All you did was explain what happened (your kid, girlfriend, etc made the 900 number) and that you didn’t know anything about it. The phone company would just take that portion of the bill out. Of course usually for the first offense.

I think this kind of case should be handled similarly.

Will I be back with Comcast?

You’re kidding right? Crappy service and abusive management? For get it!

http://comcastissue.blogspot.com

along with the high cost of line rental, and ISP charges.

i phoned every week. trying to pay my bill before it got out of hand, it took them over 5 months to bill me, this wasnt only me, it was all their new ADSL customers.

i was given 14days to pay about £500/or so. i called on day one. they refused to extend my payment terms, i spoke to the manager, explained my history, they admitted they had problems, but still wanted payment within 14days.

after i said i think i better speak to the inhouse laywer at my work, they soon gave me more time to pay.

i had the momney set aside all the time in my account, but thats not the point. i refused to be bullied.

down with i phone and all like products, there should only be one device for each service and less trouble

Purchase a decent sports car ..or.. Download porn

Travel the world in style ..or.. Watch a season of Friends

Put a down payment on a home in a hot market ..or.. Share some files and send e-mail

Wether this is a stupid mistake or deliberate excess nobody would ever in their right mind expect a $54K phone bill.

Mobile Internet may be more expensive than conventional connections but how would you go about getting a bill of such size with another provider? I foolishly downloaded all binary newsgroups for a few days a few years ago and was promptly dropped by my ISP. There were some long distances phone charges to their abuse department but no change on the monthly bill.

As noted earlier this is predatory. That the provider would at all consider this a reasonable practice is inhuman.

Threshold monitoring is built into every system we are familiar with – computers or otherwise; some examples include disk quotas and speed limits. Pay as you go cell providers prove the technology exists in this area as well.

Whether it be a time limit, price limit, or data size limit – something should be in place to prevent this unreasonable situation from happening. It’s a gross oversight that allows an outrageous bill of $54K, and the provider should bear that responsibility.

This however is part of a broader issue that billing practices allow people to unexpectedly accumulate mass debts. It seems to be an issue with any new communication service. We have issue with mobile technology today, general Internet connectivity previously (though there are still limits with many packages), and telephone packages in the past (there are still places in the US it’s unclear when you’re making a long distance call!).

It is my suspicion that this comes from the interoperability of many smaller providers, but we must demand some form of protection for the end consumer. Threshold limiting has been around forever, let’s demand protection for each other with mobile and whatever new technology comes along.

0wned[/quote]
4 albums off of Jamendo?

I’m sure he’s just as smart as you, the problem with your comments is that when you screw up (and you will) no one will be around to call you a fucking moron.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 – is in work.

Yea. Everyone is criticizing the guy for being dumb. Probably, but the point is that most people are dumb and these companies use these tactics to dominate these types of people. $54,000 for some downloading? I don’t give a shit what the fine print says… that’s fucking corruption.

How stupid is THAT ?

What a moron.[/quote]

You do know that mobile internet in Europe currently runs at 7.2Mbit/s meaning it can probably be faster then some DSL and Cable services, of course this guy just used his phone, meaning unless he had a new phone he probably did not get those speeds but a few Mbit/s is not unlikely.[/quote]

you do know the fastest internet on a mobile(3g) runs at 3.6 Mbit/sec[/quote]

STUPID NOOBs should PAY

i hope this guy takes this to press and makes a big fool out of these stupid cellphone companies

Excess data charges are there for a reason (these services are not as cheap to provide as you probably think). Services are generally bundled into a package that includes a set amount of data, calls, etc. at a certain price. This package is usually bought from a wholesaler who passes on excess fees to the service provider.

This customer could have at any time enquired about his data limit and/or excess charges by calling customer service. In most cases, he would have been given a document showing all the charges for his service, and this will also be available on the service provider’s website or available from them by fax or mail at request.

