Man Stung by $8,000 iPhone Bill

SixFootDuo said:
Had this man knew 100% before hand that he faced huge huge HUGE fees, he wouldn't have turned his phone on or made other arrangements. Clearly.

Go google "huge cell phone bill" or something to that effect and you will see this is a major problem. In fact, go take a look at the FCC. You can find thousands and thousands of people, just recently dated who are complaining about this very subject. This is something that's gouging and hurting families.

And don't think of this man as some faceless person you don't know. Think of him as a friend, a brother, a sister or perhaps even one day, your child. You really think big business should have this sort of reign? And no, I'm not being extreme. You want extreme, use your phone for 120 mins overseas and then get your $8,000 bill in the mail, then pay it off, with a smile no less. And If you can do that and I know no one here would, then that my friend, is extreme.

They didn't allow this type of behavior in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. This would have been impossible then.

Predatory business tactics, predatory lending, deregulation, lobbyist. Go google those, do some research, and please, come back and tell me that this guy is a douche after you've done some proper homework.
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Part 1) He would have known about his huge penalties if he READ THE TERMS AND SERVICES or even made sure when he contacted them what the rates would be over there.

Part 2) Just because a lot of people decide to not read the 20-70 page terms and services document doesn't mean this is a widespread predatory problem. It means we as Americans are too fucking lazy to read the LEGAL DOCUMENT we are agreeing to. I know I haven't read it.

Part 3) If it had been my family member or friend I would have said "Thats fucking insane, you should have read your Plan/TOS to make sure you weren't gonna get screwed over there, call them and see if you can get it reduced." Doesn't matter who it happens to, ignorance is widespread.

Part 4) Shit has changed in the past 30-50 years. Adapt.

Part 5) None of these terms really have that much play in this scenario. It's only predatory if you don't play by the fairly simple rules. I've never had a bill that was more than 10 dollars above my plan because I know what my plan is and what I can do with it. So unless this guy was lied to, stolen from, or intentionally misled, then yea, he's kind of a douche for trying to make a big deal out of it.

Do I think he should pay $8000 of that? No of course not that's ridiculous. But I bet he called in screaming and swearing his mind out and got told to fuck off. If he had called in calmly and said something like "I called previously and was led to believe that I had put international roaming on my plan......."(CALMLY), he probably would have gotten it knocked down to a very reasonable amount.

I'm not saying that this scenario isn't totally fucked up, but I'm also saying that people should take some personal responsibility and not blame everything on corporations, the government, or big brother conspiracies.
 
One thing about the iPhone is that it warns you of massive international charges. You have to toggle a feature called 'Data Roaming' on. At that point, it's the douchebag's responsibility. Yes, the business tactics are predatory, but that doesn't mean the consumer has no individual responsibility.

I've had 3 different data-enabled mobile devices over the last year, and ALL of them have some sort of warning or another about international data roaming.

Nevermind the fact that this sort of thing is covered by the terms of service that he agreed to.

This article glossed over the facts completely and took a one-sided stance on an issue caused by one man's personal stupidity.
 
What a dope. Even my 69 year old father in law knows you need to get international roaming for wireless devices.
 
At least they aren't Citibank.

I just got an updated fine print notice that I would be charged a fee if I don't use the credit card more frequently.
 
for $8000 I could probably call nasa and pay to bounce the signal off a fuckin satellite for a couple hours...
 
bencorn said:
Part 2) Just because a lot of people decide to not read the 20-70 page terms and services document doesn't mean this is a widespread predatory problem. It means we as Americans are too fucking lazy to read the LEGAL DOCUMENT we are agreeing to. I know I haven't read it.
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No offense, but you're delusional. A week ago I went to download an app from the app store on my iphone and it told me I had to accept the terms and agreements before I could... it was over 120 pages long. Now that's bad, but what's worse is it actually let me agree without forcing me to manually read all 120 pages... don't tell me it's all the consumers fault, unless you're a fucking robot you can't read 120 pages in under 5 seconds. All I had to do was scroll down and click I accept... why not FORCE me to wait at LEAST 10 minutes before I could accept since it would at least take 10 minutes to read 120 pages (12 pages a minute is VERY fast).

These corporations know people won't read it and they take advantage of it, hell at 120 pages I'd actually argue they do it on purpose, they can effectively craft the agreement in whatever manner suits them knowing full well they'll get away with it and the "sheeople" will accept it and ask for seconds...
 
From the article: “We do our best to have warnings in place but we are looking into it to see if there’s some way we can help out.” BULLSHIT.

