How to Run Up a $200,000 Cell Phone Bill

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Someone needs to explain to me, in plain English, how anything you can do on a phone would result in you having a $200,000 bill. Think about it, that is more than $4.50 a minute, 24 hours a day for 30 days straight. :eek:

This is the $201,000 bill, running 43 pages. When Shamir saw it, he couldn't believe he had run it up. Celina Aarons: "He spent two weeks in Canada. Shamir had been on vacation in Canada where he didn't turn his data roaming off. Texting over 2,000 times and using the phone to download videos. Bringing this charge for $1,800. This one for $1,300 this one for $2,500. On and on and on.
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Do you stream a lot of music/video while not connected to Wifi? If so it is very easy to rack up a bill like that. if you have the 200MB data plan through at&t than i believe that overage charges can amount to $10-15 per 100MB over.
 
Because they are addicting. As someone who chooses not to own a cell phone, it is amusing watching people who do. They can't sit idle for 5 seconds without that phone in their hand. It's like they're on crack.
 
Who cares? He can download porn all day if he wants... me thinks this is bullshit!

I am 99% sure this is all because the guys phone is set to "automatic roaming" by default (when it should be OFF, just for this very reason)-- and they do not tell people that roaming will cost you TONS OF MONEY. They just give you a phone, with roaming automatically on, and the cell companies assume everyone is informed of this (when nobody really learns about it until something like this happens!)

BULLSHIT, I would tell them to fuck off in more ways than 1! Cancel and sell the phone.... and move on to another company.
 
Greene420 said:
Who cares? He can download porn all day if he wants... me thinks this is bullshit!

I am 99% sure this is all because the guys phone is set to "automatic roaming" by default (when it should be OFF, just for this very reason)-- and they do not tell people that roaming will cost you TONS OF MONEY. They just give you a phone, with roaming automatically on, and the cell companies assume everyone is informed of this (when nobody really learns about it until something like this happens!)

BULLSHIT, I would tell them to fuck off in more ways than 1! Cancel and sell the phone.... and move on to another company.
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Reading the article, T-Mobile texted him repeat warnings which were ignore (not hard to miss one with 2000 texts outgoing I guess).

T-Mobile did agree to lower the bill to $2500.
 
From the article:

We then contacted T-mobile. Give them enormous credit, they were reasonable. They wrote that Shamir was billed $10 per megabyte. They say that rate was texted to him, and four additional texts were sent to his phone as the charges soared.

T-mobile then did what they legally didn't have to do. They lowered Celina's phone bill from $201,000 to $2,500 and even gave her six months to pay that bill.

Read more: http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/helpmehoward/MI93365/#ixzz1b9Tk49D2
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My girlfriend's friend has t-mobile and discovered one day her phone had been shut off. She called to ask why and they told her she had been roaming too much and they decided to take her phone off the network. Why didn't they do that with this guy?
 
Not really about this article but about the topic: cellphones internet bandwith is so lame...why not include unlimited data plan, its not like you can fit more than 32GB on a phone? and phone companies are scammers, they dont stop you from connecting, instead they let you connect even though you have no plan, if you dont pay for it, those apps should be block by their server, yet they want customer to accidently connect so they can make money, that is not accessible.
 
T-mobile is expensive..? most companies offers a plan with unlimited texting for $20/month
 
the guy was DEAF for crying out loud. If texting is his only method of communication then I can completely understand how the text messages sent by tmobile could be missed.
 
zomby said:
T-mobile is expensive..? most companies offers a plan with unlimited texting for $20/month
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He was internationally roaming though - no company offers unlimited anything when you're roaming internationally and the phone company in the other country is charging who knows what.
 
Wow! $201,000! I would have a heart attack if that was my bill.
 
zomby said:
Not really about this article but about the topic: cellphones internet bandwith is so lame...why not include unlimited data plan, its not like you can fit more than 32GB on a phone? and phone companies are scammers, they dont stop you from connecting, instead they let you connect even though you have no plan, if you dont pay for it, those apps should be block by their server, yet they want customer to accidently connect so they can make money, that is not accessible.
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because it's still your responsibility to know this crap. I work in IT and I'm all about helping and teaching people, but there's a line. there's a contract YOU as the end user sign and should read (which people never do) and the the reason they leave data access on (unless you request to block it) is convenience, again, they assume you know what you're doing. If you don't, you probably should own or use that device. why do I have a smartphone, I use all those features and I'm aware of my presence (digital or physical) and how that affects things. The cellphone company is not your babysitter, they don't hold your hand and neither do I. common sense. But with the exponential rise of data usage in an ever-connected world, eventually the companies will have to transform to handle these things without being a financial burden, on the company or the end-user.
 
Greene420 said:
Who cares? He can download porn all day if he wants... me thinks this is bullshit!

I am 99% sure this is all because the guys phone is set to "automatic roaming" by default (when it should be OFF, just for this very reason)-- and they do not tell people that roaming will cost you TONS OF MONEY. They just give you a phone, with roaming automatically on, and the cell companies assume everyone is informed of this (when nobody really learns about it until something like this happens!)

