Jason Boutang says he was shocked when he opened the bill for his iPhone and saw he had racked up charges of nearly $8,000.
“It’s criminal,” said Boutang of his June statement saying he owed Virgin Mobile $7,763.70 after using the phone for three days while travelling in France.
whats criminal is being such a moron that you missed every single story about all the dumbass americans who this happened to a few years ago when the first iphone launched. even late night talk show hosts monologues made jokes about this.
So far it seems no one has any sympathy for this guy.
I see people blabbing away on heir cell phones for hours on end locally, just pointless chatter. I guess some expect the same concept to work over long distance too.
Am I the only one here that is offended by endless cell phone chatters in public?
Are people afraid of quiet moments?
It just seems rude to me.
You learn more with your mouth closed and your mind open.
Society has invented a lot of ways of separating people from their money, and giving them nothing to show: lottery tickets, legal gambling of any kind, smoking, drinking, cell phones, World Of Warcraft, Tim Hortin's etc.
That's what happens when you lack attention to detail (or if you don't pay attention).
Quote:
Originally Posted by broad
whats criminal is being such a moron that you missed every single story about all the dumbass americans who this happened to a few years ago when the first iphone launched. even late night talk show hosts monologues made jokes about this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kloan
Boo hoo... this guy's an idiot. This is common knowledge, and has been for years. His fault for being a moron.
Does it not say in the article that he did phone virgin to inquire about taking the phone overseas? I'm sure a person who doesn't care about all the details of the phone wouldn't know all the details of roaming charges etc. I cant believe he streamed radio for hours.
Now that I've said that..... That guy is a moron. I'm sure a quick google search would have found him all the answers. I dont trust a thing any customer service rep says... ever... about anything. Every time I phone telus they tell me that I have to pay roaming charges while I'm in the states... which I dont... because they are included in my north american plan... but they dont get it.
There are people out their that are willing to pay large amounts of money to use their phone overseas, within reason. This just highlights exactly how greedy telecom companies actually are. This guy only used about 100mb of data after all. How in gods name can Virgin justify charging $8000 for that? Its like having a beer at the ballpark, you know its going to be pricey, but you wouldn't expect to pay $200 per beer. Would you blame a person for complaining when he receives an $800 bill for four beers, just because he assumed that the price would be within reason?
I think telecom companies should be held accountable here and come up with some kind of explanation as to why they are charging such exorbitant roaming charges. It seems to me that they have simply set a trap for the uninformed. most people will just quietly pay a large bill for the one or two calls that they made, not wanting to bring light to their own carelessness. But, every once in a while there is a guy like this that really gets bitten, and it really brings this issue to light.
It's the stories like this that really irk me. Someone makes a mistake, or fails to understand and everyone is on them pointing out how stupid they were for not knowing. But let's be serious here. $8000 for three days is ridiculous.
The better part is the Telco saying they will look into it to see if there's anyway to soften the blow. Here's one. Charge him whatever your bundle plan was that he failed to sign up for or be made aware of if in fact that's the case. Instead it's a matter of "You didn't know about it so now you're stuck with it even though we could have charged you only 2.5% of what your bill came out to had you just signed up for this". This is after the fact that they lock your phone so you have no other option BUT to pay them their absurd roaming fees.
IMHO it should be mandatory that any Telco should be required to charge based on their package plans designed specifically for foreign charges when it comes to roaming charges whether you sign up for a specific one or not instead of trying to trap people into these massive bills, especially if they lock your device to their network eliminating your options. Yes people can look into these things but it's not always clear and it's not always easy to find.
Last edited by MomentsofSanity; Jul 6th, 2010 at 08:56 AM.
IMHO it should be mandatory that any Telco should be required to charge based on their package plans designed specifically for foreign charges when it comes to roaming charges whether you sign up for a specific one or not instead of trying to trap people into these massive bills, especially if they lock your device to their network eliminating your options. Yes people can look into these things but it's not always clear and it's not always easy to find.
Yeah, he did call Virgin, though. A responsible CSR would be like "So, if you do pretty much anything with your phone abroad, you will be charged tons of money. Here's out super awesome data plan where you get 10 WHOLE MEGABYTES for the low low price of $500!"
Or at the very least warn him certain activities are data-intensive. It sounds like this guy doesn't really understand how data works. I mean, you've got to know that streaming a radio station is pretty data intense.
I do feel for him, however. I warn everyone while traveling to be careful with their phones and to make sure data roaming is off.
Back from Europe: $8000 bill (Virgin)
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