Posted on 10/18/2011 11:55:02 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
Cue the outrage button. A South Florida woman got a shock when she opened a recent cell phone bill: she owed $201,000.
Say what!
It was no mistake.
Celina Aarons has her two deaf-mute brothers on her plan. They communicate by texting and use their phones to watch videos. Normally, that's not a problem. Aarons has the appropriate data plan, and her bill is about $175.
But her brothers spent two weeks in Canada and Aarons never changed to an international plan. Her brothers sent over 2,000 texts and also downloaded videos, sometimes racking up $2,000 in data charges.
T-Mobile told Aarons the bill was correct. She called Miami TV station WSVN, which contacted T-Mobile. The station reports that T-Mobile cut Aarons' bill to $2,500 -- and gave her six months to pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Porn.
LOL, I believe you. I’ve seen some whoppers. The kicker that I hate (which isn’t really off on that far a tangent) is the “Third Party Content” providers. They are often on TV and such saying “Text ‘Fun’ (or whatever) to number 8XXXX for a free _____.” What they don’t tell you is they’ll attach a monthly fee and all kinds of other charges to your phone bill, which can in some cases turn off you phone service. I dealt with many of the low credit customers who had a $150.00 “Spending limit” (monthly charges cap) on their account, but who got slammed with hundreds and thoousands of dollars from these third party providers. It’s akin to the scam where someone calls you from Guam-kenya-stan and says you need to call back for ___ reason to help a relative, and when you do, they charge $30+ per minute to you phone bill. Why the phone companies (cell and landline), let these charges be attached to your phone bill (often fraudulent in nature) is beyond me. Working at T-mobile, the CSR’s were able to remove charges from some companies, but not all of them. I’m wiling to bet that some of those providers (they often provide videos, ringtones, etc.) were involved in this situation as well.
“T-Mobile recognized that $200k is ridiculous and brought the bill more into line with their costs.”
Agreed, but only because they were called out on it, much like the IRS charging a homeless man $2 Million over a few dollar discrepancy on a tax return he has filed a few years before. I realize that to some people “Corporations” can do no wrong, and that everyone who gets gamed by them are preceived as idiots, but that’s not the case. Both parties are generally trying to leverage against one another (the parties with more money have the most success), and having had experiences with TENS of thousands of these types of company/customer interactions (Probably upwards of 100,000 across the three companies), I can say without a doubt in my mind, that many people get shafted. That’s why lawsuits are filed and settled or won, quite often. Greed doesn’t work one way.
Surprisingly, RF signals do not stop at the border. Go figure.
That’s 71 texts per day per brother That’s 4.5 per hour EACH per 16 hour day
(top secret defenses against spies from APPL and GOOG?)
seriously I had no problems with my old nextel phone.
Take the phones away from those two brothers, give each two hand flags and a cheat sheet on semaphore.
And then there’s the whole - “Hold my beer, watch THIS!” genre.
Or, if they’re texting each other, you can buy two way walkie talkies, with texting options, that can supposedly work for miles. Some bands are illegal in the U.S. without a license, but still, they’re essentially free to use after purchase. (A survival situation convenience, btw).
I now use Straight Talk. Prepaid, $45 bucks per month for unlimited voice, data, text and photos. You’re on the Verizon network, but not dealing with Verizon or their contracts. It’s great. I’d recommend it to anyone.
Porn
You supply your own heavy breathing?
Regards,
GtG
The OLYMPICS? What a great way to tell a whopper without lying!!!
;^)
Worst that can happen is you burn up all your minutes and have to buy more.
That's what Mrs. OldPossum and I use. I doubt that either of us places more than two to three state-to-state calls a month.
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