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What would you do if your broadband bill was the same as your monthly rent?
That’s a question 21-year-old Notre Dame de Grace resident Amber Hunter has been dealing with since the neighbors began hacking their way into her wireless router, gaining access to her cable modem service from Videotron, Ltd., and running her bill into the next province.
It’s the predictable outcome of what happens when Internet Overcharging schemes gain traction, leaving ordinary consumers literally holding the bill.
Videotron sells usage limited broadband service across Quebec, but heavy users who routinely exceed their arbitrary usage caps knew there was a limit on the overlimit fees Videotron charged.
Not anymore.
Videotron left the usage caps on, but removed the limit on how much they can charge customers who exceed their monthly usage allowance.
Videotron sets prices like the OPEC of the Internet -- the sky is the limit
“The sky is the limit, or at least your bank account,” writes our Montreal reader Hei. “The only thing unlimited with Videotron are the overlimit fees.”
Hunter had no idea she was being hacked.
“I had no idea what a gigabyte was, so when I started getting higher bills, I just assumed it was from watching TV shows online,” Hunter says.
Her boyfriend told her otherwise, making it clear it was impossible for her to be running up 350GB a month in usage just from watching a few movies and TV shows.
Since August, Hunter has accumulated more than $1,800 in broadband bills stemming from parties unknown who hacked their way into her wireless router and “borrowed” her Internet account. Videotron itself is directly responsible for part of this debacle, encouraging Hunter to upgrade to a higher tier of service that upgraded her from a 30GB usage allowance to a 100GB usage allowance, with a major catch.
Hunter had become accustomed to paying her usual broadband bill plus the $50 maximum penalty charged for her “overuse.” So a Videotron representative suggested a higher usage allowance plan might lower her bill. But somehow, the Videotron customer service agent forgot to mention that the new plan no longer included a limit on overlimit charges.
When Amber switched plans, her broadband bill exploded. Now the waitress hands over most of her weekly salary to Videotron.
“I’m a student, and I work at a bar, and now most of the money I have goes to pay my Internet bill,” Hunter told the Montreal Gazette. “It’s more than I pay for school and books, and I don’t have a lot of money left for food.”
She still owes the cable company $506 and they aren’t interested in providing her any service credits beyond the $313 they gave her a few months ago.
It took a Videotron help desk employee to finally unravel the mystery of the Internet Overcharges — someone was hacking into her wireless network. Exactly who has been living their online life usage-limit free at Amber’s expense may never be known. Those living in apartment complexes and other multiple dwelling units can often find a dozen or more wireless connections, some password protected, others not.
Hunter’s wireless network was secured with a difficult to guess password using a four year old Linksys router. Unfortunately, older routers often lack robust security and are easily hacked.
A handful of Canadian ISPs still offer unlimited broadband accounts.
As far as Videotron is concerned, it’s all Hunter’s fault — she should have understood what a gigabyte was, how many she was supposed to be using, what the security capabilities of her router were, that they were properly enabled, that she checked her usage on a daily basis looking for anomalies — investing her time, effort, and energy to stop the cable company before it billed her an enormous amount… again.
Speaking for Videotron, Isabelle Dessureault said, “It’s a case where Videotron showed some understanding and listened to what happened. We’re well-renowned in the industry for our technical support team. We credited her account for $313, but at a certain point, we need to share the responsibility. We don’t like these kind of situations.”
Videotron’s responsibility to their customers stopped where their profit margin began. The company could have sent Amber a bill for the wholesale cost of her Internet usage, which she could have paid with a few of her bar tips.
Because Hunter’s broadband bills were now rivaling her monthly rent she decided to invest in her financial future, buying a new router and making sure the wireless was turned off. Today she runs dozens of meters of Ethernet cable between all of her computers, just to keep the neighbors off her connection.
Although Videotron has become intractable, demanding Amber pay up, one of their competitors used the opportunity to score public relations points that Videotron sacrificed.
Jarred Miller, the president of the Internet Service Provider YOUMANO offered to cover all of Hunter’s overage fees amassed over the past year that also includes a free year of Internet service with his company, a generous offer Hunter will take.
YOUMANO is one of a handful of Canadian ISPs still offering unlimited Internet access, and do not think of themselves as the OPEC of the Internet.
The entire affair is a warning to Americans. If you think Videotron is an Internet evildoer, imagine what Verizon, AT&T and Comcast could do to your bank account. If they have their way, you’ll need to become intimately familiar with your router, the concept of a gigabyte, and take a class in “negotiating to win” when fighting over your future enormous broadband bills.
Listen to an interview with Amber Hunter. She appeared on this morning’s Daybreak on CBC Radio Montreal to discuss her experience with Videotron Internet Overcharging. (8 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.
Other stories of interest:
- Shaw Cable & Vidéotron Introduce Canadians to “TV Everywhere” Online VOD, But Data Caps Enforced
- Ultimately Overpriced: Videotron’s 120Mbps Service Usage Limited With Overlimit Fees That Don’t Quit
- Canada’s Broadband Lag: Canadians Becoming the Guest Workers of the Digital Economy
- Netflix to Launch Unlimited Streaming for Canadians Stuck With Limited Broadband
- HP – “Smart Shoppers” Prefer Internet Overcharging Schemes: Metering Is Good for You!
