Kids Run Up $10k Bill Watching Netflix

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If anyone at all has seen these two missing grandkids.... :D

"The kids were getting bored," his son, Jason, told CBC News. "So we decided to watch Netflix on my air-card on my laptop." The children watched several movies, such as "Shrek," "Spider-Man" and "Curious George." Gibson did not consider the cost, however, which skyrocketed due to the combination of constant Internet use and roaming charges. "It was over $10,000," he said. "I went, 'Good Lord.'"
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Even a thousand they settled for is excessive. I see no reason for that.

I had a running toilet while gone for 2 weeks. Ended up with a $400 water bill. The city looked at my history and said I get 1 screw up every 5 years, do I want to use it now. I said hell yes!!! They then dropped the $400 bill and just billed my my average montly bill (mean over las 12 months).

I see no reason wireless providers cant do the same.
 
Yeah, why should you have to pay for what you actually agreed to? Are these companies nuts?
 
I really think there needs to be some kind of regulation with this. It's SO easy to run up insane bills like this for a typical user that does not know better. The cap should actually disable the service, not start a money counter. My mom works customer service for the ISP here and she has seen customers with bills that are over 100k on their cell phones. The worse is tethering. That can jack up your bill so fast it's not even funny. There was one with 250k. It's easy to overlook the fact that it's so easy to go over the cap. The bandwidth is extremely high but the caps are ridiculously low, and the per MB charge is insane high. This needs to be changed. Some WILL offer one "screw up" cleaner so to speak, but to me it should not even be possible to reach a bill that high. The cap should just disable the service.
 
I got to Germany every year and have my phone with me, yet I have never had issues with roaming charges. Then again I am not a retard and turn everything on so that it roams 24/7.(I know this situation is slightly different, but the same concept). Common sense != Common
 
Like any of us know what we've agreed to anymore. :rolleyes: Unlimited plans that really aren't unlimited. Contracts and TOS that are six miles long and intentionally bury details where noone can find them...

If I had the money of any of these carriers / ISPs - I'd invest in the "have at it" network. Let all the bandwidth users go till they drop, and charge accordingly. I can't see anyone turning their nose at a fair price for a no BS connection - even if it cost more than the competition. I dunno, call me old fashioned - but I believe people will pay a premium for outstanding service, and further reward you with loyalty.
 
Kongar said:
Like any of us know what we've agreed to anymore. :rolleyes: Unlimited plans that really aren't unlimited. Contracts and TOS that are six miles long and intentionally bury details where noone can find them...
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Yeah, South Park did an episode on this for the humancentipad.

No one could believe that Kyle actually clicked "agree" to the 10 page long iTunes ToS that gave Apple the legal right to sow his mouth to the anus of another person.

:D
 
Ducman69 said:
Because it is asinine to not implement a cap, either hard or soft, or make the phone beep a text notifying them that they are incurring massive charges.

They don't for one simple reason, a small percentage of their customers won't be tech savvy or will make a mistake and they can make out like gangbusters raping them for everything they are worth.
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EULA, we all agree to them. I still don't understand why people are even allowed to sue/complain to companies about this. If you don't read the EULA and do this then it's YOUR FAULT. I don't read it either, but I have common sense and know when to and when not to use my electronics, and I make sure that I can do things without incurring charges like this before I do something.
 
xIronCrossx said:
I don't read it either, but I have common sense and know when to and when not to use my electronics, and I make sure that I can do things without incurring charges like this before I do something.
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No, you don't read it, and no one does.

They are usually intentionally exhaustively long and written in legalese that would cause the average person to pass out on their keyboards, and they are bombarded for them every single day.

And give me a break about "common sense". You, like myself and most others here, are a particular demographic. Most of us have grown up with electronics and are geeks that live in our own techy bubble world. This guy might be some blue collar grandad who would laugh his ass off that kids don't even know how a basic simple carburetor or refrigerator works, which to him is just "common sense".

