Airdrie Man "shocked" by $8000 phone bill

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by photon

He didn't say it was reasonable, but the contract he signed didn't say "pay whatever you think is reasonable".

And it's not completely out to lunch, 3 cents a KB used to be the norm a few years ago.

Plus how much of it is Virgin/Bell, and how much of it is what Virgin/Bell has to pay the carrier in France? If the carrier in France is charging Virgin/Bell 3 cents a KB then they'll actually lose money on this.

Photon $8k is completely and utterly out to lunch. 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? 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. Maybe you understand how much data downloading things uses but I'm pretty sure most people don't.

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. 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.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Sliver

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?

The iPhone has usage statistics in its settings. It tells you exactly how much cellular network data you have used since you last reset it.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by getbak

The iPhone has usage statistics in its settings. It tells you exactly how much cellular network data you have used since you last reset it.

If it's not in dollars and cents and it's buried like that it's not very helpful to the people that would run into this problem in the first place.

[MikeN]

Dont forget that roaming is charged by the company you are connecting to.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Photon $8k is completely and utterly out to lunch.

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.

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?

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?

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.

Like this one?

http://www.virginmobile.ca/vmc/en/su...l?faq=faq_0012

Originally Posted by Sliver

Maybe you understand how much data downloading things uses but I'm pretty sure most people don't.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

If it's not in dollars and cents and it's buried like that it's not very helpful to the people that would run into this problem in the first place.

That might be problematic to do, since every plan and every roaming region could be different, and your phone would have no way of knowing what those are.

"People can do simple math.. 3 cents a KB, I've used 100KB today.. ack I'd better keep an eye on this."

[photon]

Wow, they even DO have a spending cap!

http://www.virginmobile.ca/vmc/en/su...l?faq=faq_0015

[Sliver]

I'm a little bit restricted in what I can reply because I'm on my iPhone in a hotel in Idaho (on wifi ), but to keep citing $0.03/kb as reasonable misses the point IMO. Your average Joe has no good/intuitive way of quantifying how their usage is racking up. Going through a 5-step process in areas of the phone most people don't venture, then doing some calculations between kb/mb multiplied by some mystery rate is too onerous.

And I'm not saying the government should intervene, but the the simple fact remains the bill is way too high. I will be annoyed if this guy pays the bill because that will only serve to keep this punitive policy in place.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by photon

I agree $8000 is ridiculous to me, but not to everyone.

See this is the thing with this case. $8k is so far beyond what anybody would consider reasonable that it switches from the guy being the idiot to the phone company being the idiot. Who says he can even afford to pay? A lot of people would need a loan to come up with that kind of money. There are a hell of a lot more steps in filling out a loan application than clicking "okay" on a text message that says "roaming rates will apply" lol.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Sliver

You're totally out to lunch if you think $8k is in any way reasonable. The only thing I can think of that would be dumber than racking up these charges would be paying that bill.

Its irrelevant if its reasonable or not. As shown before there are SMS warnings, there's apps on the phone to track usage. He stupidly played 5 hours of radio.

You can't buy a product or use a service and decide after the fact that its too expensive or unreasonable.

Its not up to the company in this case Virgin to bear the responsibility for the clients stupidity.

If the cell phone company sends out warnings about roaming usage etc then the company doesn't really have any further responsibility to the client.

The help center people are not psychic they answer questions directly as their asked.

One persons $8000.00 is another person's $250.00 they can't predict what a client is willing to spend.

[SeoulFire]

I seriously hope that the people defending the practice get cornholed sans lube in the future because you did not read the fine print.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I started reading this siding with Virgin, then I started to make my last post about it and actually switched to the guy's side due to reasonableness. However, now that I know the steps he would have taken and warnings given out, I'm back to siding with Virgin.

It's unreasonable for Virgin to say "you're outside of Canada, here's the roaming charges for the other 130 countries you can use your phone in". Saying "You're roaming, you may incur high roaming charges" should be enough for the reasonable person to check into what those charges are. But to simply say "fata that I'm listening to the morning show on x92!" is foolish!

The question is, is it $8000 foolish?

Yes

He was warned, he took no steps to check into what he was doing, and now he has to pay the price (or what PR reduced it to).

It's a Darwin Award, plain and simple.

Someone does something stupid and dies people laugh, someone does something equally stupid and lives and they should receive our pity? Really?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by SeoulFire

I seriously hope that the people defending the practice get cornholed sans lube in the future because you did not read the fine print.

First thing my daddy taught me was to read the fine print and ask questions when your spending your money.

The second, always wear a condom when you sleep with a girl named after a season or a flower.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by SeoulFire

I seriously hope that the people defending the practice get cornholed sans lube in the future because you did not read the fine print.

