City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading ‘Lost’ Episodes
Written by Ernesto on March 09, 2009The 14 year old daughter of a city counselor in Spain is the source of a small political crisis in the city of Getafe. The girl used her mother’s work 3G modem to download some episodes of the popular TV-show ‘Lost’, resulting in a massive $40,000 bill.
Every parent knows that their kids can drive up a phone bill quickly, and the same goes for mobile Internet access when there’s no flat rate plan available. The daughter of a local politician in Spain recently embarrassed her mother by borrowing her work modem and running up a huge bill that any teenager could be proud of.
The girl in question couldn’t connect to her home WiFi network from her bedroom, so she borrowed her mother’s 3G modem to download some Lost episodes, among other things. What she didn’t know was that this would result in a $40,000 (30,000 Euro) bill at the end of the year ($300 per episode).
Her mother, Blanca Rosa Alcántara, a city councilor for the People’s Party in Spain, protested: “I thought that it had unlimited downloading data rates.” In an official statement, representatives of the People’s Party at Getafe City Hall said that the party regrets “the improper use of the party’s Internet and phone lines by children”.
“I was absolutely unaware that such usage [using the 3G modem for downloading TV shows] could result in such excessive costs. I have a flat rate plan at my home and something like this has never happened before,” Alcántara added.
The councilor claims that she should have been warned against excessive use of the modem by the City Hall economic department, saying that this huge bill could have been prevented. Nevertheless, she promised to pay the entire bill including interest and hopes that the accident wont turn into a political issue.
This is not the first time that someone’s downloading habits have caused a financial crisis. In 2007 a factory worker from the UK was billed $54,000 for hooking up his mobile phone to to his laptop, and downloading 20 or 30 TV-shows. For some, file-sharing can prove to be an expensive hobby.
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48 Responses
Just wait till she gets the settlement bills from the content industries.. who made Lost, either they are doing to ding this little girl and her family as they have admitted to downloading LOST and causing “millions in damage” (by the creators estimate of course) OR they are going to try to “work” with her family politically to get “better and safer” laws with regards to p2p and TV…
Gotta keep teens on a leash. :D
BAAAAAWWWWWWWWW
They’d better get on to suing her ass like they do to the rest of us…
And this is why you should think of your upload speeds when downloading!
@ #3
she’s a politician who allowed misuse of a service provided for official work…
a blind eye will be turned and a promotion is on the way!!! :P
wait i dont understand, are they charging people for how much data they download over there in spain? if so, wow thank god im here in florida.
Only the 3g Card.
Most 3G Services are not flatrate in europe.
BTW: Isnt private use filesharing legal in spain?
30k for excess use.. christ how many episodes did she download?
#1 She won’t get any settlement bill. For now, here in Spain downloading music, movies or tv shows is legal. Or, rather, not illegal. Only with a civil suit could the MAFIAAs get something from her.
We pay for it dearly, though. Every DVD costs double to pay for a “tax” that goes to the local MAFIAAs, which is the reason most of us buy our DVDs from out of the country.
Hard Drives, USB drives, even mobile phones, pay a tax as well.
You make it sound like only spain have taxes lol. Sweden is just as taxraped on everything.
Yeah, but the thing is: this is not a tax, it’s a canon (don’t know what the word in English is) that a *private* entity is getting due to some stupid old law and some strong-arming of the tech companies (with help from the government).
And they have no financial supervision whatsoever about what they do with that money (300 million euros a year!) and if they give it to their members, as they claim.
Oh, well, guess the French have it worse with Sarkozy and his 3 strikes.
YUP vote here out a power ashes a useless idiot , doesnt even stand up fer her kid
smells like a setup
funny how its a politcian
new riaa/mpaa plots
Lost producers: LP
Little Girl: LG
LP: You said you downloaded some lost episodes,is that correct?
LG:Yes sir…
LP:You’r lucky you aren’t 18 yet cauz we would sue your ass for sure!
LG:Yes sir…
LP: Instead we’ll sue your mom!and then when she’s flat broke we’ll be happy in our whirlbath drinking champagne with some playmates…
LG:yes sir….
What a joke…SHAME ON YOU!
Every time I hear one of these ridiculous stories, it makes me wonder why the ISPs don’t have some kind of warning system to notify users of excessive use. Surely, the ISPs should have at least an ethical responsibility to send a warning when a bill suddenly exceeds some reasonable limit, rather than just slapping the consumer with a bill for thousands at the end of the month.
I know in Australia, our ISPs send warning notices when we start reaching monthly bandwidth quotas (although that’s a slightly different situation, the concept is similar).
So um… some kid downs a load of files, runs her Mummy’s net bill up to some ridiculous amount. I’m sure this happens a fair bit.
So why is it on TF again?
Stfu and piss off.
The People’s Party of Spain has always been fond of spending a lot of money, especially the taxpayers’ one.
Believe me, they are much, much worse than ETA terrorists.
You know, you’d think that the ISP would phone the customer and tell them their bill is getting close to 40K. Also, they use Euro’s in Spain, not Dollars.
http://torrentino.info
@ #3 Yes in some countries you get charged for the data you download. Such as here in Australia. Any unlimited data plans in this country have usually look like this “Unlimited* Data”
*Internet speed is capped to 64kbps upon reaching 10GB limit.
Other plans charge you rates such as $1/MB over your data limit. It is simple to run up bills like that when ISPs charges are so outrageous.