When I worked at hospitals, we had top older physicians on staff that clearly have an IQ and knowledge of medicine that just makes you feel small and insignificant. But most of the time they could not even figure out how to send a text on their issued smartphones. They aren't stupid, it just doesn't interest them and its not part of their regular life exposure or field of expertise.
 
Ducman69 said:
No, you don't read it, and no one does.

They are usually intentionally exhaustively long and written in legalese that would cause the average person to pass out on their keyboards, and they are bombarded for them every single day.

And give me a break about "common sense". You, like myself and most others here, are a particular demographic. Most of us have grown up with electronics and are geeks that live in our own techy bubble world. This guy might be some blue collar grandad who would laugh his ass off that kids don't even know how a basic simple carburetor or refrigerator works, which to him is just "common sense".

When I worked at hospitals, we had top older physicians on staff that clearly have an IQ and knowledge of medicine that just makes you feel small and insignificant. But most of the time they could not even figure out how to send a text on their issued smartphones. They aren't stupid, it just doesn't interest them and its not part of their regular life exposure or field of expertise.
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Bad poster, bad poster! There's no place on the intarwebs for common sense. Anyone who can't simultaneously text, dl 3 separate movies/youtube videos, twit what they had for lunch while updating FB as they drive home should be branded a luddite and forced to hire a 'yout' as a tech advisor. :D
 
Ducman69 said:
Because it is asinine to not implement a cap, either hard or soft, or make the phone beep a text notifying them that they are incurring massive charges.

They don't for one simple reason, a small percentage of their customers won't be tech savvy or will make a mistake and they can make out like gangbusters raping them for everything they are worth.
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And when you ignore it then what? There was that guy that went over in Canada a few months back and they sent him a text a day about it, had warnings pop up when he want online... He just ignored them.

By now this isn't anything new, this is all over the news every few weeks. People can't claim that they don't know any better.
 
"The kids were getting bored," his son, Jason, told CBC News. "So we decided to watch Netflix on my air-card on my laptop." The children watched several movies, such as "Shrek," "Spider-Man" and "Curious George." Gibson did not consider the cost, however, which skyrocketed due to the combination of constant Internet use and roaming charges. "It was over $10,000," he said. "I went, 'Good Lord.'"
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The guys were getting bored. So we decided to watch people at the strip club. The guys watch several performers, such as "Lena", "Nicole", and "Rachael". Dick did not consider the cost, however, which skyrocketed due to the combination of constant alcohol use and "roaming" charges. "It was over $10,000," he said. "I went, 'Good Lord.'"

Some guy on the internet says his city gave him a break on his water bill; he gets one screw up every 5 years. Why can't strip clubs do the same?
 
I love how everyone is bitching about the carrier.. Simple fact is that the guy got billed what he agreed to.. Plus the carrier should be applauded considering that with any US carrier this would have needed mass press coverage before crediting anything where as this carrier just up & adjusted 10,000..

I also have no empathy for those who get billed for international roaming.. You need a fucking passport yet you assume that everything is going to work just like at home.

And no I am not defending the ToS that gets shoved down our throats every time we turn around. Common sense would definitely dictate that you might want to call your wireless provider before leaving your country.
 
The price these cell providers charge for roaming is just stupid and way over priced. WTB data caps
 
Ducman69 said:
Because it is asinine to not implement a cap, either hard or soft, or make the phone beep a text notifying them that they are incurring massive charges.
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They have no problem implementing a cap when you're costing them money (i.e. "excessive" use of your "unlimited" plan), but are more than happy to let you run up a bill far above of your average.
 
precariousgray said:
This is an empty argument, and you really should know better. The fact that you are forced to agree to such ridiculously overbearing terms in acquiring any sort of service should not be legal. Wireless access is not like driving a luxury car -- it is a necessity for some, and the future for the rest of us.
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Yeah because unlimited plans do not exist :rolleyes:
 
This guy if from my province. I had a friend of mine also have over $2500 in roaming and data charges after going to Florida for two weeks. Gave Sasktel a call and they were very gracious and only made him pay I think $100 of that. SaskTel is AWESOME to deal with. They already had my respect many times over but this gives them even more.
 