I don’t know what the laws are in this person’s country, but in Australia there are rules about protecting a customer from an ‘unexpectedly high’ bill. We’d be obliged to suspend the service and/or contact the customer if the customer incurred extremely high charges. In Australia this customer could go straight to the ombudsman and get the charges reduced significantly (which is probably why the customer’s bill was reduced to about 10%).

It’s tricky with mobile data, as it’s intended for casual phone-based use, NOT using the phone as a modem. In fact, in Australia I believe service providers state clearly that the phone is not to be used as a modem.

As for the wrongly advertised ‘unlimited’ I couldn’t agree more – it is disgraceful, but unfortunately generally legal. Remember unlimited refers to the data you can download, not the cost (or the speed). The industry needs more regulation to ensure that ‘unlimited’ means ‘unlimited without speed shaping or extra charges’. The misnaming of plans as unlimited costs the telcos in upset customers and frustrated staff as well as misleading customers. Unfortunately it is a race to get the customer to sign up on a contract – and advertising is all about deception.

As for not reading the contract, that is an assinine defence. The customer is given the contract and asked to agree to it. It’s true that most customers don’t read them, but that is the customer’s responsibility, not the service provider’s. If the customer doesn’t understand the contract they should not agree to it. Accepting a contract and then complaining after the fact that you didn’t understand it or didn’t read it is just plain stupid.[/quote]

I couldnt agree more with you. Its not the telcos fault he doesnt read the contract and does not understand that it is unlimited in the amount of data downloaded you just have too have the wallet to match.

People must also realise that unless the service is provided by the telco the charges are delayed as the Telco has to wait on the other service provider to provide all the costs that the Cust raked up on their site.

As I said in my previous comment the Telco provided the service.
Mostlikely it was unsupported as Vodafone has wireless options for your laptop and convey that you should not use your ph as a modem as that is not one of the main uses of most phones even though MANUFACTURERS not Telcos make it capable of doing so.

Unless you all have worked in the Telco industry you are all as neive as this guy as you do not fully understand the way things really work.

firstly, about the speed: You don’t know where this guy is living. If he lives in a rural area without DSL access then he might be damn right. Then the cell phone was probably the fastest option.

Secondly, yes it is stupid not to read (or understand) a contract before signing it. BUT, why are these assholes allowed to advertise with UNLIMITED traffic when in fact it is very limited? IMO that’s fraud, despite this bullshit ‘fair use’ clause. They should be sued for deceptive advertisement, ordered to pay back any money they have stolen with that ‘fair use’ BS from any people, and even made to pay a huge penalty fine on top, so that they finally learn how to advertise honestly…

merry christmas

b*

In Denmark it even cost less, if you pay in advance, as the company never has to collect money from people who don’t have them… (which is an expense most telephone companies have, I suspect). also, they’ll get the interest of the money even before they are used..

It’s a smart trick for both the company and the costumer…

I paid some time 850 Euro to my phone company for doing a similar thing. They have overpriced some kilobytes thats the problem.

DSL is the best way to connect to the internet.[/quote]

Eh, the problem with DSL is the speed depends solely upon where you live in relation to the nearest respective ISP. Cable/Fiber is a much better way to connect to the internet, a lot faster (at least for me, i get 8 Mb/s down where as i would get 2 Mb/s down with DSL)

LOL

Excess data charges are there for a reason (these services are not as cheap to provide as you probably think). Services are generally bundled into a package that includes a set amount of data, calls, etc. at a certain price. This package is usually bought from a wholesaler who passes on excess fees to the service provider.

This customer could have at any time enquired about his data limit and/or excess charges by calling customer service. In most cases, he would have been given a document showing all the charges for his service, and this will also be available on the service provider’s website or available from them by fax or mail at request.

I don’t know what the laws are in this person’s country, but in Australia there are rules about protecting a customer from an ‘unexpectedly high’ bill. We’d be obliged to suspend the service and/or contact the customer if the customer incurred extremely high charges. In Australia this customer could go straight to the ombudsman and get the charges reduced significantly (which is probably why the customer’s bill was reduced to about 10%).

