That was my first thought, too. I doubt the e-mails go out immediately, in real time.

I don't think an e-mail received at 3.30p.m. necessarily implies that was the precise time you exceeded your limit. More likely to have been some time in the preceding few days.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I think the usage monitor normally lags real usage? So, it could be that the usage was the previous day rather than the time/day you received the emails. One of the connections I look after was stopped at 2GB (old BBYW Option 1) and yet when it was re-enabled had used 2.5GB so the extra .5GB must have been late appearing or the usage block had a very delayed effect (that is normally about 1 week of usage).

It does mention that it may not include usage from the past 2 hours but as there is a free usage period from midnight to 8am it would show up in this.

My previous day's usage was 481.81MB, and my weekly usage is usually between 2 and 2.5 GB including free usage. I have never reached even 1 GB in a day, when I have been online for 16 hours and watched a couple of hours on iPlayer, so I don't know how it is possible to use 4 GB in 7 hours.

Have you been able to look at the usage checker itself and see the daily usage? Does that show where the usage was?

In reply to a post by TLM:

That was my first thought, too. I doubt the e-mails go out immediately, in real time.

I don't think an e-mail received at 3.30p.m. necessarily implies that was the precise time you exceeded your limit. More likely to have been some time in the preceding few days.

The usage monitor shows what has been used each day and the excess, 4 GB, is showing as a single block all used after 8am yesterday, the day the duplicate emails were sent.

There is a proviso on the usage page saying:

"The data on this page may not include usage from the last 2 hours. Please bear this in mind if you are close to exceeding your account's allowance."

This would be meaningless if previous days' usage was added together and displayed as a 4 GB block several days later.

Sounds like a glitch based on that. Unless someone used your connection to download a linux distro/windows 7/online game. I have download 10GB in a similar time span but only when downloading a very large game.

I don't have recent experience of this (my present package has not resulted in my exceeding my usage limit, for years), but isn't it the case that "add-on" blocks are sold in units of 2 GB? So the "duplicate" e-mails might simply be a reflection of the fact the overuse was two lots of 2, or 4.

I'm afraid I can't help you as to how the overuse may have come about, or even if it did come about. Barring a metering error by Plusnet, it does appear that the most likely explanation is someone else using your wireless connection.

I do take it there are not other people in the house, who might have used the connection without your knowledge? A friend once caught her cleaning-lady doing this, when she was supposed to be working at cleaning the house!

You don't have Skype loaded on your PC do you?

There are no other people in the house and as I previously mentioned there is a neighbour's unprotected wifi connection available to anyone in the area who wishes to access it.

Yes, I do have Skype on my Mac, but it isn't switched on and AirPort wireless networking is also switched off.

In reply to a post by hypertony:

(i.e. BBC iPlayer's P2P)

iPlayer doesn't use P2P now (the very early versions did).

Thanks, didnt know about that.

So what do they use now?