HA blame it on the kids :D Typical parents.
She just wanted a reason to not having to pay the bill I sware :P
Me and a friend got a $11,000 bill last month at $0.02/KB.
Although we had an unlimited plan so Altel said they would figure it out.
Ouch. >.< I wonder how much data they used.
Here is Colombia you can get prepaid or monthly billed 3G modem service, unlimited, 2mbps. I download a couple gigs daily on it :) its like $40/month.
lemme check my bittorent
2Mb/sec speed on a computer bought Jan 5th, since then I’ve downloaded 57.7GB. I pay 30 euros a month for a 2Mb/sec 20GB/month allowance. My speed goes down whenever I go over 20GB but I never get an extra charge.
According to my usage on the company’s website, I had used a total of 81.76GB, and I was only being billed for half that.
$40K is quite outrageous, and I’d bet if she took the provider to court she could get those charges reduced to only a few thousand or maybe just a few hundred.
There are provisions in the law that make wholly unreasonable contract terms unenforceable, like if a landlord wants to charge you $100K for being two days late on your rent. Even if you signed something saying you agree to those terms, because they are grossly unconscionable, they are not legally enforceable. I’ve been down this road in Canada with some rental properties I own.
Charges from the phone company have been tossed in this manner as well.
If I were this woman, I would hire a lawyer right away. It doesn’t cost much compared to $40K, and I think it’s very likely she would save at least $39K by doing so.
@#17 John Space: you have no idea of what you’re talking about. People’s Party are the conervatives here in Spain and they are well known for cutting taxes and dramatically decrease the public expenditure.
Worse than the ETA terrorists? Please, don’t be such an ass…
There should be a law that explicitly limits the amount you can be billed by any electronic system. If you want more – you buy pre-paid cards or put the money into a special bank deposit – but if you don’t your access must be autmatically put on hold if you overuse it by more than, say, a 100$.
No one will spend money on a system that makes them potentially make less money.
@1
i agree these sneak immoral bastards!!! like it really cost the $40k…lol
@2
not all things are equal in this world!!!
@5 lol
@9 & 10 as 11 says where do all those taxes go…not to your roads…
@25 the crime here is the fact they would dream of billing someone a years wage for something you can get for free on tv, or the phone company not contacting one to let the guy know for a common curtsy…thats extortion the last time i checked… i dont care what country you are in and our governments are backing these criminals!!! because they are one in the same…
as these govs put their grip around the public’s throats their crimes mounting more and more. the laws are not written to protect you… you can only buy your protection so if you have no money and you break the so called law plan on the max…the laws are written like this world wide…
“City Hall Billed $40,000 for Downloading ‘Lost’ Episodes”
Was she downloading them or financing new episodes… lol!
She definately is a ‘torrentfreak’.
:)
Go back to Libertad Digital, Alvaro.
@John Space: jajaja, that’s really funny from you.
Considering that you’re comparing a democratic party with a terrorist organization, I think that’s you who should go back…to Gara, maybe?
Last but not least, I think this discussion has nothing to do with the post, so I stop commenting about political stuff right now.
Have fun, John.
I am so glad that my 3G operator will throttle but not bill excessive bandwidth use.
But I never brought 3G-filesharing to work. Symtorrent is trying to connect all the time but everytime it gets a connect, it is dropping the peer a second later.
Perhaps I should try my laptop instead of my Nokia phone for p2p ;-)
she prob downloaded 4+ seaons in 720p
Wow, what the HELL is up with your ISPs in Europe?
I thought my fellow NATO members were for embracing freedom. We always hear how “European” ideas are always better.
I will never complain about Comcast every AGAIN, or T-Mobile.
Eating my greasy cheeseburger in my idling SUV, as I type this out on someones unprotected Wi-Fi network.
Cheers!
Your all mighty one.
God 2.0
PS I hope the Spaniard sues for decremental damages of character. Or demands compensation for the political crisis this outrage has cost him and his daughters reputation. Its outrageous for a shitty TV show to possibly throw him out. I hate ABC so…
thatll learn the clown for buying a shitty service and getting f**’d by a corporation.
lol at least it happens to the best of us. :)
Lost,I can understand if it was playboy movies but lost??
LOL great shit.
You Criminals need to learn from this!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
I don’t think this article is applicable for this site.
* For one thing, the issue is not necessarily P2P downloading – it might have been, but it could have been through iTunes; either way, it doesn’t say.
* Secondly, this is about excess through ISP’s – it’s not a copyright issue.
She could have been watching them on free online TV sites, such as justin.tv, which isn’t exactly a copyright violation.
@God 2.0 (#35): “I will never complain about Comcast every AGAIN, or T-Mobile. ”
Dude, you HAVE to keep complaining, that is why you have much better services over there…
– a Portuguese who is ripped off by his ISP (like most others)
Ridiculous. I pay € 16 monthly for unlimited 3G.
LOL what a moron, wireless cell bandwidth isn’t free, frankly I am surpised some people offer unlimited data plans at all.
$40,000 or a 14 year old with child?
Which would you prefer?
Let her watch TV!
Folks, FYI and to repeat, it’s not about the LOST episodes themselves. Those are completely free on the ABC website, it’s about someone being ignorant of their 3g subscription plan…
in where i live you can get unlimited 3g plan for $12/month
thats too bad.
the current season of LOST isnt worth 4$, let alone $40,000
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