SIMPLE solution: when a user enters roaming areas, have a simple text message saying "you've entered paris france, data roaming here will be charged at a rate of $61.50/mb for you. This is equivalent one mp3, 10 web pages, 200 emails."

I GUARANTEE if the user was required to accept the rate before allowing the phone to actually download no one would do it. But it's predatory tactics, it's like a drug dealer telling you drugs are bad and you will get heavily addicted before he sells you heroine.. they just don't do that.
 
RyanLucier said:
No offense, but you're delusional. A week ago I went to download an app from the app store on my iphone and it told me I had to accept the terms and agreements before I could... it was over 120 pages long. Now that's bad, but what's worse is it actually let me agree without forcing me to manually read all 120 pages... don't tell me it's all the consumers fault, unless you're a fucking robot you can't read 120 pages in under 5 seconds. All I had to do was scroll down and click I accept... why not FORCE me to wait at LEAST 10 minutes before I could accept since it would at least take 10 minutes to read 120 pages (12 pages a minute is VERY fast).

These corporations know people won't read it and they take advantage of it, hell at 120 pages I'd actually argue they do it on purpose, they can effectively craft the agreement in whatever manner suits them knowing full well they'll get away with it and the "sheeople" will accept it and ask for seconds...
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Dude, you're supposed to have a lawyer next to you when you sign those things your know.





Anyway, regarding laws (or upcoming laws) regarding people's right to the internet, would that affect a situation like this?
 
Oddly enough, when I take my phone overseas I get a text from ATT telling me that I will incur increased rates.

And no I don't have an iPhone, just an unlocked Nokia N85.

I find the roaming rates asininely insane. This case was a huge bit of this guy taking no steps to prevent racking up charges. I live on hotel wi-fi and Skype whenever I'm overseas.
 
eh, tell me where at&t states that using an iphone overseas can result in an $8000 phone bill. I mean they can say that you might incur higher data charges. Ok, my bill is $100. I guess by higher data charges that might be an extra $200 tacked on. Maybe can live with that. But an extra $7900? No. And why doesn't the phone company shut him off? If you have a $100 line of credit at a bank, are they going to let you run it up to $8000? You can sure as hell bet they will not. All this is standard operating procedures for cell phone companies. Many people will complain and get reductions. Others will pay out the money. Huge profits, for essentially nothing. Hell, your data costs are virtually nothing to send that much data over the internet to anywhere in europe. But put it on a network, and suddenly the costs jump up to $8000? that is bullshit.
 
at least he can't say he had any reception issues. :eek: :p but I agree $8000 in three days.. he prob was on some sex line with a few a bunch of people on conference 24/7 at that rate.
 
Wow, it just baffles me when the same people who complain that the government is ripping them off by taxing them have no problem with turning around, spreading their asses, and letting corporations pound them silly.

I mean, seriously, corporations should be able to legally rip people off all they want without any fear of repercussion?

Why don't we just decriminalize all thievery and robbery? Corporate entities shouldn't be the only ones to get the privilege.
 
to everyone saying it is solely the dude's fault and he should have just read the TOS I ask this, how many of you read word for word and remembered all the specifics of the last piece of software you installed before you scrolled down and click agree, somehow I doubt any and so if said TOS says it's okay for the program to charge you $1 every time you execute it or something like that it would be your own fault that you're being charged by your own logic. While it is well know international calls without a plan cost a ton I'm pretty sure noone would expect anything like 8k for a couple hours, and companies know that and hide numbers in fine print just hoping to wring money out of people who really feel the need to make calls
 
You mean you have to pay higher rates when out of your service area?!? So surprising. Also, on the iphone internatonal data roaming is off by default. You have to specifically turn it on.
 
Oldie said:
While I agree it was the guys fault, it's hard to justify the price these companies charge for out of network usage. The costs of supplying the bandwidth aren't even remotely high enough to justify a $7000 bill for 130MB. For $7,000, I could pay to have someone buy a flash drive, download the content, fly from the United States to France, stay in a nice hotel, and deliver it in a rented car, and still not spend that much.
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LMAO!
 
jiminator said:
eh, tell me where at&t states that using an iphone overseas can result in an $8000 phone bill. I mean they can say that you might incur higher data charges. Ok, my bill is $100. I guess by higher data charges that might be an extra $200 tacked on. Maybe can live with that. But an extra $7900? No. And why doesn't the phone company shut him off? If you have a $100 line of credit at a bank, are they going to let you run it up to $8000? You can sure as hell bet they will not. All this is standard operating procedures for cell phone companies. Many people will complain and get reductions. Others will pay out the money. Huge profits, for essentially nothing. Hell, your data costs are virtually nothing to send that much data over the internet to anywhere in europe. But put it on a network, and suddenly the costs jump up to $8000? that is bullshit.
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It took me around 5 minutes on google when planning an international trip to find out both what the roaming data charges are and how to avoid them. This guy is an adult, ignorance is not an excuse.
 
