Adding to the growing list of stories about customers who don't understand data roaming but own smartphones is the latest; a Vancouver, BC woman who took the country's love of Facebook a little too far by racking up a $37,000 cell phone bill while visiting Egypt.
How could one rack up such a gargantuan bill, you ask? According to CTV reports, the woman, Alanna Fero, used 1,600 MBs (1.6 GB) worth of data during a two-week trip. She claims to have called her cell phone provider prior to leaving, as one should, but was told that her plan was sufficient, and took that to mean everything was tickity-boo...
Read more at http://www.marketnews.ca//blog/The$37KPhoneBill.html
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3 comments »
christine March 10, 2011, 15:10 pm
alanna, thanks for replying. You raise some good points. And it is odd that any company would extend such a massive credit to a customer that easily. I wonder if there are records of the conversations you had with the rep; surely they're recorded for "quality purposes." Anyway, good luck with your fight. And feel free to call me if you'd like to talk further. 416-667-9945 ext. 224.
alanna March 07, 2011, 17:35 pm
I'm the person you just wrote about - thanks for at least saying "apparently" when you recounted a piece of CTV's story. Not everyone makes clear that they are repeating something unverified. For the record, I DID make extensive arrangements for a roaming plan and did NOT ask for services to be turned back on after they were cut - they actually weren't cut and I had no way of knowing my bill was going so high. WATCH THE VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF6ppEysJnM Your blog says the real question "what on earth was I doing to incur such high charges?" The answer is "about 20 emails a day." Nothing unusual. The problem is that iPhones don't compress their data and Telus sold me a plan suitable for a Blackberry, not for my brand new iPhone. They knew how the data was processed; I didn't. If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, which is why I am telling my story. After my arrival in Egypt, I phoned Telus's 611 number and talked to a rep for over an hour. He reported that my roaming plan had STILL NOT been set up properly but said he would fix it. THE ASSERTION THAT TELUS TOLD ME I ALREADY HAD A $20,000 BILL WHILE IN CAIRO AND I SAID "LET'S CHARGE MORE" DOES NOT PASS EVEN THE MOST BASIC LOGIC TEST. More info at http://37kphonebill.com. Who would be told they had $20,000+ in roaming charges and that their data was turned off "for their own good" and reply with, "Well, please turn roaming back on and keep billing me over $1,800 a day"? The Telus rep DID NOT say that to me, not in any direct or even implied way. I would never have continued with any service if they had; would have turned off the device entirely, and so would anyone else in those circumstances. The fact that I continued service is the second most logical piece of evidence possible that Telus did not adequately inform me. And the MOST logical evidence of all? There is no way that, during that call from Cairo, Telus looked at an individual customer such as I am, with bills never over $500/month and usually under $200, and decided to extend me more than $25,000 in credit. I WOULD NOT QUALIFY FOR THAT KIND OF CREDIT LINE for cell phone usage.Telus charges customers their basic plan rates a month IN ADVANCE of the service so as to not have to extend even a few hundred dollars in credit. Even if I were reckless enough to have said "Please turn the service back on so I can be charged another $10,000 or $20,000," Telus is not. They would never have knowingly agreed to continue my service. That's not just my word; it's the only reasonable conclusion.
JunWon March 07, 2011, 16:13 pm
1,600MB is 1.6GB
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