How is it even "fine print"? Fine print implies that they were trying to deceive you. In fact, as others have pointed out, they disable your roaming data, they send you warnings and SMS'es as well as keep a real time ticker on their website. They give you every opportunity right in your face in 72 pt bolded font. It really is the opposite of getting screwed over by fine print.

[Flames0910]

I don't know if anybody posted this as I'm not going to check all six pages BUT I was driving around today listening to x92.9 and the guy was talking about it.

And normally when a radio DJ on X starts talking I flip immediately, but I was like "yeah, I read about that on CP..." and I had to wait to see if he was talking about what I thought he was. Yeah, they sucked me in.

Anyways, apparently he was using their iPhone app to listen to x92.9 and even called from somewhere to say that's what he was doing. Fido (?) offered $2000 but he's pushing for $1500. The DJ said they'll give him free tickets to all the shows they cover this summer "so that he can still have some fun"

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

He was warned, he took no steps to check into what he was doing, and now he has to pay the price (or what PR reduced it to).

I'm curious to find out where you are getting that from, because according to the article he did call before going.

I guess I am just surprised that I am the only person who has called a telecommunication company to inquire about a price, and then receive a different charge on my bill that what I had been told over the phone. This just happens to be a grotesque example. So my instances where I get overcharged by $20 isn't newsworthy.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Its irrelevant if its reasonable or not. As shown before there are SMS warnings, there's apps on the phone to track usage. He stupidly played 5 hours of radio.

You can't buy a product or use a service and decide after the fact that its too expensive or unreasonable.

Its not up to the company in this case Virgin to bear the responsibility for the clients stupidity.

If the cell phone company sends out warnings about roaming usage etc then the company doesn't really have any further responsibility to the client.

The help center people are not psychic they answer questions directly as their asked.

One persons $8000.00 is another person's $250.00 they can't predict what a client is willing to spend.

Well clearly I'm holding the minority opinion on this one and it's not like I can't see your guys' point, but I still think it's unreasonable - and that it's relevant that it's unreasonable - for the bill to get so high. There's a major difference between a text that says 'this is going to get a little pricey' and an $8k bill. Banks don't just give you $8000 loans without current income and credit checks and this shouldn't be any different.

And it is irrelevant that one guy's $250 is another guy's $8000. We all know wealthy people that this applies to and there are probably a few on this board. Just because you can pay doesn't mean you would pay an atrocious bill.

This guy should accept responsibility up to a point, but Virgin needed to pull the plug a lot sooner. Or like Visa - they are always trying to get me to increase my credit limit and I say no thanks. You should be able to set your credit limit on a cell phone, too.

At my company we typically open accounts with a $5k limit and our average sale is more expensive than an average cell phone bill. We do this to protect ourselves and also to protect our customers. I don't want to be in a position of having to sue one of my customers because he got in over his head...talk about bad business.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I'm curious to find out where you are getting that from, because according to the article he did call before going.

I guess I am just surprised that I am the only person who has called a telecommunication company to inquire about a price, and then receive a different charge on my bill that what I had been told over the phone. This just happens to be a grotesque example. So my instances where I get overcharged by $20 isn't newsworthy.

Photo's long post above outlines various warnings, and information given to customers.

Boutang said the customer service representative failed to warn him about the pricey cost of using an iPhone abroad, and says he wasn’t told about a roaming data plan he’s since discovered that might have allowed him to use his phone overseas for as little as $200.

If he specifically asked about roaming, then Virgin did drop the ball.

Where the iPhone's default is to disable roaming, and he turned it on, then did not ask about rates, I don't feel sorry for him.

I do find it hard to believe that he called up Virgin and asked for the roaming rates and they said "pffftt don't worry about it". Now if they misquoted him rates, different story, but by the tone of the article it seems like he didn't ask at all.

If someone was to ask me "does the iPhone work in France?" my answer would be "yes". Is there a responsibility for the CSR to say "yes, however . . . " I don't know if it'd be any more responsibility and for the consumer to follow up with "how much?"

It seems to me that he didn't inquire about price at all. Just if it would work.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

First thing my daddy taught me was to read the fine print and ask questions when your spending your money.

The second, always wear a condom when you sleep with a girl named after a season or a flower.

Seriously? You've read the fine print in your cable, cell, utilities, and other contracts? That's crazy, I've never met anyone who's done that, lawyer or otherwise.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Seriously? You've read the fine print in your cable, cell, utilities, and other contracts? That's crazy, I've never met anyone who's done that, lawyer or otherwise.

Its my money, and I'm hideously protective of it.