Mythbusters' Adam Savage Discovers Insane Roaming Fees: $11,000 iPhone Bill For A Few Hours Surfing
from the BUSTED dept
Every few months or so there's an article somewhere about an insane phone bill that someone gets because they took their phone out of the country without recognizing the insanity that is international roaming rates. This time, it appears to be Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage, who's been doing a bit of traveling lately. He was recently up in Canada, and used his iPhone to do a little web surfing. And now he got the bill. Apparently AT&T wants somewhere around $11,000 for Adam's surfing and have turned off his phone until he pays. Now there will be some who say that he should have read the fine print, but considering just how often these sorts of stories pop up, at some point it's worth noting that the fine print isn't working. And... even if you grant the "fine print" premise, it's hard for anyone to figure out how these international roaming rates make any sense whatsoever. They're so far off the charts as to be unbelievable.Anyway... next week on Mythbusters... the insanity of mobile phone bills? Can we see Jamie and Adam try to decipher hidden fees, while Grant, Tory and Kari search for the elusive accurate mobile phone coverage map? Maybe Buster can figure out what the real limits are on unlimited data plans? Hmm... maybe not.
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Filed Under: adam savage, data, international roaming, mythbusters, roaming, text messages
Companies: at&t
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How to use explosives to replicate the myth
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Re: How to use explosives to replicate the myth
or to destroy the phone/contract
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLxq90xmYUs
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Re: Re: How to use explosives to replicate the myth
YES! But only if we make the iPhone 10x real size. Just watch this!
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Solution
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# Sorry, bit of explanation: device in question wasn't my phone, it was the AT&T usb connect Mercury modem.half a minute ago from web
#
And I got the "data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb". About to try to explain the difference to them. Sigh.6 minutes ago from web
#
They're claiming I uploaded/downloaded 9 million kilobytes (9 gigs) while in Canada. Frakking impossible.7 minutes ago from web
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Re:
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I love his twitter history...
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Wow
Oh, and I am a PC too.
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Re: Wow
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Re: Re: Wow
Your prepaid phone sucks. That wouldn't happen to me on my prepaid AT&T phone. I have no contract with them, I bought the phone and service with cash and my name is nowhere attached to it or the service.
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Re: Re: Wow
I have no love for prepaid, but I use it in the EU when I travel to limit the roaming bill damage.
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Re: Re: Wow
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http://consumerist.com/220874/verizon-still-cant-count
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I wonder how the contract could actually hold up if it were taken to court. Anyway, if I were him, I would walk into an AT&T store, on camera for the show, and rip them a new one. Then toss the iphone at the guy behind the counter and whip out an Android phone and record his reaction.
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Re: Throw the phone at him
I really hate people who get mad at the "kid behind the counter" when they have issues with a company/product.
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Oh, yeah... and they cut him off (why this is probably good)
Apparently they're not doing that any more. I know Adam's angry right now, but keeping an $11,000 bill from becoming a $100,000 bill is probably a Good Thing(tm). Still, it doesn't solve the root matter of why these charges are so insanely high in the first place.
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Re: Oh, yeah... and they cut him off (why this is probably good)
A real customer-oriented company would allow the customer to set the cutoff limit when setting up the account.
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Re: Re: Oh, yeah... and they cut him off (why this is probably good)
"Hey, did you know you just ran up a $400 charge? Did you intend to do that? OK, thanks."
Not so tough to do.
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Re: Re: Re: Oh, yeah... and they cut him off (why this is probably good)
http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=170544
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Re: Re: Re: Oh, yeah... and they cut him off (why this is probably good)
80% of storage quota exceeded on Picasa Web Albums
Hi Picasa Web Albums User,
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Best Regards,
The Picasa Team
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No Love
This leads me to my other concern: it is waaaay too easy to spend money over cellphones. On my first cellphone, I went ringtone shopping. I thought I was in the "free" sections (I NEVER once selected a "purchase" button/link), but I had $60 charges on my bill next month from 3rd-party vendors. There needs to be some consumer-protection in this area because too many vendors outright LIE about stuff being free and whatnot.
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Re: No Love
It depends on what market you're talking about, but that certainly seems to be the case with the phone industry. On land lines the local carrier usually has a complete monopoly. With wireless there still isn't anywhere near enough competition due to gov't restrictions. I think stories like this kind of prove that.
