AT&T Charges $750 For One Minute of International Data Roaming

reifman (786887) writes 'Last week, AT&T shut down my data service after I turned roaming on in Canada for one minute to check Google maps. I wasn't able to connect successfully but they reported my phone burned through 50 MB and that I owed more than $750. Google maps generally require 1.3 MB per cell. They adamantly refused to reactivate my U.S. data service unless I 'agreed' to purchase an international data roaming package to cover the usage. They eventually reversed the charges but it seems that the company's billing system had bundled my U.S. data usage prior to the border crossing with the one minute of international data roaming.'

Comments

Point Roberts

[onkelonkel]

There is a tiny "Island" of America called Point Roberts at the extreme NW corner of Washington State. The Canadians who live right along that border are forever fighting with their cell providers to take off roaming charges because the phone will often pick up the AT&T cell tower on the US side instead of the Telus (or whatever) tower on the Canadian side. The carriers seem quite helpless to fix the problem; some people I know there have to get roaming charges taken off every month.

Re:happened to me too

[CastrTroy]

That's the trick though. They charge you $700. You call them, they charge you $70. You are happy because they dropped "most of" the charges. Really they should have only charged you $7 in the first place. They made themselves look like good guys, while at the same time overcharging you. And for every once in a while there's somebody who doesn't call in to get the charges reduced and just pays the bill (like a corporate account), and they make a huge amount of money for nothing.