BULLSHIT, I would tell them to fuck off in more ways than 1! Cancel and sell the phone.... and move on to another company.
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This post makes you sound completely ignorant. did you even read the whole article? I can tell you my phone (Samsung Epic 4G) beeps like hell the moment I'm roaming, it even asks me explicitly if I want to connect data and incur charges. and as my previous post, why the hell should the cell company hold your hand, you're not a child. This is like bitching at Toyota because you ran out of gas and you never learned how to fill it up. Just like judges tell you in court, ignorance of the law is no excuse....
 
Racking up a $200,000 cell phone bill is FAR easier when roaming abroad rather than using your phone domestically. The rates our carriers charge for roaming abroad is nothing less than highway robbery.

Verizon charges $20.48 PER MEGABYTE in some countries while roaming. You can only imagine after watching a few YouTube videos and streaming some music the massive bill shock. Its absolutely ridiculous and I'm sure most of that money goes straight into Verizon's massive coffers for doing almost nothing, and not to the foreign cell phone operator that actually provides the service.

I'm lucky I worked at Tier 2 tech support at Verizon and not their customer care. I'd never get those sorts of calls.
 
nerdydesi said:
Racking up a $200,000 cell phone bill is FAR easier when roaming abroad rather than using your phone domestically. The rates our carriers charge for roaming abroad is nothing less than highway robbery.

Verizon charges $20.48 PER MEGABYTE in some countries while roaming. You can only imagine after watching a few YouTube videos and streaming some music the massive bill shock. Its absolutely ridiculous and I'm sure most of that money goes straight into Verizon's massive coffers for doing almost nothing, and not to the foreign cell phone operator that actually provides the service.

I'm lucky I worked at Tier 2 tech support at Verizon and not their customer care. I'd never get those sorts of calls.
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I always understood those charges are high because of the overhead in using someone else's network, transmitting data/voice, overhead etc. so how is it highway robbery? hey, if it costs $100 to call you from Mt. Everest, I'll pay.
 
zomby said:
T-mobile is expensive..? most companies offers a plan with unlimited texting for $20/month
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please link me. cheapest i could find is my 1500 minutes/texts combined on tmobile. i couldnt find ANY plan on ANY carrier that was less than this $30 plan i have. actually rereading it maybe you mean $20 in addition to your regular plan. still, if there is a $20 plan lmk. :)
 
Batjew said:
I always understood those charges are high because of the overhead in using someone else's network, transmitting data/voice, overhead etc. so how is it highway robbery? hey, if it costs $100 to call you from Mt. Everest, I'll pay.
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A remote place like Mt. Everest is way different than calling someone from a huge metropolitan city in a different country though. I think something is fishy when my home carrier will charge me $20.48 per MB for roaming, whereas the local carrier in that country will charge $2.00 per MB at the very maximum.

If T-Mobile agreed to lower this person's bill from $201,000 to $2,500, then they were really trying to rip off the customer, plain and simple. The overhead in using another network wasn't so large that they'll go bankrupt if they can ONLY get $2,500 out of the customer.
 
Batjew said:
I always understood those charges are high because of the overhead in using someone else's network, transmitting data/voice, overhead etc. so how is it highway robbery? hey, if it costs $100 to call you from Mt. Everest, I'll pay.
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Because it is. Hell, even different prepaid packages are sometime crazy. For example, my mobile operator (Orange) has following packages in Slovakia for mobile phones :
10MB package - 1.9€, 1€/MB over the package data limit
100MB package - 5.9€, 1€/MB over the package data limit.
1000MB package - 6.95€, 0.25€/MB over the package data limit
2000MB package - 9.95€, 0.03€/MB over the package data limit
5000MB package - 15.9€, speed lowered to 64kbps over the data limit

Now, in all seriousness - how can you find any over-limit charges for anything bellow the 2000MB package acceptable ? Hell, it's enough to download 1012MB and you are already at 2000MB package price.

So yes, high charges for data over limit are a "highway robbery". 30€ for extra 1GB at 2GB package is a inconvenience, but manageable. A 250€ charge for extra 1GB over 1GB package is stupid. A 1000€ charge for extra 1GB over 100MB package is a robbery.

And i still talk about domestic data usage, not roaming.
 
ekuest said:
please link me. cheapest i could find is my 1500 minutes/texts combined on tmobile. i couldnt find ANY plan on ANY carrier that was less than this $30 plan i have. actually rereading it maybe you mean $20 in addition to your regular plan. still, if there is a $20 plan lmk. :)
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not sure what carrier or planet you're on, but T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint are all $20 for unlimited, or equivalent to....even MetroPCS and the other off brands are in the range. Now if you're outside the US, I understand, or maybe pay-as-you-go.....I'm pretty confident the original poster meant as an add-on
 
faugusztin said:
Because it is. Hell, even different prepaid packages are sometime crazy. For example, my mobile operator (Orange) has following packages in Slovakia for mobile phones :
10MB package - 1.9€, 1€/MB over the package data limit
100MB package - 5.9€, 1€/MB over the package data limit.
1000MB package - 6.95€, 0.25€/MB over the package data limit
2000MB package - 9.95€, 0.03€/MB over the package data limit
5000MB package - 15.9€, speed lowered to 64kbps over the data limit

Now, in all seriousness - how can you find any over-limit charges for anything bellow the 2000MB package acceptable ? Hell, it's enough to download 1012MB and you are already at 2000MB package price.