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Re: Re: No Love
The US has the MOST effective mobile phone competition in the entire world *where it applies to minutes of voice use*. We pay less per minute, have larger "buckets", than the rest of the world.
The US has basically very limited competition for any ancillary service on mobile phones: roaming, ringtones, data traffic, LBS services, etc.
The reason is that people tend to shop for a mobile phone by comparing "anytime minutes", and estimating their monthly spend. Because of this, this is the only place carriers aggressively compete.
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Re: Re: Re: No Love
It's way way way lower than anything in USA.
Our text plans are almost free, and phone charge is peanuts.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: No Love
In Japan, the average price per minute of voice is in the 20 cent US range. In the US it is sub 7 cents. Here's some data to show that I have a clue: http://www.gsmap.org/wp-content/uploads/files/price%20per%20minute%20trends037165.pdf
http://find articles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DUJ/is_11_104/ai_n27561778/
Sorry the data is old, but the arguments are still valid. If this has changed drastically in the last year, let me know. But in the US, people just use more voice minutes in their plans, lowering averge cost per min:
http://mobileanalystwatch.blogspot.com/2006/01/telephia-cell-phone-usage-highest_18.html
http://blogs.dialogic.com/2008/08/why-the-danes-text-while-the-us-talks.html
"Our text plans are almost free".
Re-read my post. I said that the US carriers compete viciously on voice minutes, and pretty much nothing else.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Love
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Interesting how he left that bit out, isn't it?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No Love
Irrelevant.
The calculations as done by the research firm Wireless Intelligence, and in my first link just above, work as follows: take the average total cost of voice service in a month, and then divide it by the average total number of minutes that the phone was in use in a month. This results in cost per minute.
You guys accusing me of subterfuge didn't even consider the research. It wasn't done on a "What's the market price of a minute" basis, where free incoming was excluded. It was done on a Total cost/Total minutes basis.
Interesting how you both misunderstood the math, isn't it?
What is interesting about "incoming free" or Calling Party Pays (CPP) is the net effect on Minutes of Use (MoU). In most of the world, where CPP is the service model, MoUs are much lower. This is because EVERY call a wireless customer initiates incurs a real cost to them. And EVERY time a landline calls a phone, there is a cost of some ~25 cents per minute. The net effect is much less calling. This is one of the main reasons the US has more MoUs, and why our cost per minute is lower.
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We need a law...
While I'm not a "we need a law" type person, we really do need one in this case as Cell Phone Companies just don't get it. They can tell me where I am within 30 feet but they can't figure out a solution so folks don't end up with huge data bills when traveling? They can't figure out that the average cell phone user would expect that if their phone has charges that exceed their typically yearly fees that something MIGHT BE WRONG - REALLY?
You want to put something in fine print, put this, "If your billable usage is more than three times your normal monthly bill we will temporarily disconnect any non emergency services until we can verify/authorize with you that these services/charges are being made knowingly by you and are correct." Add in an opt-out feature and you are set.
Freedom
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Re: We need a law...
Or fees that exceed several months' salary...
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Re: We need a law...
They should have read that contract before they signed it.
While I'm not a "we need a law" type person, we really do need one in this case as Cell Phone Companies just don't get it.
We do have laws. Laws that say you are obligated to fulfill the terms of your contract. Phone companies understand that just fine.
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Re: Re: We need a law...
As to laws saying you're obligated blah blah blah? Laws aren't currently regulating these enormous charges as they should. There is no consumer protection in place, and there should be. Let's also not forget the tale of two agents. One will say that your rate is 0.015 cents per kb. The next will tell you that it's 1.5 cents ($0.015), and yet neither is what's being charged. In this case it looks more along the lines of $1.50.
Seriously, if you're going to be an ass about things, put your name on it. Man up.
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Re: Re: Re: We need a law...
That's what lawyers are for. If you don't exercise due diligence (such as obtaining legal advice) before entering into a contract, then you deserve what you get. No one is forcing you to sign that contract (or if they are, then you can probably get a court to declare it invalid).
As to laws saying you're obligated blah blah blah...
Don't like the law? Tough. Write your congressman.
Seriously, if you're going to be an ass about things, put your name on it. Man up.
There, I put my "name" on it, "Luci". Happy now? (And are you hiding some testicles under that skirt of yours?)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: We need a law...
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2008/09/washington-court-deals-a-blow-to-unconscio nable-eulas.ars
"AT&T's terms of service for long distance have been thrown out as "unconscionable" by a unanimous Supreme Court of Washington State, which determined that no reasonable individual would agree to them."