Also, these charges weren't FROM Sasktel, the roaming carriers charged Sasktel the cost and they in turn billed the customer.
 
precariousgray said:
This is an empty argument, and you really should know better. The fact that you are forced to agree to such ridiculously overbearing terms in acquiring any sort of service should not be legal. Wireless access is not like driving a luxury car -- it is a necessity for some, and the future for the rest of us.
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Yeah, it being a necessity should erase all personal responsibility for understanding how you are going to be charged.
 
bastage said:
Common sense would definitely dictate that you might want to call your wireless provider before leaving your country.
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Folks, we have a winner! I knew at least one of you would come up with a common sense answer sooner or later.
 
Nanan said:
Read a cell phone or data plan contract and see if you can tell when you violate it or not. On top of the intentionally fuzzy language many wireless card/usb devise do not actively notify you of usage or roaming etc. If these companies did not want you to purposefully rack up charges the system would limit or block use over your cap and notify you once you hit it.
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I don't read the agreement, I call and ask when I have concern or look it up on the Internet. Very easy process. Both ways work well. If you are not smart enough to ask, then you likely should be charged out the ass for being a jackass to begin with.
 
Honestly there needs to be some sort of protection in place for consumers that go over data caps. Especially for people that don't know shit about tech.
 
Jospeh said:
Honestly there needs to be some sort of protection in place for consumers that go over data caps. Especially for people that don't know shit about tech.
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Yes and until there is you will have to be responsible for your own usage.
 
precariousgray said:
This is an empty argument, and you really should know better. The fact that you are forced to agree to such ridiculously overbearing terms in acquiring any sort of service should not be legal. Wireless access is not like driving a luxury car -- it is a necessity for some, and the future for the rest of us.
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A phone is not a FUCKING necessity for anyone in that case. If you need 10GB of transfers a month then you shouldn't be on your phone. A phone is to make calls, the ability to use it for data is ONLY a convence in some cases, it isn't meant to be used for everything.

Ducman69 said:
What makes more sense:

1) Setting up a plan that relies upon millions of customers to carefully read through pages of confusing language when all they want to do is make a damn phone call and watch some videos, with no safety guards against incurring ten thousand dollars of fees in a short period of time

2) The carrier implementing a soft/hardcap to protect the customer from ridiculous fees.

As was pointed out, whenever it comes to protecting THEIR interests, the carriers have no problem with hard and soft caps, which in fact are poorly advertised.
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Jospeh said:
Honestly there needs to be some sort of protection in place for consumers that go over data caps. Especially for people that don't know shit about tech.
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How will that work? Sending them a notice HEY YOU ARE GOING OVER!!!!! doesn't work. Some places already do that. AT&T's phones afaik tell you as soon as you connect outside your area that you are out of your network and could result in overages. If they just cut you off then people would get pissed off that they lose their service at a certain point.
 
/usr/home said:
Also, these charges weren't FROM Sasktel, the roaming carriers charged Sasktel the cost and they in turn billed the customer.
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I'm not so sure about this. From all the stories we've head about carriers and their astronomical bills, there are lots about them forgiving and reducing the bills.

But when those customers get those $100,000 bills, if the carrier really was on the hook for that much and was just in turn billing the customer, do you think they would just say, oh well, we'll just eat this $100,000 loss, as long as our customer learned his lesson? No way, they'd never do that.

I suspect the actual charge from the foreign carrier was closer to the $1000 Sasktel charged. The other $9000 they wanted was pure profit.
 
I laugh at people that think they deserved to be charged $10,000 for using wireless while "roaming" ..


Please justify how it costs anywhere near that for any company to supply such bandwidth? Because you simply can't. Its fucking bullshit , network "congestion" arguments are fucking pointless as any IT or Engineer will tell you the infrastructure is far from being "over taxed" it is simply poorly managed.

Contractual obligations my ass , just another way big corporations can screw you over ... all while just trying to keep your children from being bored.
 
Fucking winy ass bitches that cant accept responsibility for your own actions..

Check this out.. Took all of 15 fucking seconds to find..