UrielDagda said:
Wow, it just baffles me when the same people who complain that the government is ripping them off by taxing them have no problem with turning around, spreading their asses, and letting corporations pound them silly.

I mean, seriously, corporations should be able to legally rip people off all they want without any fear of repercussion?

Why don't we just decriminalize all thievery and robbery? Corporate entities shouldn't be the only ones to get the privilege.
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The difference is I can avoid all those fees. I don't pay ridiculous phone bills, credit card APRs, or over-limit fees because I am responsible with my finances.
 
cthulhuiscool said:
to everyone saying it is solely the dude's fault and he should have just read the TOS I ask this, how many of you read word for word and remembered all the specifics of the last piece of software you installed before you scrolled down and click agree, somehow I doubt any and so if said TOS says it's okay for the program to charge you $1 every time you execute it or something like that it would be your own fault that you're being charged by your own logic. While it is well know international calls without a plan cost a ton I'm pretty sure noone would expect anything like 8k for a couple hours, and companies know that and hide numbers in fine print just hoping to wring money out of people who really feel the need to make calls
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That argument is flawed, just because be the majority of people DON'T read the TOS doesn't mean people should get a free pass for not reading it. I do agree that the charges are outrageous and shouldn't be that high, however the TOS are there for a reason and the number of people that truly read them is irrelevant.

The real issue is what these companies are able to get away with charging people.
 
RyanLucier said:
No offense, but you're delusional. A week ago I went to download an app from the app store on my iphone and it told me I had to accept the terms and agreements before I could... it was over 120 pages long. Now that's bad, but what's worse is it actually let me agree without forcing me to manually read all 120 pages... don't tell me it's all the consumers fault, unless you're a fucking robot you can't read 120 pages in under 5 seconds. All I had to do was scroll down and click I accept... why not FORCE me to wait at LEAST 10 minutes before I could accept since it would at least take 10 minutes to read 120 pages (12 pages a minute is VERY fast).

These corporations know people won't read it and they take advantage of it, hell at 120 pages I'd actually argue they do it on purpose, they can effectively craft the agreement in whatever manner suits them knowing full well they'll get away with it and the "sheeople" will accept it and ask for seconds...
Click to expand...


I have never in my life read the TOS on my phone, my software, anything. Am I going to blame the company if I agree to something and get fucked? No, its MY FAULT for not reading it. I agree, they write them intentionally long so that no one reads them, but when you get fucked it's your own fault for not reading it. It is a legal document you are agreeing to. Why should a company have to FORCE you to be responsible and read it? Take some self-accountability and stop blaming everyone else.
 
@ bencorn

1) There is current legislation, many many proposed changes I believe right now that aims to simplify EULA / ToS etc that will allow consumers to understand clearly what any extra charges will be. These large corporations purposely use "fine print" and excessive amounts of legal back talk to hide this predatory behavior.

2) The truth is at the end of the day, people do not want or should not have to read 10 - 50 - 100 pages of legal terms. Why do these companies not just simply stat, upfront all possible charges covering any type of senior? The answer is, they don't have to. What happened to running an honest business and good well toward men?

Side note: I remember a congressional hearing I watched on C-Span 3 years ago. Testimonial was given by some whistle blowers from the credit card industry and they acknowledge full well that the companies they worked for PURPOSELY buried certain high fees / charges / special interest rates deep in their TOS.

3) Wrong, had this happened to your wife / husband, out of work father, mother who might have health issues or a kid in college, you would NOT have this attitude that clearly is pandering to a skewed point you are trying to make. I can think of 10 or 20 questions I can ask you right now that I know the answers to that would make you contradict your statement.

4) You are absolutely right, a lot has change over the last 30 years. And people are adapting, whole families in fact that are being forced into foreclosure in record numbers by loans they were given that the banks KNEW they could not re-pay. Same difference here.

5) Again, you are just wrong. More self pandering to an already skewed understanding of what this is really about. All these terms absolutely have everything to do with this guy. nit just this man, but all of us. With all due respect, I wish you had the wisdom to see this yourself.

An $8,000 dollar bill is just not right, period. There is nothing anyone could say or do that is going to make anyone with common sense and decency to think otherwise.
 
