UK Girl Handed $5,700 Roaming Bill After Vacation in NYC

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hixbot

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Overages should be illegal, any extra data usage above your plan should be a pro-rated charge at the same cost per MB as found in the standard plan. There is no way a cell carrier can justify that they need to charge 1000 times more per MB if you go over some arbitrary data cap.

That being said, why didn't this girl's parents take the cell phone away? Also why wasn't she using wifi? New York city has at least 1 open wifi network on every block.
 
I agree you cant go one block in nyc without seeing atleast 50 different wifi connects with some being free to use

But that bill is crazy, how i miss unlimited data. To bad all the carriers are overloaded and thats why its not really possible anymore minus sprint. That or they just love charging overage fees
 

natoco

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Every single carrier hopes you over use and go over your cap to charge you heaps for your own negligence. That's when the real money starts to be made from the consumer. This is common knowledge like death and taxs. The 14yr old is just outright lying about not seeing the messages and opting out. Pre paid till 18 I say or the parents foot the bill.
 

fenix1186

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This is why I use Sprint. I'm not dealing with that overage shit, arbitrary data limits, etc. I refuse to support a company that doesn't have unlimited.
 

TeraMedia

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Round-trip plane tickets from Heathrow to JFK: 1133 euros.
Boutique hotel rooms in the panhandle: 1321 euros
Steaks at McCormick & Schmick's: 183 euros
Using your Orange phone to document your trip on facebook: priceless

When you simply must get snookered by your mobile carrier, nothing beats the data-consuming abilities of a teenage girl. For everything else, there's Mastercard.
 

ddpruitt

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The teenager apparently received a text message from Orange, her carrier, four days into the trip, informing her that she had gone over her data limit and that her normal £50 bill was now £320. The carrier blocked calls and texts but did not block data, and so the schoolgirl continued to use her phone (though the Daily Mail does report her mother told her to stop using it until they got home).

Casey's parents are going to pay the bill but say the rates are ridiculous, that it's extortion, and that their daughter doesn't remember opting out of her roaming data cap.

I agree that overages and caps are stupid in most cases. But this is a case of a teenager being a teenager. She admitted she got a text that she went over 4 days into the trip and now she's surprised and acting innocent?

Time for the people that sired her to act like parents.
 
sounds like a stupid teen that was warned plenty...
at least she got warnings, for years in america you get a huge bill without any knowledge that you've gone over in any way. It was a total scam.
Got a $300 bill after I met my girlfriend and talked to her excessively and ended up going over my minutes.

Unlimited plans are the way to go... NO Issues, NO Bullsh*t
Still gotta be careful about leaving the country though. If you do then just get a pay as you go type phone when you get there. Then you just buy cards for more minutes/service as needed while you are there, no surprise bills.
 

teh_chem

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So the provider will cut service to voice and texts as a precautionary measure, yet not cut service to the most-expensive part of their roaming plan; data?



I think that overage fees are excessive with most providers, but this case was about roaming vs. overage. Though to play devil's advocate, providers might argue that they plan for a certain amount of load based on a pre-determined per-user usage. And high outliers tax their systems more than expected. Then again, there are also a lot of minimal data users. So I can't imagine that the average changes much. It just ends up being a cash grab.

Regarding overage fees, I really respect how Ting mobile (a MVNO operating on the Sprint network) does it. You can select a basic data package size, with sizes of like 200MB, 500MB, 1GB, 2GB, and 3GB getting set (and reasonable) monthly prices. If you end up going to the next-larger bin, all you get charged is for that next-larger bin price (they don't care if you went beyond your initial set amount). No overage fees. If you go beyond 3GB, you pay per-MB beyond 3GB at the equivalent MB cost for the 3GB package (it's not a lot, $0.02/MB, and there's no upper limit)
 

deltatux

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Carriers really need to do more automated messages that reminds customers at different tiers about their roaming charges and should use an "opt-out" system than an "opt-in" system in terms of blocking calls/text and data. They should have also blocked data too instead of only calls and texts. It's rather obvious that data roaming nets the most profit for these companies so I don't see them ever doing that.

However, a $5700 bill isn't even close to "record breaking" for roaming. I've seen many similar horror story in Canada but there was the case where a father was charged $22,000 (yes, enough to buy a new car) for roaming when his son turned on data roaming. More here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/03/01/bc-rogers-roaming.html
 

Vorador2

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Roaming is just a way for carriers to reap massive profits with very little cost. Europe is trying to squash roaming overcharges, and EEUU should follow suit.
 

tlg

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Britsh under-18 kid acting irresponsibly and parents saying its the fault of the service/company/someone else. Typical British behavior.
 

Fabel

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So how can a minor op out? A service involving a contractual relationship and any aspects of it must be handled by the parens right? So is it acceptable for Orange to change that op out without explicit consent of her parents? I mean a phone call or at leat a settings panel behind a user/password are the bare minimuns to manage your phone account right? Right?
 
Must be a slow news day. Spoiled brat 14 year old used her phone overseas, parents should have just turned it off and left it at home.

14 Year old, obviously lying and ignored the warnings, because she's bad, she does what she wants.
 

bustapr

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well, its the parents mostly at fault here. they gave a smartphone to their 14 year old daughter for her to own. they knew all the fees that involve use of said phone, its all in the contract they signed. they didnt enforce the rules of phone use. the girl most likely wasnt aware of the consequences of using a phone. I sure as hell didnt know jack squat about bills at that age.

the phone company is also at fault here. why in the living hell would they turn off calls, but keep data activated? data should be the first thing cut off because its fairly easy to come by a wifi hotspot anywhere, especially in NYC. calling is important and data is not so much. Id say they tried to force the use of data on the consumer in order to charge that ridiculous amount by cutting off the rest of the phones functions. and that should be looked into by the right authorities.
 
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