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How To Rack Up $28,000 In Roaming Without Leaving the US
pmbasehore writes "While waiting for his cruise ship to depart, a man decided to use his AT&T wireless card and Slingbox account to watch the Bears vs. Lions football game. When he got his bill, he was slammed with $28,067.31 in 'International Roaming' charges, even though he never left American soil. The bill was finally dropped to $290.65, but only after the media got involved." He might have left the soil (the story says he was already aboard the ship), but shouldn't the dock count?
He might have left the soil (the story says he was already aboard the ship), but shouldn't the dock count?
Which means it is likely he was in internal waters (description here) so unless his contract had a specific clause phrasing "Internal Waters" to be a roaming area then I would assume it is no different than boating out on a lake in Kansas and not subject to roaming charges. Even $290 seems more than a bit steep & unfair.
I'd pay it and change providers but if he's upset, there's always small claims court.
My work here is dung.
The correct answer is ZERO. He was not roaming and there should be no additional charges, other than his monthly access fee.
Even if his usage exceeded what is acceptable for AT&T, there is no provision in the contracts that allow them to assess that kind of penalty.
I would fight it still.
I wonder if there is any danger of this happening to anyone using a mobile near the coast?
When I used to live 5 miles from the Canadian boarder I would hear nightmare stories like this all the time. People, despite being in the US would find that their cell was roaming to a Canadian tower because it had a better signal. It was bad then, even before data. Now I can only imagine how horrible it must be.
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-insider5nov05
I know this article is a bit old and this might have changed already.
1.) Why is this guy paying ANYTHING?
2.) How could a few hours of international data service cost that much ?
I mean, he was watching the Bears vs. the Lions. No network should be forced to even touch that traffic.
IANAL... But I play one on
The wireless provider obviously needs to do something about how much credit they issue people. Nobody is going to pay a $28,000 bill for cell phone usage.
There's a certain segment of people around here that like to play up "personal responsibility". What they often fail to address is the responsibility works both ways. Letting someone rack up a bill on the order of 1000x normal is utterly irresponsible of the provider.
AccountKiller
As much as I hate AT&T, this just isn't their fault this time.
Actually it is their fault. AT&T disables the ability of their phones to display a proper roaming banner. Regardless of which network you are on your phone will always say "AT&T". On the other hand, T-Mobile will show the name of the actual network you are connected to, i.e: "T-Mobile", "AT&T", "Cellular One", etc, etc. Given that AT&T removes your ability to know when your phone is roaming I would say that it's very much their fault when people rack up roaming charges by accident.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Agreed. As a matter of law consumers should be able to set limits on any services they contract.
My cell phone provider offers an allowance "service" for a few bucks a month. It is crazy that you should have to pay to limit your exposure.
Consumers should be asked what their maximum monthly bill should be when they sign up for service, and they should be able to change this at any time by calling the provider. Any fee in excess of this amount would not be collectable, and it couldn't be applied to subsequent months. The phone company should give you a warning and then drop service when you hit your limit. Calls to emergency numbers like 911 would be exempt (most providers already provide free 911 access even if a phone doesn't otherwise have a plan at all).
Companies that fail to comply should be fined out the wazoo and injunctions should be placed on credit reporting agencies to withold any negative reports from the provider. There is just no excuse for billing people $30k, $300, or even $3 for a service a consumer did not ask for.
From the article, he was billed at 2 cents/kbyte, which is $20/Mbyte. Based on this rate, and the bill amount of $28,067, he used about 1.4GB of bandwidth. The article says he watched a single game of American football, so assuming that took about 3 hours, the connection speed is about a megabyte/sec, which means that it was billed at... $1,200 per minute.
Under common law, if you request a service for which payment is customary, you are obligated to pay any, even if you were not told that payment was expected or what the price is. The common example is that if you go to a restaurant and order food, you incur a debt even if you never looked at the menu. However, this is only the case when the price charged is "reasonable". A restaurant cannot unexpectedly give you a $1000 bill after you have ordered, even if that price was printed on the menu, and expect payment. While sellers have considerable leeway in defining what is a reasonable price, no court could possibly find that $1,200/minute was a reasonable price for consumer data service anywhere. Therefore, he is not obligated to pay, and if AT&T took him to court over it, they would lose.
This is ATT's fault. Pure and simple. Unless somebody puts it in writing that they want to be able to spend $30k in international roaming, then they shouldn't be able to charge it. That is an amazingly outrageous sum. And then bargaining it down to $6000 is even worse - at least the initial $30k bill was automated, but the $6000 bill was deliberately offered by a human being.
It seems like the cell phone company MO is to trick their consumer into amazingly high bills, and then offering them ten cents on a dollar, accepting only a 5,000% markup instead of a 50,000% markup.
By law consumers should have the right to limit their monthly bills. If a provider delivers more service than a consumer budgeted for then the bill is on them.
Here in Victoria BC if i am down on the beach facing Seattle, i'll get a txt message saying "welcome to the US!" then if i use my blackberry i am charged international rates. i called Rogers there is "nothing they can do"
it IS a technical problem, one that works out in the cellphone companies favor though, so they don't really have much interest in fixing it i imagine.
I had an almost identical experience with Verizon assuring me (sales rep & store manager at the physical store + Verizon servicedroid on the phone) that Canada is included in the plan I chose. The *reason* I chose that plan was to give a 2nd phone to one of my associates, so she could talk to partners in Canada. We got the phones, she started talking to folks in Canada, I checked the account weekly to make sure there are no extra chages (being a responsible customer and all that).
Next month, I get a neat little SMS stating "Your Verizon bill is ready online... balance is $ 3,479.00". Holy $%^&. Their excuse was that they had no idea those charges were accumulating, and that's why they didn't show up in my account (which I was checking weekly). OK, I understand a delay of 24-48 hours... possibly a week... but a MONTH? What are they using for billing info transmission, pack mules???
It took 17 phone calls totaling over 9 hours to sort it out & reduce it to around $ 700 (back-dating an international plan, etc.). Which I paid, and vowed to NEVER deal with Verizon again.
So, it's not only AT&T that plays merry hell with billing practices, other carriers are guilty of that too.
I would like to ask Verizon 2 rhetorical questions:
1.) What's the point of having an online account system that doesn't show international charges - not a DAY later, not a WEEK later, but only for the next billing period? I was especially amused by the "Top 10 Most Expensive Calls" feature - which was $ 0.00 every time I checked.
2.) Why would multiple people in the company LIE about a particular plan feature to a customer who explicitly states that they will definitely use the heck out of that feature? They're setting themselves up for problems.
Verizon: can you hear THIS now? Jackasses.