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Florida Man slapped with $143,000 T-Mobile phone bill after 3-week trip to Europe
- Thread starter RBH
- Start date
One time, my sister decided to call her overseas friend and T-Mob cut off everyone in the family.
Also,
also esims are the way go to now if you don't have a plan with international roaming allowances built in
Ah yeah that is the current catch with eSIMs right now. I paid off my iPhone to unlock it with AT&T since I had several international trips planned.
hahah, you just have to keep coming back to talk about this emoji š
Is that 0.002 dollars or 0.002 cents per kb?
https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU
https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU
The travel esim market (airalo, ubigi, nomad etc) is a bit of a funny one to be honest and is probably operating in a massive grey area
I can get an esim that covers mainland china but the carrier itself is operating out of taiwan or sg
I had one from my last US trip that was through a french carrier
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but here's an eSIM for China:
You could literally just get a throwaway Euro number for like $15 a month. I still keep my number from Spain and its 10 Euros a month.
He definitely shouldn't pay it or sue. There's no way T-mobile spends than much to send information overseas. My phone's unlocked though
He definitely shouldn't pay it or sue. There's no way T-mobile spends than much to send information overseas. My phone's unlocked though
Some T-Mobile US plans actually ask for $15/MB and $0.25/min from Switzerland
I believe it would be a good idea if T-Mobile would contact users after they reached maybe some 1k of roaming costs.
He got lucky because ABC Action News was interested in the story.
Weird, I used T mobile throughout Europe and it didn't cost a penny extra. Also used it in Switzerland with no extra cost.
Even if he used the data and knew it was roaming, in what freaking world should 10gigs of data cost $150,000 should be illegal to be able to rack up a bill this high without a call to make sure things are okay, especially after 30 years of being a normal account, we're not taking some crazy business account.
10gig of data for the price of a house, jfc what a crock of shit
10gig of data for the price of a house, jfc what a crock of shit
All this roaming stuff is fucking bullshit. Then you've got parents/family members that aren't that tech savvy, and they send a text or dial out by accident, bam, roaming charges.
And then there's buying a current phone that doesn't support e-sim which is also fucking stupid.
And then there's buying a current phone that doesn't support e-sim which is also fucking stupid.
I used to just get new SIM cards whenever I went to a new country, but eSIMs and an unlocked phone are so nice. Traveled to France and Switzerland last year, and you best believe I only paid 15 bucks for both for a couple weeks
Because I need the money for everything else. God Switzerland is an expensive country.
Because I need the money for everything else. God Switzerland is an expensive country.
Yikes
There used to be stories like this on Canada often but I'm pretty sure a the Canadian companies send you warnings when you get to a certain threshold or cut you off
And how old was the plan he was on? You always have to be checking what is new since these companies usually won't tell you if there are better plans for your needs....
There used to be stories like this on Canada often but I'm pretty sure a the Canadian companies send you warnings when you get to a certain threshold or cut you off
And how old was the plan he was on? You always have to be checking what is new since these companies usually won't tell you if there are better plans for your needs....
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US Mobile + eSim. I pay $276 a year for 35GB of 5G UW speeds on Verizon's towers (which I barely use half of), Unlimited Talk/Text/International Calling, and an extra 10GB of free international data to most countries I travel to. Post-paid phone plans are kinda goofy nowadays in terms of value add. Even if you buy an unlocked phone + do a prepaid plan and do the math, you save hundreds in the long termm.
That's why I activate airplane mode and only use wi-fi in the hotel as soon as I leave the EU, I don't even bother to check if I have roaming data for the country I'm in, it makes the vacation much more enjoyable when my phone is basically bricked for most of the day and I'm not bothered by text messages and notifications all the time.
