37k = phone bill??

[Jayhall]

Alanna Fero visited North Africa for a couple of weeks and took her brand-new iPhone with her. She says that before she left, she talked to Telus several times about what sort of voice and data plan would be appropriate to avoid a huge bill.

When she learned about the total on her bill, Fero said, "I burst out laughing .... Somebody had to have hacked into it or something; there's no possible way that I, in two-and-a-half weeks, ran up a $37,000 bill."

She says she asked a Telus staff member to investigate what happened.

"They just put someone else on the phone who said, ‘No ma'am, this is your bill and Africa is expensive.'"

But Telus spokesman Shawn Hall says that the phone company noticed a spike in Fero's data use almost immediately after she left Canada. The company cut off her service, and representatives spoke to her over the phone.

"She asked us to turn the data back on," he said.

Hall says Fero used about 1,600 megabytes of service during her trip.

"That's a lot -- an average song is about four megabytes," he said.

"You can't go overseas and expect that the data plans and the wireless rates that you're going to get are going to be the same here. You travel to North Africa and the rates are going to be a lot higher."

But Hall says that Telus wants to work with Fero to reduce her bill.

"Bottom line, we want to talk to this customer and sort it out. We know it's a huge bill; we want to talk to her and figure it out," he said.

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/l...shColumbiaHome

Seriously, wtf lady??

 

[Flateric]

Telus is like that.....

When I lived in Germany, my girlfriend at that time worked for a mobile phone service provider. One of their customers called up a phonesex line and was charged 1.99 a minute. Well the problem is he apparently fell asleep (poor phone sex line I suppose) and of course the other end, making 3.99 a minute, didn't hang up on him. It was 6 hours later before he finally hung up the phone. This ran up a bill of around 3000 bucks..........What's that you say? The math doesn't add up? That's right......he did it TWICE! Within the same billing period!

He demanded a reduction.......he obviously didn't receive one.

Can you imagine explaining that bill to the girlfriend or wife?

 

[bioskyline]

this is why i have a satalite phone for when i leave the counrty, its a flat rate of 2 bucks a min (roughly) no matter where i am. of course its no smart phone, so no texting or facebooking on this hunk of lead.

 

[suprarx7nut]

Wow. That's impressive. She asked for it. Hopefully she'll have to pay a good amount of that bill.

 

[OneJArpus]

WoW.....

 

[hvyman]

There was a 15 or 16 yr old kid who had something close too.

Fucking phone companys are just like credit cards. there just waiting for you to make the wrong move.

 

[Kai]

Its all about personal responsibility. While i'll admit there are a few people that genuinely get fucked over for a buck, in this case - the customer was simply an IDIOT.

I have a UK cellphone, despite being in France. However, it's a pay-as-you-go SIM only plan. I own the phone outright, and i top up with £10 to £15 every other month. Recieving calls when roaming is 10p a minute, i use it mostly for texting, and emergencies. As it's a pay-as-you-go system (and unlike similar systems elsewhere, the credit i add to it NEVER expires, hence why i have a UK one instead of a French one!), i can keep exact tabs on how much i spend.

I realise that this kind of business model hasn't really hit the US yet, mostly because of your largely obsolete CDMA networks, but still, people need to realise that having a cellphone on contract is EXPENSIVE, and DOUBLY SO when abroad.

 

[suprarx7nut]

There was a 15 or 16 yr old kid who had something close too.

Fucking phone companys are just like credit cards. there just waiting for you to make the wrong move.

Did you read the whole thing?

Telus spokesman Shawn Hall says that the phone company noticed a spike in Fero's data use almost immediately after she left Canada. The company cut off her service, and representatives spoke to her over the phone.

"She asked us to turn the data back on," he said.

She ignored the phone companies warnings. She was a fool and she should pay for her usage. This reminds me of the people I dealt with when I worked in mobile phones. People would complain about so much stupid bullshit. All usage fees and rates are clearly stated and yet when people go over they go ballistic at how much they can run up a bill. Know what you're getting into and the contracts you sign.

I would say the EXACT same applies for credit cards. If you think your credit card does NOT carry a ridiculously high interest rate, you are in denial.

 

[hvyman]

Did you read the whole thing?

I just did and i dont get your statement. She ran up her bill with out of state fee's. She was stupid and thought her usage was world wide which it is not. So her bill for 1600 mb which is like 1.6 gb wouild be a lot more than in her country.

Again like a year or 2 ago some kid ran the bill to like 20+k with text only.

I stil dont get what your getting at.

People are stupid. Stupid is as stupid does.

 

[MKIIINA]

I wouldnt go quite that far Kai..... the wife and I have iphones and its the same bill month in, month out. second we are on at&t which is gsm (verizon is cdma) and while i can grant you its not the greatest my service for the most part isnt that bad. i can travel from coast to coast on 1 provider and not worry about multiple networks and charges. when i went to europe i researched what to do as to avoid overages, i turned off data, and limited the number of txt messages sent and received. same thing when i went to jamacia.

a few ounces of common sense can go a long way

 

[Mr.Forks]

jesus, when i vacation i dont even bring a cellphone, If i ran up a 37k bill id destroy all the technology i own and go live in a cave.
Seriously , i dont think she knows you dont have to be on facebook/twitter/internet all day long