So yes, high charges for data over limit are a "highway robbery". 30€ for extra 1GB at 2GB package is a inconvenience, but manageable. A 250€ charge for extra 1GB over 1GB package is stupid. A 1000€ charge for extra 1GB over 100MB package is a robbery.

And i still talk about domestic data usage, not roaming.
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Those prices make sense to me, and they obviously want to encourage heavy users to move up a plan, from there it's just a matter of tracking your usage. I know I use on average 3GB of data month, so why wouldn't I logically pay for the higher plan? then again I heavily take for granted that I understand how much data I use and all those tech related bits of information the average user would never understand....
 
Batjew said:
I always understood those charges are high because of the overhead in using someone else's network, transmitting data/voice, overhead etc. so how is it highway robbery? hey, if it costs $100 to call you from Mt. Everest, I'll pay.
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Overhead? What did they have to do, launch a special satellite to accommodate this guys 20GB?
 
it is amazing how they can lower the bill that much still. I wonder how much profit do they earn still?
 
oh and I agree that the prices are certainly outrageous in general, with any company anywhere. but you have to remember, these are private FOR PROFIT entities. I didn't like bending the truth when I had to sell products at best buy, but I like having a job that gave me income.

WELCOME TO CAPITALISM, I respect and chose to debate your beliefs and ideas, but if you don't like it, change the channel or some other liberal idiom...I realize I may be coming off as a complete ahole, but maybe I'm the only one applying common sense :dunno:
 
UrielDagda said:
Overhead? What did they have to do, launch a special satellite to accommodate this guys 20GB?
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maybe :D for all we know some people are calling from east bumblefuck nowhere, maybe they had to use homing pigeons for 4G
 
Batjew said:
Those prices make sense to me, and they obviously want to encourage heavy users to move up a plan, from there it's just a matter of tracking your usage.
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Well, it would be fine, if :
- they would instantly notify you that "Dear idiot, you reached 90%/100% of your data allowance, stop using internet NOW". But no, they send you a SMS message 2 days late, when you are already tens or hundreds of megabytes over because the stupid Steam on your laptop decided to update Team Fortress 2 through 3G connection :D.
- they would allow you to switch your package durring the month. But no, you can change your package only from next month.

Without early notification and in-month package change, it is a highway robbery.
 
AmberClad said:
Reading the article, T-Mobile texted him repeat warnings which were ignore (not hard to miss one with 2000 texts outgoing I guess).

T-Mobile did agree to lower the bill to $2500.
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That is the problem these days, as personal responsibility has been completely thrown out the window. T-Mobile shouldn't have even had to reduce the bill since they repeatedly warned their customer, but of course that would have been disastrous PR. No wonder modern civilisation is on the decline when people always blame others for their problems and refuse to take responsibility.
 
faugusztin said:
Well, it would be fine, if :
- they would instantly notify you that "Dear idiot, you reached 90%/100% of your data allowance, stop using internet NOW". But no, they send you a SMS message 2 days late, when you are already tens or hundreds of megabytes over because the stupid Steam on your laptop decided to update Team Fortress 2 through 3G connection :D.
- they would allow you to switch your package durring the month. But no, you can change your package only from next month.

Without early notification and in-month package change, it is a highway robbery.
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then I think that's on he company certainly. I know here, Sprint will prorate my plan if I choose to change mid-month. I can change setting to notify me when I get close to overage. But I also pay for unlimited services so that I DON'T need to worry about being warned and as long as I see the value and I'm ok with paying what I pay, I'm not getting ripped off.
 
amdgamer said:
That is the problem these days, as personal responsibility has been completely thrown out the window. T-Mobile shouldn't have even had to reduce the bill since they repeatedly warned their customer, but of course that would have been disastrous PR. No wonder modern civilization is on the decline when people always blame others for their problems and refuse to take responsibility.
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BINGO! you hit the nail on the head, regardless, T-Mobile did the right thing.
 
eh, if you hit 10x your normal roaming usage they should automatically put you into a roaming plan. Here in this case the squeeky wheel gets the lube. Lots of other cases though the people just grit their teeth and pay the bill. Not for thousands of dollars, but I suspect that 100s of bucks are not uncommon. Its a racket in that this shit can happen so easily. How the hell can you opt out of any of this shit, ie: go over paid usage, get function turned off. Someone might complain, but not to the extent they do with a thousand dollar bill. Hell, go somewhere, get a disposable phone with unlimited everything for $100, throw it away at the end of the trip.
 
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