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Japanese Olympic Champion Racks Up $5,000 Bill Playing Pokemon Go in Brazil (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Japanese Olympics star has blamed Pokemon Go after being hit with a 500,000 yen (about $5,000) bill in roaming charges from his carrier. Artistic gymnast Kohei Uchimura, who won gold at the 2012 Games in London and is the reigning world champion, said he only downloaded the game after arriving in Sao Paulo to train for Rio, but quickly got hooked despite not having arranged a flat rate for data roaming. Uchimura "couldn't believe his eyes" when he saw the bill, according to the Kyodo news agency, with teammate Kenzo Shirai saying "He looked dead at the team meal that day." Even though Pokemon Go isn't particularly heavy on data and there were likely other culprits -- the game only officially came out in Brazil today, though Uchimura may have been playing the Japanese version -- roaming charges can rack up extremely quickly when you use your phone abroad for pretty much anything online.
Despite this is the digital age of free information, ISP/Phone carriers still rape and pillage wholesale where they can. I'm not a fan of big government but this is one area they need SEVERE regulation. Those fuckers are the oil barons and railroad tycoons of this century.
"The story has a happy ending, though — after Uchimura called his carrier to explain, he was let off with a flat daily charge of around $30, which is enough to make him probably wish he'd just bought a Brazilian SIM card but you know, not $5,000."
It's comical. This could have happened with Youtube, Candy Crush, etc. Is it noteworthy because a) it's the Olympics, b) it's Pokemon Go, c) it's a slow news day or d) all of the above?
Just goes to show you can be an Olympic champion and still be an abject moron... but to be fair, Japanese aren't exactly encouraged to think and function independently...
He'd better get that gold medal then.
Like bank currency conversion charges, do roaming charges actually serve any purpose?
Or is it part of just the typical "Sorry, but there's a profit to be had." mentality?
Just wait for auto drive cars to do the same even in boarder areas where you did not cross the boarder but picked up an tower on the other side.
Now roaming fees are so high you can rack up really big bill before automated systems can kick in and cut it off.
We need to force all phones to be unlocked or have an roaming cap say max $0.05 a meg.
$15-$20 a meg with rounding up add's up fast!
"Guy travels to foreign country forgets to buy international roaming plan."
What is the purpose of this story and is it really a technology issue? Rail against "the man" ? Stupid Pokemon Go user?
Yawn.
I dare any mobile network CEO to deliver invoices of that kind in person. Don't hide behind your support people and your lawyers, you usurious fuckers.
Billing practices like this should be a crime.
>>Athletes aren't usually renown for their brains and wits.
He's an "artistic gymnast," so this could have played out either way...
WTF is that?
I hate to say it, but roaming taxes are a tax on the stupid, or at least on people with pockets too deep to care, or a company account etc. It's pretty easy these days to either give your carrier a phone call before leaving, to arrange an international rate for your trip, or to buy a local sim card or throwaway phone while you are there. Or just turn off your data roaming and use wifi. It's not like ten years ago when people didn't understand data roaming. People should know these things, there are news articles once a month.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
This is the kind of thing that is told to people traveling abroad. He may not have been listening. After all he was going to the Olympics! This is just one of many learning experiences that he will go through during life. The take away is "pay attention" and prepare for all contingencies. He is now a bit wiser for it.
It shouldn't be legal to change rates based on location. Just turn it off, and require a call from the customer to turn it pn for exorbinant rates.
It's his own dumb fault.
Way to maintain the stereotype of the "dumb jock"...
A lot of people might travel internationally and just assume that their phone will serve them data at the same cost as in their home country. When we were going to go on a cruise to the Bahamas, we inquired about how much data would cost. Once we knew how much ($2 per MB), we made sure to put our phones in airplane mode for the duration of the trip, using them only to take photos that could be shared later via the ship's WiFi (which we had a set number of minutes access to) or when we returned to the US.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
all you need. just bend over.
Just wait for auto drive cars to do the same even in boarder areas where you did not cross the boarder but picked up an tower on the other side.
Now roaming fees are so high you can rack up really big bill before automated systems can kick in and cut it off.
"boarder"?
How would your car cross someone you're renting a room in your house to?
Learn to spell so you don't come across as someone who had the best decade of his life in elementary school.
I have played the game pretty heavily while on vacation. In the 6 days I had to play, I left the thing on for 5-6 hours per day. In that time Pokemon go used 100 megs of data. What kind of plan was he on that cost so much?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
You crash into someone while texting, it is the phones fault.
You break your leg jumping off a roof, it is your works fault for not paying you enough to afford to build a pool there.
You slap a kid and their dad beats the hell out of you, its the kids fault for not being in school that day.
You miss a gear street racing another car and lose, its your dads fault because he didnt teach you how to drive early enough to get enough practice
You get fired at work for sleeping, its sony's fault for making you play call of duty all night long.
this is the mental of too many humans these days..... god help us all.
Pokemon Go does not currently work in Brazil. I've seen this story spread like wildfire but no one is calling into question its accuracy. How could he rack up those charges playing a game in a country where it's not currently available? Let's stop using Pokemon Go as the de facto excuse for everything nowadays.
Yea I usually rent my car out to homeless people at night.
But I've knew someone that was charged roaming fees for being in Canada when they were across the river in Buffalo.
http://m.slashdot.org/story/309323
the game only officially came out in Brazil today, though Uchimura may have been playing the Japanese version
This doesn't matter, since the servers blocked pokemon from spawning in Brazil before today. So what exactly was he doing two weeks ago when he used all this data?
The whole mobile roaming is such a scam. I mean, with pretty much everything that you pay money for, you can always get a clearly define price *before* deciding on a purchase. And a lot of times (stores with a check-out) you can even say "it's too expensive, I don't want that". With roaming charges (both data and voice), you have to jump through hoops (i.e. call someone and wait on hold for XX minutes) to get the price, and often enough they cannot tell you because you don't always know your exact location beforehand. Why can you get that info from your phone? Right there and then, before making a call, or before incurring data charges. I'm sure it's technically possible, and if the info isn't yet sent to the phone every time to change roaming provider, I'm sure we can force it to happen via legislation. For once Congress can do some good.
Also, it's easy to call someone a moron, but when you are under a lot of pressure because you are going to compete in the Olympics, I can totally see forgetting that I'm in a different country when checking my phone and deciding to catch some 'mons and losing track of time.
Nintendo will pick up the tab in addition to paying what they owe him for shilling the game.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Not only can US T-mobile post-paid customers enjoy free international data roaming, but during this month of August they can also enjoy it at full speed in Brazil and Europe.
What a moron.
But it's about time all data (including this crap) went over the internet for free. No more fucking phone networks. Fuck 'em.
Wish I could win the lottery I'd put up some comms satellites and let people use 'em for nothing just to put these bastards out of business.
It doesn't seem as though you had a lot of experience forming words, prior to showing up here...
Looks like it's the Japanese Olympians!
(one of my research colleagues is a Japanese Brazilian, actually, it's kind of sad the current situation there)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If I were King of the World for a day, the second group of people I'd order summary executions for would be anyone that is upper mid-management or above in a cable or phone company. Fortunately for them and spammers/scammers/fraudsters/robocallers, I won't get the job of King.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
This guy's a superstar right now in Japan. As the captain of the men's gymnastics team who are gold medal hopefuls this year, he's been getting a LOT of attention from the media. No phone company in Japan would be stupid enough to pursue the $5000 fee. The guy might even have done it on purpose in order to get more publicity for himself.
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