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Re:
In the EU, the EU telecom regulator started passing laws last year to put an end to it, and limiting roaming fees to a set premium over domestic fees. But we don't like regulations in the US. Good for us.
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Re: Re:
Good for "us", as long as "us" is the wireless telecom industry (of which you are a member), right?
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Re: Re: Re:
You're unlikely to find somebody who consults for telecom firms who also disagrees with them as frequently as I do. I lose gigs fairly frequently when people are trying to hire a "yes" man. But my job is to offer them good advice that supports long-term business. Fortunately, the minority of clients out there looking for honest/critical advice is enough to keep me busy.
I don't advise businesses to gouge their customers. The net result is you bill a few people $11k, they fight it. You argue back and forth, the bill gets lowered. Everyone is wasting time, the customer tells everyone they know how much they hate their thieving carrier. That's not good. Next, nobody takes their phones or data cards abroad. People go without communications to avoid the gouging, and the carriers go without the usage.
I would say the upper limit (and this isn't necessarily the right price, but the *limit* of reason) should be that a wireless service costs double abroad than it would cost for a domestic user in that country. That way, you could pay both carriers involved (the host, and your carrier) the market rate. Anything more is obscene.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://www.wirelessweek.com/article.aspx?id=170544
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
I live in Istanbul and Connecticut, US. I use 2 SIM cards for each country - T-Mobile for US, Turkcell for Turkey.
Last time I went from US to Turkey, before I had a chance to change the SIMs, my son watched a few movies on YouTube, in a week. Yesterday, I received a bill, for $25.000! Also notification that my line as well as 4 others in the package are suspended, until I pay the bill.
My monthly spending is around $100. So, I wonder why they waited so long (8 days) to decide enough is enough.
I called them, and asked why they did not stop the second day, while it is at $3000. They say they only have 50 people, they cannot keep an eye on everybody - what a BS.
They say I should deal with the operator in Turkey, they cannot do anything.
When I call the operator in Turkey (happens to be Turkcell), they say operators should not let this happen, i.e., when their customers have growing roaming charges, they shut of when it goes twice the regular bill.
It is difficult to deal with this from Turkey. Any suggestions to which consumer agency or lawyer to call?
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Silly Masnick
Not working for whom, exactly? When they pull these charge stunts, what is the % of cases in which they get paid? Seems to me that if the % is anything over 15%, the fine print is working for AT&T just fine...
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It sucks, but it would suck more having to pay that $11,000 bill.
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am i missing an eyebrow?
At least that appears to be what AT&T is doing with that .015 cents == a penny and a half. Is this that self-actualization math that was so popular with the schools about a decade ago? They actually tried that at our school. Two plus two could equal five if you felt good about the answer. Two plus two equals five only for very large values of two!
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Re: am i missing an eyebrow?
Well, to be fair, they were only 100x off. I'd like to use that math when paying my AT&T bill, however.
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Re: Re: am i missing an eyebrow?
I tried that one time just to see what would happen. I filled the check out for the usual amount, but then changed the part that said "dollars" to "cents" and changed the dollar sign to a cent sign. It went through and my bank paid it as if though it were "dollars" anyway. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to the denomination.
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Abusive telcos suck
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Assuming some base line math.
3G (3-th Generation) speed ~ 300-450 kbps (37.5-56.25) kBps
We are looking roughly ~60 hours nonstop at full bandwidth to score this kind of sweet bill. On an IPhone that is laughable, I have one and there is no way! The 3G network isn't that good to begin with...
LOL
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Reverse lottery?
Unlimited* Data plan: $70/mo
* Not valid for data connections from latitudes and longitudes that add up to prime numbers when decimal point is disregarded, which are billed at 0.015 cents
...nobody's going to figure that stuff out, and it's not going to hit most users much, if at all. But across a large enough population, there's some extra revenue to be had there.
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Re: Data Roaming On or Off:
If your not technically oriented you shouldn't be taken advantage of. How easy would it be for T-Mobile to stop service when charges exceed 200% of average, until confirmation is made that the user understands what's happening?
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I have SIM cards for Vegas area, Hong Kong, and China - never would I actually use my local sim card in a remote location, unless I really, really want a huge bill.
Maybe he can bust that myth.
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One little problem...
