Comments on: What price data roaming? $3000 stuns traveller

By: chris

chris — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:01:32 +0000

Believe me its the truth, I spent 5 days in the middle of the woods, only to check email 2x a day. I ended up with a 3,000 dollar bill. They refuse to adjust the bill I am going to get a lawyer because this is highway robbery. Any recommendations on anyone taking up the case?

By: steve

steve — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:47:54 +0000

I just got home from europe as well. My bill comes soon this month. I have the slight feeling from my calculations that my bill will also be along the line of $2000. I have not the slightest idea of what to do. As i, nor my father, can pay for that.

when i checked at the att store they said i wouldnt even be able to access edge network. and when i did i looked up the pricing and saw the .005 (half a cent) a kB. and now there saying .02 (2 cents??). I dont know what to do. There’s no way i even used as much as i thought. Loading a site ended up being almost 1 to 5 mB!?!?!

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 07:35:46 +0000

Shame on you Apple and ATT ! Come on let’s admit how many of you know that an average web page would cost you $3.00 to look at and an average Iphone picture would cost about the same to send ? In effect, that means that both the email function and the Internet surfing function is not feasible while travelling for anybody who is not a milionaire. None of it has been made clear in the Iphone advertising. SHAME !!!!

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:56:21 +0000

[quote comment="6513"] Would you pay £79.00 for an iPod nano without first finding out the conversion rate of pounds to dollars?[/quote]

Ooops, I meant to say iPod shuffle.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 04:54:31 +0000

Although I would agree that the charge rate for data transfer seems a bit high, I have absolutely no sympathy for the guy.

First of all, any decent web developer SHOULD know how much data transfer is involved in an average web page, text message, email, or graphic image. Why should a professional web developer need to have KB explained to him in layman’s terms? Unfortunately far too many web developers today do not know simple web basics.

Secondly, any fool who agrees to a pay for anything based upon some measurement that he does not understand deserves whatever he gets. Would you pay £79.00 for an iPod nano without first finding out the conversion rate of pounds to dollars? Or would you just assume that it must be about the same as the $79.00 that you would pay in the US?

By: Jlevsae

Jlevsae — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 23:12:08 +0000

I am leaving to europe tomorrow and just called att. they qouted me 2 cent per KB! where did you find it for .005 cents! there plans for international are terrible. its $2 a min for greece! good thing i bought an unlocked phone to buy prepaid sim cards!

By: spyglass

spyglass — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:31:42 +0000

i also think that this reader should contact his local state’s attorney’s office. i’ve had problems with cellphone companies jerking me & my family around in the past. simply write a letter outlining the problem (like this gentleman has already done) and then be sure to send it to a few big wigs at AT&T, and make sure you put a CC: line on the actual printed letter and include your state’s attorney’s office. then send the letter to them (you might want to contact your own lawyer too).

we had a problem with U.S. Cellular cancelling my families plan when we switched to AT&T and the state’s attorney’s office for Illinois, Lisa Madigan, was able to help put the pressure on U.S. Cellular to give us a full-refund.

I highly recomend dropping the old “lawyer” bomb whenever dealing with egregious problems like this. Any court in the world will ALWAYS side with the consumer on an issue like this because, we’re the little guy, and AT&T is a giant company and “should have known better”.

By: mdg

mdg — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 21:09:12 +0000

can you clarify what the ‘miscommunication’ was that dave alludes to in the update? was at&t saying they incorrectly billed him at 3000? or that, while they were right to bill him, they are waiving it because they didn’t communicate accurately what the charges would be.

By: Scott Grizzle

Scott Grizzle — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:49:20 +0000

Usage is pretty easy to find on the phone. I would also say that any web developer should have a decent grasp. I’m a system administrator and web developer who uses his iphone several hours a day and gets dozens of emails a day and have only done 106M of useage (on edge) in the little over a month I’ve had mine.

By: Ewdison Then

Ewdison Then — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:54:39 +0000

UPDATE: AT&T finally waived the charges due to miscommunication. Dave sent me the data usage, it’s around 142MB i think

By: Rhett

Rhett — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:18:02 +0000

He should check an article over at the Consumerist.com covering a similar topic. I don’t think they are charging him correctly. Remember, that $.005 is equal to 1/2 a penny per KB. At that rate he would have needed to download 600,000KB (just for reference, my last month bill with very heavy data usage was just under 40,000KB).
The problem is that AT&T doesn’t know how to do math.