed contract.

What they didn't tell him was that for the first month, data calls and GPRS were free. Kind of like a "Trial Period".

So anyway, new bill cycle starts, my friend connects his phone to his computer and proceeds to download several gigabytes of data. His last bill did not reflect any data charges in the previous month so he assumed that it wasn't costing him very much. Now he's in debt for eleven grand and is unable to pay it. The telco told him that he should have read the contract, however he never recieved one. The person told him most of the details over the phone and he agreed verbally.

What should he do? I suggested consumer affairs.
The telco concerned starts with a "T" and ends with "elstra".

What does everyone think? Was it his fault? Or is he yet another victim of a big corporation just trying to make its dollar?

Luke.