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data roaming
Now I am in no way a fan of cell phone providers ... they all can sodomize themselves including my own carrier located here in BC Canada.
Though he will have to pay, the amount they are asking may not be a breach of the consumer protection policy.
"Consumer protection laws are designed to ensure fair competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional protection for the weak and unable to take care of themselves. Consumer Protection laws are a form of government regulation which protects the interests of consumers. For example, a government may require businesses to disclose detailed information about products—particularly in areas where safety or public health is an issue, such as food. Consumer protection is linked to the idea of "consumer rights" (that consumers have various rights as consumers), and to the formation of consumer organizations which help consumers make better choices in the marketplace.
Consumer interests can also be protected by promoting competition in the markets which directly and indirectly serve consumers, consistent with economic efficiency, but this topic is treated in Competition law.
Consumer protection can also be asserted via non-government organizations and individuals as consumer activism."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_protection
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Re: data roaming
Well it should be a breach of something considering that the amount of bandwidth they are accusing him of using is impossible on their network (assuming Adam is correct in how long he was data roaming).
Either way you look at this, data roaming or not, AT&T is at fault here.
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If you've seen Adam Savage's Obsession video...
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Re: If you've seen Adam Savage's Obsession video...
I wouldn't be surprised if Discovery paid it themselves just to sweep it under the rug.
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So thank you very much for all the sage advice on how to turn off data on the iphone when out of country, and figuring out the data throughput of the iphone, but it's not applicable here.
Might help to read at least a couple of the comments before posting.
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Perhaps Adam should talk with Herb.
*_Rising Text Message Prices_* **
With more than 270 million subscribers, cell phones are a vital means of
communications for the
vast majority of Americans. The enormous growth in the use of cell
phones means that maintaining competition in this industry is more
important than ever.
Cell phones enable instantaneous communications for millions wherever they
are located, whether at work, at home, away
from home, in their car, or anywhere in between. Many Americans ~V over
20% -- have now discarded traditional land line phones and depend
entirely on cell phones. The ease, convenience, and universal nature
of today~Rs cell phone service would have been unimaginable just two
decades ago.
For many years as this industry developed, it was a
competition success story ~V with many rivals and vigorous price
competition. In recent years, however, the picture has changed.
Consolidation has left this industry highly concentrated. Four
national carriers now control over 90% of the cell phone market. AT?
and Verizon combine to have a market share of 60%. Consumers~R choices
have become quite limited, and price wars seem to be a thing of the
past. American consumers pay more for wireless phone service than most
other developed nations ~V an average of $506 per year in 2007.
Nowhere is the changed market for cell phones more noticeable than in
text message service. These short, instant messages delivered via cell
phones have become enormously popular. In 2008, more than one trillion
text messages were sent, more than triple the number just two years
before. As their popularity has grown, so has the price charged on a
per message basis.
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Re: Perhaps Adam should talk with Herb.
How the fuck is this possible? The great USA - the country of happiness and wealth - has less subscribers per capita than my country ? Here in Romania we have 24 mullion subscribers for a population of less that 21 million .
Maybe USA is what it's all cracked-up to be. Looks like it's more of a third-world shithole.
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Re: Re: Perhaps Adam should talk with Herb.
Fewer cell phone subscriptions than people = third world country
Expensive infrastructure for a very large (land-wise) country = third world
Last I checked, none of the above really qualify you as a third world country. I think way too many people on the internet completely forget about what actually makes a third world country.
Oh yeah, and I don't give two shits about your Romanian cell phone subscriber ratio.
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i predict doom for at&t
and if that happend hopefuly fear gets to most of the overcharging company`s
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Re:
So even though it wasn't his phone, they still turned off his phone. Sweet!
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Ralph de la vega.
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Sean
Awful.
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there is a solution
he could have gotten a MAXroam
the carriers will never play ball, roaming fees are above 30% of their net profits
Your readers can get a special discount at maxroam.com if they want to save money on their roaming fees
during the purchase use the discount code "tweet"
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The math simply does not work
And again, the math for their charges still doesn't work. An SMS message is literally 140 bytes long, costs about 25 cents to send at .10 cent per byte (that's one-tenth of a cent). As a contrast, a CDROM costs about .0000000003 cents per byte. That's 3 BILLIONTH's of a cent per byte on a CDROM. It cost's them NOTHING to transmit that SMS message as it's inserted into a blank space 140 bytes long in the transmission packet, built in for error checking that isn't used anymore.
