Family shocked by $18,000 phone bills

Wow...that's a horrible story. And to think...I am hoping to move to Verizon to get rid of AT&Ts bullshit. :S
 
protip: if they're a cell phone provider, they're bullshit.
 
While the customer did in fact agree to the contract, $12,000 for 1 month usage, then $6,000 on the next month is extremely excessive. Hopefully they can work something out to get that to a more reasonable cost. I never had an over-excessive bill like that in the 2 years I was with T-Mobile or the 2 years with AT&T after that. But I did have a friend whose bill went from $60 a month to $800 when her contract was up. After I was done with AT&T, I just went to a Tracfone to avoid crap like that.
 
I used to work for T-mobile, we had a guy come in once who's son had run up a 3,000 dollar bill, the son sent something like 10,000 text messeges in the time span of a month, i forget the exact number but i remember wondering how it could be humanly possible to send that many text even if you were texting non stop 12 hours a day. but there was nothing we could do for him, it stated what the fees were for going over your text allowance were right on his contract, and the son went WAY over.


oh, and from actaully working at a cell phone company, i can say, NEVER trust a cell phone salesman, they will do anything and everything to get you to sign that contract and get their commission, I saw some fucked up stuff when i was at t-mobile.
 
I know my cell company send me a text in the middle of the month telling me how many free mins, text messages and internet data I have left. Admittedly I pay for unlimited internet usage and unlimited texting allowance so the only real information I get from that text is how many free mins I have left before I have to start paying.

I know not all cell companies do this but they really should, I normally hate text messages from my cell company but this is the only one I really appreciate.

That's horrific though, my dad would kill me if I racked that bill up, I've only ever gone over once and that was only by a £1. Don't think he even noticed.
 
The FCC is trying to get American providers to do that for consumers here...send them a text when they approach certain data/text/minutes limits.
 
Tristam Green said:
The FCC is trying to get American providers to do that for consumers here...send them a text when they approach certain data/text/minutes limits.
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Its why I like U.S. Cellular, they've been doin that for a while now, but then again not many people use them as a carrier. To prevent overages I make sure to get unlimited text and data, and only call people in my top list :D
 
Tristam Green said:
The FCC is trying to get American providers to do that for consumers here...send them a text when they approach certain data/text/minutes limits.
Click to expand...

US Cellular already does that; albeit a fairly new feature.

Hexx said:
Its why I like U.S. Cellular, they've been doin that for a while now, but then again not many people use them as a carrier. To prevent overages I make sure to get unlimited text and data, and only call people in my top list :D
Click to expand...

Didn't see your post Hexx. Lol

Love US Cellular. Not just because I'm on an employee line either.
 
Thelona said:
I used to work for T-mobile, we had a guy come in once who's son had run up a 3,000 dollar bill, the son sent something like 10,000 text messeges in the time span of a month, i forget the exact number but i remember wondering how it could be humanly possible to send that many text even if you were texting non stop 12 hours a day. but there was nothing we could do for him, it stated what the fees were for going over your text allowance were right on his contract, and the son went WAY over.


oh, and from actaully working at a cell phone company, i can say, NEVER trust a cell phone salesman, they will do anything and everything to get you to sign that contract and get their commission, I saw some fucked up stuff when i was at t-mobile.
Click to expand...

The worst part about that kind of situation, text messages use data streams that are always in effect, essentially costing cell phone providers nothing additional over someone who doesn't text message at all. You're basically paying them extra for something you have access to to begin with.

Internet Bandwidth is an entirely different story, but $18,000 for one gigabyte is pretty damn draconian.
 
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Thelona said:
I used to work for T-mobile, we had a guy come in once who's son had run up a 3,000 dollar bill, the son sent something like 10,000 text messeges in the time span of a month, i forget the exact number but i remember wondering how it could be humanly possible to send that many text even if you were texting non stop 12 hours a day. but there was nothing we could do for him, it stated what the fees were for going over your text allowance were right on his contract, and the son went WAY over.


oh, and from actaully working at a cell phone company, i can say, NEVER trust a cell phone salesman, they will do anything and everything to get you to sign that contract and get their commission, I saw some fucked up stuff when i was at t-mobile.
Click to expand...

Thats why you goto Best Buy Mobile to buy your shit. Sure sales are sales, but we dont work on commission and most of the time i could care less if you buy or not. Highest bills ive seen in the 2 years ive been working there are in the 7-800 dollar range for going over their 5GB bandwidth limit on broadband cards.
 
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