Data Roaming* within GSM coverage Any data used while in Worldphone GSM or 4G coverage is not deducted from the regular data rate plan bucket. Data used overseas is charged the International Roaming rate only.

$30.72 per megabyte (MB)
Data is charged in 10 KB increments to your SaskTel wireless bill in Canadian funds.
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So had they spent a dollars of that 11k they spent to find out about there own service maybe they would not have gotten the bill.


And if you want to know why there is no alert saying that your over your data.. its because your carrier doesnt know in most cases.. The tower information is sometimes not updated for weeks after it happens.. I have worked for 3 of the 4 major US carriers & my wife worked for the 4th.. its always the same with international roaming with each carrier. The timeframe for reporting depends on the other carrier reporting the data to you.
 
Wait.. Found better data..

Monthly Fee Data Included Extra Data U.S. Roaming1
$25 500MB $.03/MB $6/MB
$30 1GB $.03/MB $5/MB
$55 4GB $.03/MB $3/MB
$75 8GB $.03/MB $3/MB
1U.S. Roaming is charged on all data used in the U.S. and is not taken out of the included bucket of data in each plan.
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Given the number of movies they listed 6 bucks a mb doesnt sound unreasonable (1.8gb) as it would have been waiy higher at the 30mb for the overseas
 
Credit cards have spending limits. DirecTV allows me to set spending limits. If I want to implement spending limits on my Sprint account I have to enroll in a $4.99 a month plan (unless I choose autopay-which has its own issues with Sprint). Cell phone companies are making it as difficult as possible to limit how much you can run up on your bill. It doesn't have to be that complicated. Set it up so if you hit $xxx dollars you have to input your PIN before you complete your call. If that gets annoying and you want to disable your limit you can call customer service. They dont want to do that though, anymore than banks want to limit how much you pay in fees.

Yes common sense if needed and understanding how your phone bill works. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions, but the guy in the story didn't look very tech savvy though. At least he had a good attitude about the bill being adjusted to 1000 instead of 10,000.
 
Direfox said:
Credit cards have spending limits. DirecTV allows me to set spending limits. If I want to implement spending limits on my Sprint account I have to enroll in a $4.99 a month plan (unless I choose autopay-which has its own issues with Sprint). Cell phone companies are making it as difficult as possible to limit how much you can run up on your bill. It doesn't have to be that complicated. Set it up so if you hit $xxx dollars you have to input your PIN before you complete your call. If that gets annoying and you want to disable your limit you can call customer service. They dont want to do that though, anymore than banks want to limit how much you pay in fees.

Yes common sense if needed and understanding how your phone bill works. Maybe I am jumping to conclusions, but the guy in the story didn't look very tech savvy though. At least he had a good attitude about the bill being adjusted to 1000 instead of 10,000.
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Spending limits are free with every cell provider.. its called pre-pay.. Also you can always call & request that stuff like international roaming be disabled.
 
FCC needs to grow a pair and Congress needs to pass a legislation to put an end to these private monopolizing wireless carriers and their ridiculous data caps, throttling, and overages.
 
In the end, it usage based billing doesn't make any sense. It costs no more to transmit a byte and it does not to.
 
Brak710 said:
In the end, it usage based billing doesn't make any sense. It costs no more to transmit a byte and it does not to.
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Of course it doesn't make sense for us. It only makes sense for the corporation's bottom lines. :( :mad:
 
Not a lawyer, but after helping to craft the rules at another forum, I understand why the legalese is so massive. If you don't spell it out, someone will find the loophole and run with it. Even if they were written in layman's terms legal documents are covering a lot of ground. Unfortunately, they're a necessary evil.

I can't speak for other countries, but ignorance of a law doesn't remove the responsibilities and consequences entailed by said law. It might seem like it sucks, but just imagine the abuse. My kids are young, but I know I'd have used ignorance to avoid trouble with my parents. I don't have to think that it wouldn't be taken advantage in adult circumstances.
"Your Honor, I did not know it was illegal to kill anyone."
"Case dismissed."

Right.
 
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