Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Photon $8k is completely and utterly out to lunch.
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3 cents per KB used to be realistic only a few years ago in Canada.
Now it's a lot cheaper finally, but do we know if it's out to lunch or not? Do you know how much the French carrier charges for roaming? Nobody had unlimited deals with each other so the higher costs of roaming reflect unplanned usage... If you set up a contract for roaming in advance they can plan ahead and buy capacity in advance.
And even if it is out to lunch, for the most part companies should be able to set whatever price they want. Governments stepping in and saying what a company can and cannot charge defeats the whole point of a free market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Sure there is a contract, but the consumer has no reasonable way of knowing how much data they're using so how exactly are you supposed to keep track of your data usage?
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It's built right into the phone, they can track their data usage. Or they can log into their account and it'll tell them there. Or on Virgin phones there's a "My Account" app which will tell them as well.
They could do more yes, as has been pointed out some carriers send out SMSes with prices when you roam, but the question is are they obligated to do so? We're not talking about what is reasonable here, companies have every right to be unreasonable and die a reasonable death. We're talking about what companies are obligated to do.
Should cell companies be obligated to contact you when you exceed some threshold? What threshold? Every client will have a different threshold that make sense for them.
Should cell companies be mandated by law to cut you off after a specific amount? How far do you take that argument? Should a water company notify me if my water bill is going to be $50 more than normal?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
I'm sure the phone companies could put a ticker on the phone that tracks data usage in dollars and cents but then they couldn't rape people like this.
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Like this one?
http://www.virginmobile.ca/vmc/en/su...l?faq=faq_0012
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Maybe you understand how much data downloading things uses but I'm pretty sure most people don't.
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That's true, hence ways to keep track of your data usage.
This is difficult though, some companies try to give a sense of how much 1GB will do (x emails, y webpages, z hours of audio), but since all these things vary wildly it's impossible to predict how much will be used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
You guys can say he's stupid all day long but to pretend there's no onus on the company to warn a guy is crazy to me.
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They did warn him, it's all over their website, it's in the contract, the phone even has a warning when you turn on roaming... so again the question is how far is a company obligated to go? If saying to a customer "WARNING TURNING THIS ON MAY RESULT IN EXCESSIVE CHARGES PLEASE CONSIDER BEFORE YOU DO IT" isn't enough, what exactly would be good enough?
I'd be all for a company sending out an SMS when you went double your monthly contact amount in roaming, and turning it off at triple (but you could turn those off if you wanted), that makes good sense to me. If a company doesn't do it it may impact my choice of carrier.
But how far should a company be obligated by law to go?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
In my company if a job we are doing is getting pretty expensive compared to a "typical" job we call the customer and ask if they want us to go on. Obviously virgin has a similar policy; however, $8000 is a ridiculous threshold...it should be more like $250.
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I agree $8000 is ridiculous to me, but not to everyone. If it's $250 that will be far too restrictive for some people, I know people who go over $250 roaming all the time.
And you can dislike Virgin/Bell for setting that number at $8000, but on the flip side you can't make a law that forces carriers to limit it to $250 either.