Today in the news I saw an article that caught my attention. The title read “Family gets $20,000 cell phone bill.” I thought to myself, how on earth could someone possibly rack up a $20,000 phone bill, but then once I saw the video that explained it, it was easy to understand. We’re dealing with cell phone companies here who don’t always have a great reputation when it comes to advertising plans and billing correctly, which explains a lot.
Here’s what happened, a man received his cell phone bill and said he almost fell over when he saw that he owed AT&T $19,370. He called customer service at AT&T only to have them tell him that it wasn’t a mistake, it was because of international usage, and he was to pay the bill. What happened was that his son took a laptop with him on a business trip up to Vancouver, British Columbia. With the laptop he brought an air card which gives users unlimited Internet usage at any time in any place.
Most of the charges were from international roaming rates, but the problem is that he was charged for roaming in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. He wasn’t even close to those Provinces! The man ended up calling a news station who picked it up and decided to call AT&T. Thankfully AT&T responded to them and reduced the bill down to nothing. While this is great for the man and his family, he wonders why AT&T never informed him when the bill got to the point of concern.
This leads us to our next poll. How much is your monthly cell phone bill? This could get a little tricky because people have multiple phones in their households, but that’s fine. Just let us know the dollar amount you spend on your cell phone bill each month whether it be for one phone or five phones.
New Poll: How much is your monthly cell phone bill?
- $0-$50
- $51-$100
- $101-$150
- $151-$200
- $201-$300
- $301-$400
- $401-$500
- $500+
- I don’t have a cell phone bill
Cast your vote below if you have Flash enabled or vote in the sidebar.
Previous Poll Wrap-Up
For our previous poll, we asked: How did you watch the Olympics? We found that the majority of you, 47% still used traditional TV to get your olympics fix. Coming in 2nd was 36% of you who didn’t even watch the Olympics followed by 12% who used online streaming television. We wonder, how will these numbers change for the Olympics in 2010? Will we see more people streaming the games online?
you should do another poll, and break up $0-150 by tens/fifteens. It looks like most people are in that range.
$149.97 for 4 people, with unlimited text, photo, video, and instant messaging (AIM/Y!/MSN) for all four – AT&T. And currently, 1,688 rollover minutes.
I have the $70 iPhone plan, my mom has a $30 plan with Sprint, and my dad has a $100ish plan with Sprint. So around $200 before taxes for 3 phones.
Works pays for mine. They buy me a $300 phone every year (I pick it) and I get unlimited data too so if I want to tether to my laptop I’m good to go.
So “I don’t have a cell phone bill”.
I do the prepaid route.
About €15/m for 2 phones/people. If I include the variable costs like roaming and data, then the average is probably around €25-30/m which is about $50.
I purchase C&W prepaid cards to fill up my cellphone: $2.00, $5.00, $10.00 or $12.00 per card. With special promotions the air time of the card can be three to four times its cost. They send you a text message announcing the promotion.
Mine is $50 after tax, that with unlimited text, unlimited talk time, and unlimited web love it!
It runs about $150 monthly but thats shared by 5 phones. Each phone user picks up a percentage (based on use) so my and hubbys is about $30 month while our kids cover the balance. That’ll teach them lol!
I pay 8 euros monthly for unlimited calling to numbers on the same GSM network I’m using, which includes basically everyone I usually call. In addition to that I usually send a couple of text messages every month and occasionally need to check something on the internet. I usually get a 20 € bill every two months.
Extortion, er, Roaming Fees, the great profit center for cell phone companies. How we let them get away with this is beyond me?
which company is better and for $50 you get with unlimited text, unlimited talk time, and unlimited web? Mohan which company?
which company is for $50 with unlimited text, unlimited talk time, and unlimited web?
Believe it or not, but I only need about 10 euros (less than $10) worth of cellphone credit every year.
MetroPCS ([metropcs.com])
I believe every bit of that $20,000 incident because my husband went through a worse experience with Sprint about 5 years ago, and we are still suffering from the effects of it.
Same kind of thing…for international calls. Only the problem is that my husband never left the country and doesn’t know anyone in any foreign country. He used his phone exclusively for calling local, only.
Sprint sent him a bill for just over $12,000 for a single month’s worth of charges, claiming he made calls to Italy, Argentina, and the Bahamas.
After my husband disputed the bill, Sprint removed the charges and said they would investigate. The following month they added the charges back on and when my husband called again, they told him the charges were valid and he had to pay them.
After my husband refused to pay them, Sprint cut off and locked our long distance service on our home land line (they were also our long distance provider at that time). This means that we have no long distance service and can not change providers until we pay the $12,000 cell phone bill and Sprint releases the lock. (this is what Verizon, our local home phone service provider, told me)
So for the last 5 years I have been dealing with collections agencies wanting the money Sprint thinks we owe, as well as not having any long distance service on my home land line. And there is nothing I can do about it.
Yikes is all I have to say about this situation! Perhaps a lawyer might be of help? We had some issues with Sprint several years ago — and after not getting anywhere with multiple customer service reps and the supervisor of the customer service reps, we went straight to the top, literally, we called the president of Sprint. Of course we didn’t speak directly to him, and we didn’t expect to, we spoke to an assistant. It took only minutes to get our issue resolved after weeks of going round and round with one of the standard customer service reps.
I forgot to include the pre-paid route as an option! Whoops!
I rarely use my cell phone, except as a pocket watch.
I’m actually surprised to see how many of you keep your cell phone costs to a minimum. Right now the $0 to $50 plans are taking the crown.