It’s tricky with mobile data, as it’s intended for casual phone-based use, NOT using the phone as a modem. In fact, in Australia I believe service providers state clearly that the phone is not to be used as a modem.

As for the wrongly advertised ‘unlimited’ I couldn’t agree more – it is disgraceful, but unfortunately generally legal. Remember unlimited refers to the data you can download, not the cost (or the speed). The industry needs more regulation to ensure that ‘unlimited’ means ‘unlimited without speed shaping or extra charges’. The misnaming of plans as unlimited costs the telcos in upset customers and frustrated staff as well as misleading customers. Unfortunately it is a race to get the customer to sign up on a contract – and advertising is all about deception.

As for not reading the contract, that is an assinine defence. The customer is given the contract and asked to agree to it. It’s true that most customers don’t read them, but that is the customer’s responsibility, not the service provider’s. If the customer doesn’t understand the contract they should not agree to it. Accepting a contract and then complaining after the fact that you didn’t understand it or didn’t read it is just plain stupid.

hope satellite connection will come to mass some day near future[/quote]

LOL!! You serious? I charge ISP’s $200+/Hour to help them engineer networks. Internet will never be free. I need to actually raise my rates because I’m working 40/hours a week now.

In the US, most cellular companies (perhaps all but prepaid?) do a credit check. Bad credit or no credit history results in a high security deposit for some folks to receive service. It’s a big deal here in Mississippi where many people with bad or little credit can’t afford to put a thousand dollar deposit for a cellphone, so they get prepaid phones with higher per minute charges. It’s a poor man’s phone tax. The point is that the phone company should know in advance that this rube can’t afford such a phone bill. Commmon sense (here’s where the judge or jury gets payback) wouuld dicate a company policy that prevented such incidents in the first place. Somewhere around the thousand dollar mark, unless you’re a client with a usual calling habit that high (and they’d know that too, so high use-high value customers wouldn’t be affected) they just FREEZE the account. If only for the purpose of FRAUD control. The phone company can easily program qualifiers on individual or groups of accounts to prevent this type of thing from happening. Scared customers agree to pay a percentage of the extortion instead of giving it the proper LEGAL test so sorely needed I do not believe the telephone company behavior or contract will withstand the scrutiny of the ordinary man standards of reasonableness. If, during the trial, it is found through subpoenas of phone company records that they have known about this and continued the practice in a predatory manner could add further complications for them.
I have had the phone company try to overcharge me illegally and unethically back during the dial-up era. Back right after bulletin board (BBS) era, AOL could still charge by the minute for modem service. About the time modems hit 56k, competition had moved the dial-up market to provide UNLIMITED dial-up for about twenty bucks a month. One of the major telcos offered such a deal but shipped a PER MINUTE version of their internet setup software(remember back when you had to INSTALL THE INTERNET–LOL). I wouldn’t have realized it was ENTIRELY their fault until the REPLACEMENT installation CD they sent me DID THE SAME THING! In the meantime I had a couple hundred dollars worth of dial-up charges to debate with them because the initial “mistake” wasn’t noticed until….drum roll….THE FIRST BILL., though when I got that replacement cd and it was also an installation trap to their higher priced per minute service (they were still preying off noobs and grandma’s who were willing to pay thru the nose for per minute billing – Grandma used to get some HELLA BILLS when the grandkids visited) they finally relented and wrote off the bill. I had SEVEN pages of notes on the customer service experience because every time I got transferred to a different person I had to start over with the story. Conclusions: Guy might be a dumbass noob, but we’re all dumbass noobs somewhere sometime in our lives and with capitalist wolves like these Telcos at every turn, we’ve got to look out for each other. There’s no justice, it’s just us.
Enjoy

http://digg.com/politics/Government_Reveals_The_Secrets_Behind_Area_51_AMAZING

Comcast was happy with me when I kept it under 300GB a month. All genealogical data, of course… :-)