The argument about not reading your contract or you should know better doesn't work when it is painfully obvious to someone who can do basic math that the profit margin on data transmission is hundreds of thousands times greater than the costs. And if my math is off by a decimal place or two, it's still obscenely greater than anything the banking or oil industry's do.
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Sean
Awful.
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Fine print shouldn't ever count
Also, contracts that allow the company to change fees or charges are not contracts. If the fees change the customer has the right to sue for breach of contract and terminate the contract. If the contract states they can change the fees, than it's month to month and there can be no early term fees.
Really, it's because this country loves to protect businesses that this kind of thing is allowed. Can you imagine if you treated a friend or your family like this? Businesses should be held to the same ethical standards we would expect from anyone else. It's sad that we even need a law like this but they are allowed to use fine print as a loop hole for unethical behavior all the time, which just shows that sometimes you have to regulate people to keep them honest.
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AT&T Ripoffs
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Moron in a hurry test
Anything -OVER- that should require a HUGE statement saying exactly that it is not protected by that.
The moron in a hurry test is roughly thus: If there is a moron who is just barely able to remember the details they need to sign up for the contract, like all my contact info is on a scrap of paper in my pocket, then they must still be able to accurately predict what their billing would be from any action proposed to them in relation to their contract in -laymans terms-. IE, You take a vacation to canada and your wife's mom calls you and complains at you for 3 hours, what is that on your bill when you get home?
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Nobody is asking "Why do they do this?"
AT&T has to kill these plans where you have to to think in advance, based on info you don't have, to pick the best rate. How about AUTOMATICALLY switching you to the best bulk rate when you cross each data threshold. The frugal people will still watch their Mbytes and not tax the system, and those that need data will know they will pay more, but not get ripped off. This would increase roaming revenue. Come on tellco's, get a brain!
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It was NOT an IPHONE!
------
Sorry, bit of explanation: device in question wasn't my phone, it was the AT&T usb connect Mercury modem.
------
downloading 9 gigs of data during a trip in canada? not impossible...
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Re: It was NOT an IPHONE!
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Total Scam
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Data usage
But you still pay for it. Can a AT&T apply part of the domestic bandwidth you don't use to the foreign one?
How about T-Mobil? They should have very good overseas roaming plans sinse they own their network there.
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Telco's Responsibility
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Check it out:
http://canada.com/news/MythBuster+uses+Twitter+fight+phone+bill/1740546/story.html
MythBust er uses Twitter to fight $11,000 phone bill
By Philip Ling, Canwest News Service
“Any notion that social media can’t effect real change has just been dispelled by a man who makes a living shedding light on half-truths.
Adam Savage, the co-host of the popular TV show MythBusters, has solved the problem of the unfathomable $11,000 cellphone bill he got while travelling Canada.
This time, instead of using science to find the truth, Savage turned to his Twitter account…”
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Nobody checked the math?!
1) $0.015 * 9,000,000 = $135,000.00
2) AT&T isn't interested in treating him fairly. After he's been outraged enough and run through enough bureaucracy, they'll offer to retroactively sell him 3 months of international roaming program (1 month for the month he used it, plus 2 months for those between then and the time that they get around to offering to reinstate his phone if he pays their fees.) It's a bit of a scam.
3) (I lied ;) What's to keep him from just buying another phone? (Use a different credit-card/of course. Perhaps a relative's name...)
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Re: Nobody checked the math?!
Umm, law enforcement? Stealing someone's identity (even a relative's) to commit fraud is a federal crime, you know. Maybe Adam just isn't quite ready for federal prison and I can't really blame him for that.
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Um, why should they? Of course they know where you are and when to start the roaming charges. But by the time you realize you're 30 feet within the roaming area, you've probably already racked up hundreds of dollars in profit for them.
So why stop this kind of cash cow with some kind of warning system for consumers? Sure, some people will dispute the charges, but the vast majority will simply pay it, so their brand-new hi-tech toy doesn't turn into an expensive paperweight.
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Wtf
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it ain't no myth
Can anyone offer some good advice on how to fight this!
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T-Mobile bill for $3400 for 7 days in London
The E.U. has capped these charges. Are our U.S. politicians in the phone companies pockets? You wonder why ordinary people are pissed at big business?
Contact me if you want details. I plan to sue in Small Claims Court and see if the system has any equity left in it.
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Idiots
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Verizon Scam
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