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T-Mobile Sends Customer $200,000 Bill

Analog

Analog

Lifer
A South Florida woman opened up her monthly cellphone bill to find a $201,000 balance -- and it wasn’t a typo.Celina Aarons, who uses T-Mobile, usually sees a bill of about $175 per month. Her plan not only includes her phone, but her two deaf-mute brothers, The Associated Press reported. Her brothers communicate primarily through texting and also use their phones to watch videos.

But when one of her brothers spent two weeks in Canada, with his cellphone on and changed to an international plan, Aarons saw her bill jump to $201,000, the AP reported.Her brother had sent more than 2,000 texts and downloaded videos, ringing up nearly $2,000 in data charges at a time.Aarons, who was horrified by the balance, called T-Mobile and told them her story.

She said they were remarkably accommodating, even though they had sent repeated messages to her brother about the charges he was ringing up.The phone company eventually knocked Aarons’ bill down to $2,500 and gave her six months to pay it off.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/29527915/detail.html
 
Obviously a ridiculous charge, but why did her dumbass brother keep doing it after getting multiple warnings? I'd be cutting him off and making him pay the balance.
 
How did the brother change it to international plan? It doesn't seem like something you can do accidentally

Edit: I guess it would automatically changes your plan to international if you're out of the country for two weeks. Shouldn't it ask if you want to change the plan?
 
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Why not send multiple warnings to the primary account holder also, and not also the offender? In this case the woman is the primary account holder, and the offender is one of the brothers. Sending it just to the brother doesn't make any sense. T-mobile should have warned the woman that there something anomalous with the account usages and T should have offered the woman some remediation options .
 
in other news, customers don't know wtf they're paying for these days. dumbasses should learn to keep track of their expenditures.
 
waffleironhead said:
$10/MB data rate. cha ching
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That price makes perfect sense, if this was 1980 and you're using a 14baud modem, or whatever they had back then. Don't know how they can get away charging that rate. There was a recent case where Bell Canada did something similar. IIRC, there was a famous case where this happened to Adam Savage.

It's good that the FCC is finally clamping down on bill shock. Now if only the CRTC gets on board with this too. I'd like to see them justify these rates. It's pure gouging.
 
Oil said:
How did the brother change it to international plan? It doesn't seem like something you can do accidentally

Edit: I guess it would automatically changes your plan to international if you're out of the country for two weeks. Shouldn't it ask if you want to change the plan?
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Yeah if you change your plan you usually have to change the plan for the whole account. Working for Verizon all their international plan does is lower the rates in which you are charged, nothing else. Assuming her phone is the main line on the account why didn't they text her as well?
 
To be perfectly honest, assuming AT&T did in fact send warning messages, it all falls on the idiot using the phone. AT&T was nice to knock it down to $2500.

Phone rates are absurb this day and age, but I still can't feel sorry for someone who ignored repeated warnings about the bill he was racking up.
 
Newbian said:
Passing the bill on everyone else now. 😛
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Exactly. We all know these services costs at least $200,000 to deliver and that the phone company was only making a razor thin profit offering these services in the first place! Now everyone's rates will have to rise to cover it. For shame!
 
GotIssues said:
To be perfectly honest, assuming AT&T did in fact send warning messages, it all falls on the idiot using the phone. AT&T was nice to knock it down to $2500.

Phone rates are absurb this day and age, but I still can't feel sorry for someone who ignored repeated warnings about the bill he was racking up.
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LOL, they weren't being nice. No one in their right mind would actually pay any of that $200,000 phone bill, even if they had $200K lying around and were able to do it. You get a bill that big you're going to avoid it altogether. They set it to $2500 because there is actually a chance in hell that will get paid.
 
GotIssues said:
To be perfectly honest, assuming AT&T did in fact send warning messages, it all falls on the idiot using the phone. AT&T was nice to knock it down to $2500.

Phone rates are absurb this day and age, but I still can't feel sorry for someone who ignored repeated warnings about the bill he was racking up.
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It says T-mobile all over that article and in the title... how in the hell did you land on AT&T?
 
I think T-Mobile was nice enough to knock the bill down to $2,500 and allowing the customer to pay it off over 6 months.

The customers are in the wrong by not knowing the specifics of the plan. Next time, maybe they should read them.
 
gorcorps said:
It says T-mobile all over that article and in the title... how in the hell did you land on AT&T?
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Probably because I was e-mailing my brother at the same time. We were talking about phones for him, and he is on AT&T. My mistake.

SphinxnihpS said:
Typos aside, phone rates are the lowest they have ever been.

The issue here is data rates in Canada, which are stupid.
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The rates are lowest, but the costs to provide the services have gone down more. While technically we are paying the least per minute, it is not when you consider the cost to customer vs cost to provider.
 
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