Lonely Canadian shocked to get $84,000 phone bill

Oil field worker, 22, downloaded movies and other high-resolution files unaware of the charges they would incur.

The story "Lonely Canadian shocked to get $84,000 phone bill" published December 13, 2007 at 1:40 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[geognerd]

Pay up

Come on, guy! You either have to be a fool or incredibly naive to think you can get unlimited data for C$10 a month. He got his bill reduced to 4% of its original amount and shouldn't be complaining. Just another kid without any concept of fiscal responsibility who is trying to get a truck and phone service without paying their true costs.

[Moosehouse]

Totally True

I think if i had my bill reduced by that whopping amount I'd be grateful and quit complaining.

[Fireweaver]

Reality

If you're a phone company selling service to someone and you hype it as "unlimited" up and down when it's not you'll run into issues. <br />Sure, you may only have troubles with the "naive" people out there, but how much money do you think they'll have to pay you? <br />And as a company you only stand to lose good will with customers by having this type of article show up in the news. <br />Ultimately, you're trying to squeeze blood from a stone- what do you suppose is the base salary for naive people these days?

[paulej]

Yeah, like you must be a fool to believe...

that you can make unlimited calls anywhere in the US for $25? (Yeah, Skype has that.)<br /><br />These days, most communication services are moving to a flat-rate model. I have an unlimited data plan. I have a choice in plans at home, depending on how fast I want data to flow.<br /><br />If his mobile plan was unlimited, but only offered 19.6Kbps, I'd believe it. Who would want that rate? Even 128Kbps these days is almost worthless, but a provider could easily offer that for $10/mo.<br /><br />As we move to 4G network (mobile WiMAX) running 45Mbps, what will it cost to have a low-speed "all you can eat" plan?<br /><br />Prices fall and I see no reason why the fellow could not trust that his "unlimited" plan isn't unlimited.

[Moosehouse]

It's For People Like Him

that they put the "Caution - Hot" on the coffee cups. How naive can you be...

[k2dave]

Anyone would complain w/ a 84K cell bill

Hey most people out there that would call to complain about such a bill - they ones who don't call would probably just not pay it at all. I think most would complain about a $3,000 phone bill as well so I can't fault him for that either.

[robert1275]

There should be a warning mechanism

Anytime someone's bill goes over 3 digits as in 999 Dollars, 999 Euros, etc there should be multiple SMS messages sent to the individual as a warning. Perhaps even a call from customer service to the customer advising them of the extreme high billing.

[JFDMit]

Some services do.

When I was living in the UK, my monthly cellphone bill was usually around $150. One month, however, I had to make a lot of international calls. About halfway through the month, my phone company both called me and sent an SMS, telling me I had run up $1,500 in charges, and asking me to call them to confirm the phone wasn't being misused.<br /><br />Cellphone companies can provide good customer service if they want to.

[webladyinga]

READ BEFORE U SIGN OR COMMIT

This is yet another case of a young person(s) jumping in without reading the FINE- PRINT. On paper or online make sure you know the whole Deal! Most companies are hoping you don't read the fine print!<br /><br />I say both BELL and the young man are guilty! Shame on bell for the fine fine legal print that most need an attorney to understand. Shame on the young man for not checking things out and asking questions. Just my 4 cents.

[paulej]

Who has time?

If I actually read every contract that I had to agree to, I would still be reading. Some contracts for things I consider "petty" are tens of pages long. Sometimes, those on the Internet are the worst-- there are often really small windows that scroll forever. Copy and paste those into Word and you'll sometimes find the text consumes more than 10 pages! It is insane.<br /><br />Anyway, nobody has time. I certainly don't have time-- nor do I want to waste my time reading pages and pages of legal garbage.<br /><br />Fine print should be reserved for details like indicating penalties for late payment, failure to pay, dispute resolution policies, etc.<br /><br />I believe everybody would agree that it should not be legal to have a huge, bold title that says "Unlimited Data" and then fine print that imposes limits.

[Dr_Zinj]

Should never be any fine print

Frankly, the use of ANY "fine print" in a contract represents an intent to mislead and defraud. As such, no "fine print" should ever be grounds for taking legal action against a customer who signed said "agreement". The benefits and responsibilities of the contractor and the contractee should be stated ACCURATELY, BREIFLY and CONCISELY. Unfortunately for most contracts (including EULAs) only the first is ever followed, and even then, often is not.

[My-Self]

Selling 'unlimited' access, then charging

They used deceit and made a false claim about their plan being unlimited. <br />when they decided this particular flavour of 'unlimited' was not without limits, they should have blocked him instead of charging.<br />By charging him (and countless others) they made a risky bet they deserve to lose.<br />Sure there must be a fine print statement burried somewhere in the lenghty contract, but paper does not refuse ink and writing nonsense doesn't make it any legal. Bell's bad faith already led to class action lawsuits they overwelmingly lost. <br />Time for consumer protection organisations to step in.

[Icaarus]

Sure did

And they got the idea from the 'Unlimited' providers of the US that cap you at way less than a gig on the new cell networks. I have dealt with the Bell people, it is very possible that the salesman never even told him what his limits on the 'unlimited' account were. You should always deal with cell phone companies used to handling the small businesses or field deployed teams. Especially in ALBERTA. My best wishes to the Dad, he has a long fight on his hands (at least his son can get cell phone reception it could be a lot worse)

[Dr. StrangeOne]

Reminds me of early CompuServe Days

People would sign up with CServe in the early 90's and fall over dead when they got the bill.

[farookh2000]

RE:or AOL chat rooms

I also can remember when AOL was beginning it's mass mailing campaign. Kids sign up with parents credit card and spend hours in chat rooms at $3.95/hour. The bill wasn't pretty at all :).

[Metaljman]

Internet Browsing = Downloading Files

Cookies and temp files are downloaded while browosing. Do they also charge for those? If so, they are very misleading with the way they titled the plan.<br /><br />Though, to be honest,$10.00 unlimited browsing does seem awfully cheap compared to other plans that hit up to 30 and 40 a month.

[GreySkies01]

Unlimited "Data"

Well, I just read through MY agreement.<br /><br />Only took about 10 minutes to find this gem. I wonder why Video is NOT data? Hmm.. How stupid of me to think that downloading data using a data plan would be allowed!<br /><br />"UNLIMITED PLANS CANNOT BE USED FOR UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING OR STREAMING OF VIDEO CONTENT (E.G. MOVIES, TV), MUSIC OR GAMES."

[The_Decider]

Phone companies actions prove it is a scam

They reduced the bill to a little over $3000.<br /><br />Do you think that if this was a legitimate charge that they could do this? Do you know of any legitimate service charge that could be reduced so deeply?<br /><br />Hell no.<br /><br />Even at $3000 they are making a killing.<br /><br />This just shows that cell companies(like every other company) need regulations to prevent this sort of ripoff.

[JoJo Pumpkin]

This is a shared responsibilty

Sure, the guy should pay something, but I feel that it was also the phone company's responsibility to flag his account to notify him of his potentially huge bill and make sure he understood his contract.