SubscribeMetered billing with overlimit fees bring new perils to consumers opening their monthly bills. Right now, some of these examples impact wireless carriers, which have usage caps and fees for exceeding them. Now imagine your Time Warner bill being opened one day and you discover your son has been running a torrent service for half the country or your daughter watched several seasons of her favorite TV show, in HD. ABC News documented six horror stories.
Alberto used his new wireless card to download a movie to his laptop while in Mexico. “I downloaded the movie and they billed me for $62,000.00,” he said. After contesting the charge, the carrier reduced the fee — to a still painful $17,000.
Streaming live sporting events, excessive text messaging and exceeding monthly data allowances have left others with massive headaches and multi-thousand dollar bills.
Paul Eng, Web Editor for Consumers Union has advice for wireless account users that also falls neatly into place when contemplating a Time Warner usage cap:
Most of all, he said, if you’re not sure how much a certain activity will cost, it’s better to just say no to yourself.
“Resist temptation,” he said. “If you just have no clue, better safe than sorry.”
That’s right. When in doubt, don’t even think about using it.
A Chicago Bear’s fan to the core, Wayne Burdick of Schaumburg, Ill., had to cheer on his team — even while on a Caribbean cruise.
So using his laptop, a wireless card and Slingbox device that let him watch the game via an Internet connection, he tuned into watch the Bears battle the Detroit Lions.
But after a nice relaxing vacation, he returned home to a $27,000 bill from AT&T.
In 2007, a 22-year-old Canadian oil-field worker faced an astronomical $83,700 (C$85,000) cell phone bill, according to Reuters.
According to Staniaszek’s father, who shares his name, the man thought he could use his phone as a modem for his computer. Thinking his unlimited browser plan with Bell Mobility (a division of Bell Canada) could handle it, he downloaded movies and other high-resolution files.
A Netbook with a wireless plan that hides the cap in the fine print. Result? $5000 Bill
Finally, there was the Oklahoma woman who grabbed one of those $99 Radio Shack netbook specials, with a two year contract for AT&T Wireless broadband. AT&T is famous for pitching “unlimited” broadband access, but then caps it in the tiny fine print at 5GB per month, reserving the right to overcharge. They did, to the tune of $5000 for one month. She’s suing.
Good luck trying to collect
$218 Trillion Phone Bill … Come on! Someone has to realize there is an obvious mistake before it gets to the media or the customer. This is the hubris of these companies, there should be some reasonable cutoff that states a customer cannot be bill more than 5X the highest consumer plan(as an example). There is no way these companies have to pay extras in that amount if you are roaming or even go beyond your cap. This is obvious profiteering and should be reigned it. With the competition is the cell phone arena you would like there would be… Read more »
You left out #5 $218 Trillion Phone Bill.
The thing that gets me here is that when this stuff happens to people there are so many comments on these sites taking the side of the company. In what world should it be acceptable to anyone that a phone bill or internet bill can financially ruin someone’s life? The first guy negotiated his bill down to $17,000. That would take many people years to pay off. It would force many people these days into bankruptcy. Just to use some of this technology. These companies should be fined for even putting a stamp on these bills. How on earth can… Read more »
One reason why I tell people in my area to not to bother with getting a data plan on a cell phone/Wireless card or bother with texting. They put so much markup on something that costs very little to provide, really. I’m positively sure that something like this would not deserve that large of a bill, considering the millions of users that help pay for the network and to keep the company running in the first place. This is just asking for a large profit.
This has happened to me before with AT&T dialup service but not to the extent of those charges. AT&T went from “unlimited” to a metered system once back in the dial up days. They claimed they sent out an email but I got nothing so when I got my monthly bill, it was over $400. Fortunately, after some complaining, they dropped the charges.
Lets be honest (and this is on topic) they are not going to collect 317 trillion from even the government. They are not going to collect a billion or a million or a hundred thousand or even $17,000 from anybody. Even a bill of 3 to 4 hundred dollars is going to prove very hard to collect in this economy. I could post much more on the subject but that would be off topic.