Saturday, April 25, 2009

$62,000 Phone Bill For Data Roaming

International Roaming Plans will save you from such outrageous bills, see bottom of the post for carrier links on roaming plans.
There are too many stories about outrageous phone bills these carriers are charging these days. Not too long ago someone mistook terms on his "Unlimited Text" contract and got a bill from T-Mobile for $26000 while verizon gave a massive bill for a teen for texting and Another for watching Football or Baseball game online.
If the carriers can detect (of course they can) they also can provide a warning to users for using roaming for data or video streaming. But I think it is time for a class action suite for roaming charges.
Anyway the particular user who got the $62000 bill, downloaded a movie, (WALL-E) while in Mexico over his Wireless Datacard. Then he complained to the carrier (everyone is hiding the carriers name, including CNN which interviewed the uninformed user.) they agreed to bring down the cost to $17000. One commenter left this comment on ARSTechnica, where I got this information;
Original charge: $62,000
Claimed cost: $17,000
Charge with plan: $100
Estimated actual cost: $20

Markup:
Attempted: 310000%
Claimed to be near 0%: 85000%
Definitely profitable: 500%
Yes it is criminal!
So folks, when you go to a foreign country (or in some cases near Mexican or Canadian border, not veified) Make sure you get a roaming plan and check your bills, online to see if outrageous fees being applied. Most carriers have International Roaming Plans, here are some;
T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint
ArsTechnica
$62,000 movie download a result of poor travel planning

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