Heh, nothing compares to Andorra (I think they recently changed) - nested between two EU countries, where roaming is actually pretty cheap now (not more expensive than your own data plan):
That comes out to 17000 euro per GB
That comes out to 17000 euro per GB
It's automatic and caps at like 150 USD a month or so. It's great
Not sure why 'Florida Man' is relevant in OP as he doesn't seem to have done anything stupid / wrong.
i genuinely think that roaming charges are a made up thing by telecoms
starlink mobious will save us
starlink mobious will save us
Yeah, fuck these kind of overcharges. I get paying more abroad (though as a EU citizen it's amazing to not have to worry about it while traveling in most European countries, even the UK is still free of roaming charges), but that kind of surcharge is just borderline criminal. The ease with which they wave it away once you get media involved says a lot too (there are more stories like this where ultimately the bill was dropped)
Luckily my provider's phone app let's me easily switch of roaming for data on and off. Never had a problem when I travelled cross-continentally because of this.
Luckily my provider's phone app let's me easily switch of roaming for data on and off. Never had a problem when I travelled cross-continentally because of this.
It should be literally illegal to charge that amount. This is not 2004 when a megabyte was considered a lot. Companies are pretending that bandwidth costs are still the same and doing this to catch unaware customers and charge them just because they can.
One of the biggest achievements of the EU was making a law that mandates this in those situations
On top of it being a ridiculous amount for data, I also strongly believe that all data charges should have a cost cap. In fact, if a telco has an unlimited data plan, it should be impossible for ad-hoc data charges in a month to go above say, 1.5x the monthly cost of that plan.
Am I going insane or does that article not even explain how this was resolved but instead just jumps to the guy being relieved he doesn't have to pay it? Like what happened in between here?
He called and was told it was a "good bill" and weren't going to wipe it out, then he contacted a local news thing where they help consumers with companies or whatever I assume and then once that group got in contact with the company they suddenly wiped out the bill. Then t-mobile put out a nonsense statement about how consumers should make sure to be prepared for travel abroad which it stupid as he apparently did ask their store first.
Edit: he actually got a lawyer to contact them after he tried first then after that failed he got the news show involved who finally got a solution.
Does T-Mobile have in place any warning systems to let customers know when they are using a lot of data?
I think my telcos here does, not in the US though. I believe I can set a maximum cap on overseas data roaming charges, and they also send sms reminders when you hit specific milestones to let you know how much you've spent.
I think my telcos here does, not in the US though. I believe I can set a maximum cap on overseas data roaming charges, and they also send sms reminders when you hit specific milestones to let you know how much you've spent.
Mods, please can we get a thread title update and exception to use the smug emoji?
Preferably at least three of them.
Preferably at least three of them.
Not surprised at all. T moble is one of the absolute WORST cellphone companies I have ever dealt with in my life. They will do everything in their power to make this man pony up I guarantee it
Ahh, the joys of late stage capitalism.
Allowing a customer to go into essentially infinite amounts of debt with no guardrails, because why not. (and being allowed to do it in the first place)
Allowing a customer to go into essentially infinite amounts of debt with no guardrails, because why not. (and being allowed to do it in the first place)
Quite a few of the phones have dual sim though right? Would it be safe to assume that most do?
How are travel plans, are they decently priced? Airports usually have some phone carriers there, selling local SIM cards.
Then again, there's the issue of whether or not your phone supports whatever bands the carrier has anyway.
I think my last Xiaomi phone had dual sim, but it was probably a microsd slot.
Imagine if companies, you know, actually standardized things. Like, what good is your unlocked phone if it doesn't even work on x or y carrier.
Looks like I was careless with phrasing. When I say China's carriers do not use eSims, I mean you cannot buy an eSim from China Mobile/China Telecom/China Unicom. If you buy an eSim from a foreign carrier that normally offers roaming in China and activate the eSim while outside China, you can use that eSim while in China. That is how I have a roaming T-Mobile US eSim while in China right now. I assume things like Ubigi work the same way?
Almost all the phones sold here have 2 physical sim slots. However, a fair number of phones have a shared slot for a microSD card and a second sim, so if you use 2 sim cards simultaneously, you cannot use a microSD card. The major international airports usually have one or more carrier stores that sell special prepaid cards for travelers. Usually they are around CNY ~100 for 30 days (around USD 15). China Mobile is the most expensive, followed by Telecom and then Unicom. However, the price differences usually show in the number of talk minutes and GB of data offered in the plan rather than the price of the cheapest plan.