SixFootDuo said:
@ bencorn
.
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Actually common sense would cause a person to be responsible for their own actions and to make sure that they aren't getting screwed over. I haven't once said that I wouldn't have been pissed by the outcome. I have said repeatedly that the person is responsible for this, not the company. I would absolutely be pissed/devastated if my wife came home from a trip and had an $8000 cell phone bill. But at the same time I would never let it happen because I would have checked my cell phone plan, and called a service representative, and made damn sure about foreign charges. I don't have this distorted view you are attempting to prove I have, I simply am saying that people need to take some self accountability for their actions and not blame everything on everyone else. I mean if he was intentionally misled or lied to by a rep, then I feel for him and he should have this fee waved completely. If he was ignorant and didn't try to find out the information, then he deserves to pay a huge fee. $8000 dollar huge, fuck no. Couple hundred bucks I would say is fair. Or at least allow him to buy the international plan for that month.
 
SixFootDuo said:
5) Again, you are just wrong. More self pandering to an already skewed understanding of what this is really about. All these terms absolutely have everything to do with this guy. nit just this man, but all of us. With all due respect, I wish you had the wisdom to see this yourself.

An $8,000 dollar bill is just not right, period. There is nothing anyone could say or do that is going to make anyone with common sense and decency to think otherwise.
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Why don't you still to the facts instead of insulting people. It serves your argument no purpose whatsoever. Just because someone disagrees with your opinion doesn't make thing indecent. Just because you start off with "with all due respect" doesn't mean you are giving anyone any.
 
He may not be the smartest dude in the world but I still don't think it's right for phone companies to slap him with an 8000$ charge from the usual 75$ a month (or however much he pays) without saying anything. 8000$ is a pretty large amount of money and you bet your ass that most of that 8000$ is going to be pure profit for the company at the consumer's expense. So look at it this way:
Guy has to pay 8000$ which can pretty much ruin his life for awhile. He received no warning his bill was going to be this high when it was normally around 75$* a month.
Company didn't incur anywhere near 8000$ in operating costs.
Company profits a hefty amount.

I don't believe that this is right in the least bit. Not the sharpest tool in the shed but he doesn't deserve to be robbed legally.
 
bencorn said:
Actually common sense would cause a person to be responsible for their own actions and to make sure that they aren't getting screwed over. I haven't once said that I wouldn't have been pissed by the outcome. I have said repeatedly that the person is responsible for this, not the company. I would absolutely be pissed/devastated if my wife came home from a trip and had an $8000 cell phone bill. But at the same time I would never let it happen because I would have checked my cell phone plan, and called a service representative, and made damn sure about foreign charges. I don't have this distorted view you are attempting to prove I have, I simply am saying that people need to take some self accountability for their actions and not blame everything on everyone else. I mean if he was intentionally misled or lied to by a rep, then I feel for him and he should have this fee waved completely. If he was ignorant and didn't try to find out the information, then he deserves to pay a huge fee. $8000 dollar huge, fuck no. Couple hundred bucks I would say is fair. Or at least allow him to buy the international plan for that month.
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Then are are an exception rather than the norm. It's comical how often you will come across a 1 page legal print that can be summed up into one sentence. I've always thought that burying facts in a pile of legal mumbo jumbo was standard fare.
 
The guy should have looked up his data roaming charges and taken personal responsibility to assure he didn't get raped. At the same time, there should be regulation to prevent said raping from being business as usual, even if that regulation only requires the warning message to specifically state the rate you will be charged.

People have a responsibility to be informed. The corporation that plans on taking your money in exchange for services has the responsibility to proactively inform their customers, and not just in a 100-page legalese document.
 
@ bencorn

With all due respect, you really are missing the point here.

At some point, along the way, this guy did not know he would end up with an $8,000 dollar bill for 120 mins of usage or whatever the circumstance were.

Yes, many people do know in advance the pitfalls of traveling abroad and that the costs to them could be astronomical if they do not plan ahead.

But just because a few people are wise enough to watch for this type of predatory behavior and plan ahead doesn't make it all right.

There was a story recently where someone ran up a $15k or 25k bill using their phone on a cruise ship. Once the cruise ship was in international waters, the cruise line I think, and I could be wrong had an agreement with much higher rate cell carrier and this guy and many others ended up facing totally unfair huge cell phone bills. You think they went up to Capt. Stubins cabin and asked to see the ToS? Doubtful.

And I totally agree with you about being responsible. No one is going to argue with you on that point. But please understand that not everyone has the wisdom, the time, the energy, and in some cases, the money to avoid these predatory tactics companies use to gouge everyday people. That is why there needs to be safeguards ( laws ) that protect consumers in the form of truthful disclosure as to their fees and charges.
 
masterosok said:
That argument is flawed, just because be the majority of people DON'T read the TOS doesn't mean people should get a free pass for not reading it. I do agree that the charges are outrageous and shouldn't be that high, however the TOS are there for a reason and the number of people that truly read them is irrelevant.