This is racketeering
$1,800 Canadian? That’s nothing, wait until the Canadian equivalent/branch of the RIAA gets her name and address from Videotron for all those songs her neighbor was sharing. That will teach her to get an Internet connection without being an expert in network security.
/sarcasm
UGH – Ok, first off it’s a ROUTER, not a ROOTER. What happened here is likely that this woman had either an unsecured connection or a WEP (easily hacked) passphrase. The cable company should be responsible for her not using due diligence to secure her connection.
In Canada (Alberta specifically), a bumper sticker is called a “decal” (pronounced “deckle”). So pronouncing it a “rooter” is still an improvement over lying in bed pondering what in the world a “deckle” is… until you call CBC Radio to find out.
The best way to secure a wireless router is to use the MAC address filter, most routers have this ability. The only way someone can access my wireless router is if I add there MAC address to filter. A friend of mine, a very smart software engineer, could not hack into my wireless router because of the MAC filter I set up.
Don’t forgot WPA-AES or WPA2-AES as well. Mac address filtering + those = bulletproof.
Nothing is bulletproof. If someone wants to hack your wi-fi router, and has enough time, skill, and determination, they will get in. However, unless they’re targeting you for some special reason, the more road blocks you put in place the less likely they are to try. If they are just after connectivity, which are they more likely to try to hack first: your WPA2-PSK + Mac Address Filter or that WEP connection that’s within range? Just don’t be the low hanging fruit, and you’re less likely to get hacked.
I’m impressed by your writing. Are you a professional or just very knowledgeable?
While it might have stopped him from getting in, I can say that if I were to in fact run a packet sniffer on any wireless signal that I could pick up with a laptop, I could have obtained your MAC Address and spoofed it, giving me access to the network. That is, unless you were using Encryption (WPA2-PSK AES) as well, then that makes it more difficult to do.
Bell’s new routers uses WEP by default, which is BROKEN security! My friends have the new router. They changed absolutely no settings, not even the router’s name!
So, if someone broke into their insecure router, it’s my friend’s fault?
That doesn’t make any sense! Enable WPA by default, greedy beavers! No wonder Bell is so rich!
Yes, it’s your friends fault for not securing the network.
Perhaps Bell should just set their default SSID as “BellGreed” so neighbors can just start stealing and running your bill up now instead of waiting later.
that’s exactly why i left Videotron. I was a long-time customer with them. I had the standard High Speed internet with them, 7mbps, with an “overcharge” limit of 30$, then after years of being with them, it raised to 50$, then i decided to switch to Extreme High Speed with them which was UNLIMITED at the time, but then they switched to 100gb combined LIMITED (that mean it combine both downloads and uploads usage, meaning it can be 80gb download and 20gb upload), and NO LIMIT of charging per Gb, which is 1.50$ per Gb, so if you download 200gb more in a month, that mean 300$ more on your internet bill.
Videotron is just full of crap, and they’re saying they have the best, most reliable network…that’s just more crap from them.
I’m with Distributel right now, as i prefer to have UNLIMITED even if the speed is capped at 5mbps. I contacted them in December, and they told me they don’t have plans of using the UBB to their customers, because they know they would lose them, therefore losing even more money. But for the reality, only time will tell.
Distributel told me they are paying Bell for the extra usage we do, but then they must have customers who doesn’t download much, so that mean they’re doing profits somewhere still, so paying extras for those supposedly “extreme” users (like me) wouldn’t bother them much i guess.
[...] – MONTREAL: What would you do if your broadband bill was the same as your monthly rent? That’s a question 21-year-old Notre Dame de Grace resident Amber Hunter has been dealing with since the neighbours began hacking their way into her wireless router, gaining access to her cable modem service from Videotron, Ltd., and running her bill into the next province. Since August, Hunter has accumulated more than $1,800 in broadband bills stemming from parties unknown who hacked their way into her wireless router and “borrowed” her Internet account. – Stop the Cap [...]
[...] continue to rocket downwards, companies keep on increasing prices, exposing Canadian consumers to unwarranted bill shock from unjustified overlimit fees. What does it cost Shaw per gigabyte? An estimated 1-3 cents. [...]
[...] company. They are both owned by Quebecor Media. Videotron engages in Internet Overcharging that left one Montreal student with an $1,800 broadband bill. Name [...]
[...] range of her apartment at the residential neighbourhood of Montreal had hacked their way into her Internet connection. Somehow Hunter didn’t notice it for a long time and became accustomed to paying her usual [...]
Videotron user’s can check their internet usage on the company web page. Also, customers can call technical support if they need help setting up their router, and yes the reps do encourage adding security (wpa). The problem is most router’s come with open security by default, so its not Videotron’s fault if this woman is unable to setup third party equipment correctly. There is no excuse for ignorance and stupidity.