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Tuesday July 31, 2007
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It looks like the New York Time's David Pogue isn't the only Dave who wasn't exactly thrilled with his first iPhone bill. It seems that designer and illustrator David Stolte took his newest gadget with him on a recent trip to England and Ireland. When he got back, and got his bill, he probably wished he had tracked down a leprechaun on his travels, because he sure could have used a pot of gold.
His bill, with international roaming charges, was $3,000. According to him, the rep said he'd be charged $.005 per KB, and he didn't do the math. Sounds like he probably also showed off his fancy new phone's features to a lot of friends.
Stolte claims to have attempted to check his data usage twice during his trip, only to get a "usage is unavailable message," but apparently kept downloading anyway.After doing a little post-shock research, Stolte found out that AT&T offers a $70 per month international data plan to its Blackberry customers, and hoped that the company would give him a deal like that, and make it retroactive to his last bill. Customer service reps countered by offering him $400 "courtesy credit" on toward his $3K bill, so long as he signed up for a $300 annual international data plan, with a 20MB a month limit.
That wasn't good enough for Stolte, so he took his story of wireless woe to the Internet, and BoingBoing in particular today. Lo and behold, within hours, AT&T called Stolte out of the blue, claiming it was all a "miscommunication," and that they would, of course, waive all charges.
Bottom line folks, leave your iPhone at home when you travel abroad, unless you have the aforementioned international data plan, or a Scrooge McDuck-sized vault full of coinage. Because while this fairy tale may have a happy ending, AT&T probably expects us all to learn our lesson along with David Stolte.
Post by Matt Safford
Posted By:
Gearlog
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July 31, 2007 5:06 PM
Oddly enough, when my then-girlfriend moved to England (to find a flat for us, while I packed up) we ran up a several-hundred-dollar international phone bill with AT&T (before they became Cingular), who actually told us that we could switch over to the international rate, which we thought we did. Of course, they didn't do it, and the bill we received was in the hundreds of dollars. Worse still, we thought we dealt with it, moved, and have since found out that they sent it to collections, without our knowing.
I'll continue to cover them impartially, but I personally will never use them again.
August 1, 2007 2:04 PM
Sounds like you aren't alone in those frustrations Mark. A friend of mine tells me he abandoned his old phone and AT&T, for a dual-phone plan with his wife on another network. They told him that he could pay just $7 a month til his contract ran out, but they keep switching it back on him and charging the full amount.
But I've had plenty of my own issues with Tmobile. The problem is, I think, any company that gets that big and deals with customers is a mess. They're all painful to deal with. And we can't do a darn thing about it.
August 2, 2007 3:31 PM
I recently went to Canada with my iphone. I havn't gotten a bill yet but when I checked my usage I have 46.9MB of pay-per-use data. International data is $.0195 per KB. So I'm looking at about a $940 bill.
August 6, 2007 2:02 AM
If you ever move to Australia, Telstra is a phone company that is notorious for these obnoxious charges.
The way to solve it - it should be a law that every phone deal has a max per month charge, which you can choose to override if needed, and it would send you messages when you were getting close to the limit, eg you had racked up 80% of the monthly charge. This would not only protect the consumer, but would also protect the phone company from the bad publicity and bad word of mouth that comes from people talking about unexpectedly large charges.
August 16, 2007 5:14 AM
omg. how about this. how about you guys just use text msg and surf the web on your phones and then when you get a huge bill the following month for using services you didnt pay for or over used or didnt fully understand the plan, you could just post complaints online and then the phone company can just wave the charges. that way you all dont have to pay a single cent for being stupid or ignorant about how your plans work. if that idiot david just did some math, he wouldnt have been charged so much. and how the hell does he use 600mb in two weeks? he claimed it was "on and off usage". how about he "on and off" a little less BS and just take responsiblity for his own mistakes. if a phone company doesnt offer a good plan, then dont use it. dont use it, go over the limit, get charged for the extra usage and then complain. that doesnt exactly spew responsiblity david
August 21, 2007 3:29 PM
We took our iPhone with us on a cruise to Scandinavia. Before traveling we searched online to determine if any international plan was required. They had the option of international roaming/text messaging, but data was listed as unlimited. Long story short, we took our chances, knowing we would have to pay some extra.... Our bill was $1690. AT&T response, valid charges, the small print on your agreement says that there will be a "surcharge" for international use. Of course, there is absolutely no disclosure as to what this surcharge is. They have the right to charge for services, but you should be able to determine what these services might cost before you use them.