The real issue is what these companies are able to get away with charging people.
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Ya I worded my point wrong, what I mean is pretty much noone reads the mass of text so I feel it should be the companies duty to highlight key points such as that if they wish to even fake that it's fair. I believe there was a similar case such as this with text messaging or minutes or something saying the companies are required to give the consumer fair warning as they go over minutes or something so they dont get overcharged, it seems to me it should be the same case and they have to accept the fees similar to an atm charge or something, just my .02
 
RyanLucier said:
No offense, but you're delusional. A week ago I went to download an app from the app store on my iphone and it told me I had to accept the terms and agreements before I could... it was over 120 pages long. Now that's bad, but what's worse is it actually let me agree without forcing me to manually read all 120 pages... don't tell me it's all the consumers fault, unless you're a fucking robot you can't read 120 pages in under 5 seconds. All I had to do was scroll down and click I accept... why not FORCE me to wait at LEAST 10 minutes before I could accept since it would at least take 10 minutes to read 120 pages (12 pages a minute is VERY fast).

These corporations know people won't read it and they take advantage of it, hell at 120 pages I'd actually argue they do it on purpose, they can effectively craft the agreement in whatever manner suits them knowing full well they'll get away with it and the "sheeople" will accept it and ask for seconds...
Click to expand...

Meh, I always skim through all of the TOS and EULA and just read the section that defines our use policy. That's usually just a page or two. The rest of it is legal mumbo jumbo.
 
If they could have provided him a similar amount of data for $200 if he had changed his plan ahead of time (which was mentioned in the story), obviously the data didn't cost them anywhere near $8000.

This would be like a bank charging you a $7000 fee for overdrafting your checking account.
 
lathode said:
Is this only being posted here because he has an iPhone? I've seen much larger bills from other carriers that do not have the iPhone.
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Well yeah. It is practically Steve raison d'être.

Iphone breaks when dropped
Apple killed another Foxconn worker
Jobs email is fake
Jobs email is real
Jobs had a dump this morning...
...

The ultimate cell overcharge was the guy with the $27000 roaming charge, while he was on a cruise ship that hadn't actually left port yet. :eek:
http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/legacy/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=63222417.blog
 
ibot=ifail

He apparently knew that there would be international roaming charges because he called, but he either didn’t bother to verify what the actual charges where, or how they would affect his bill. Listening to streaming radio while roaming is just nuts.

As for cruise ship charges, yes they are expensive, but it still cheaper than using the ships phone.

I was overseas for a couple weeks, and my phone bill didn’t go up one penny. I turned off the cell radio on my blackberry and just used free WiFi spots for email. We also went on a cruise for 10 days. Cost was around $25 for 60 minutes of WiFi. 60 minutes was enough to sync emails on both my blackberry for work and my laptop each night for 10 days. It's real simple; turn on WiFi, sync your emails, turn off WiFi, answer emails off-line, turn on WiFi, sync, turn off WiFi. I even sent emails with several photo's attached.

I did call my cell provider, and signed up for international roaming (no charge) just in case of an emergency.
It would have meant lower charges if we actually had used the phone.
 
Yes, such stupidity is effing criminal, but idiots are free roaming everywhere.
 
Snowdog said:
Well yeah. It is practically Steve raison d'être.

Iphone breaks when dropped
Apple killed another Foxconn worker
Jobs email is fake
Jobs email is real
Jobs had a dump this morning...
...

The ultimate cell overcharge was the guy with the $27000 roaming charge, while he was on a cruise ship that hadn't actually left port yet. :eek:
http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/legacy/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=63222417.blog
Click to expand...

That was posted I think. The guy was watching the Superbowl on the ship while unknowingly using the ship's international tower rather than the towers on land where he was docked. Oops!
 
Saying it's this guys fault might be reasonable if they had let him rack up 100 bucks or something before pulling the plug, but 8k is highway robbery. I hate when this kind of crap happens and people say "well if he would have just read the 12 page contract he signed he would have seen right there on page 9, section 2, clause 3 plain as day, it's all his fault, not the companies". Bullshit, these companies know exactly what they are doing. They prey on people who are too busy, too trusting or too stupid to know all the rules and "gotchas".

The government could easily put a stop to this too if they wanted. The same way overdraft coverage is now an opt in for your bank account you could make over contract billing an opt in for cellphones. Just put a simple limit on it, say once you've gone over your contract by 100 bucks they pull the plug unless you have specifically requested they don't. Simple, problem solved.
 
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