Posted on 05/05/2010 2:34:16 AM PDT by South40
It's hard not to feel the pain of both Bob St. Germain and Verizon in a dispute that has been going on since the Bush administration.
It seems that four years ago, St. Germain's then 22-year-old son, Bryan, picked up his Verizon cell phone, marveled at its ingenuity, and connected to the Web. This is understandable behavior. The Boston Globe does not record how long Bryan surfed the Web on the phone, but it does record the bill of more than $12,000 that Dad received. And the additional bill of almost $6,000 that made his life slightly less amusing.
It seems that Bryan St. Germain had gotten into the habit of tethering his cell phone to his laptop because the connection was a little more speedy than his parents' dial-up. Sadly, on receiving the first bill, Bob St. Germain called Verizon and discovered that the two-year promotional period, which neatly allowed free downloads, had expired. He was now being charged per kilobyte. And Bryan St. Germain had bitten off some 816,000 of those. Oh, and another 375,000, which were to be added to the next bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
AT&T has a Parental Control service. I was able to limit his spending to $0.00, and his web browsing to 0 kbs.
But what really made him made was the time limits I was able to put on the phone. The only numbers that could be called or texted during school hours or after 11 pm on school nights were my cell and our land line.
He is finishing up his year of college now, Last summer AT&T came out with a new service where I could track his phone anytime. “Mom that's just creepy.” I thought it was creepy, too. But he didn't need to know that. It's all about the threat. :D
You have to remember this happened back in 2005 or 2006.
Wireless internet is much cheaper today.
ATT will adjust your bill one time, and one time only, they told me. My daughter who was stationed on the Lincoln did this unknowingly at Vancouver, BC. She thought since the Lincoln was anchored at sea and only 1 hour from the US that she was safe to use her internet. Her bill was about $23,000, if I remember correctly. Took months to resolve. Could have ruined her military career.
She really shouldn't have been using her cell phone while underway, it is a bit of on OPSEC issue. However some ships don't see it that way, and let the sailors call if the phone has service.
I have heard of similar stories where sailors pull into port and the phone works, only to find out later that it is $1.99 a minute. AT&T tries to take care of the military, and will work with someone to resolve issues like that, on a case by case. I think the ship to shore service is a bit high, but it is handy, and nice to be able to call home while deployed.
Yep, it’s 5G a month.
I have a rare, precious Alltel grandfathered contract where unlimited is TRULY unlimited. When I signed with Alltel I did the research, pushed their poor reps against the wall and made them print out a contract showing NO overage charges and no limit.
One caveat: I was used to life with caps. I lived with Wildblue for 2 years. It was fine for what it was — satellite is a last resort — but when you’ve got a family that includes two teenagers, a 7.5G monthly cap doesn’t work.
I’m scrambling to find an alternative provider once my contract is up. Clear may be the only one.
And yes, I’m rural. Sprint, AT&T and cable don’t reach me. I really miss Chad!
Verizon has probably spent 3 times that on legal costs. Sometimes these corporate types really show that they are not the sharpest tools in the shed. Write it off already - uncollectable accounts expense, thusly reducing your income along with tax liability.
She wasn’t using her phone. She was downloading music or movies or some such on her laptop. :~/ In the rate my daughter is in, you can be sure she is quite aware of security do’s and don’ts.
I am also in a rate that is very aware of the security issues, and have been for twenty years. The biggest security issues on ships is cell phone usage. (data or voice) If she doesn't know that she was improperly trained or doesn't care. I have found that the latter is the case, most of the time.
On the other side of the coin, my son helped my mother move from Oklahoma to Georgia. On his phone (ATT), it never said roaming and he whiled away the hours talking to his girlfriend. A $750.00 bill came to the house. Turns out we were on a “state” home network and not national. But a friendly call to customer service completely wiped out the roaming charges.
Customer Service personnel frequently get blasted by people right out of the gate. My experience has been nice begets nice. I’ve been with ATT for over 10 years, and never had an issue.
somewhat similiar story here, started with Alltel two years ago, used a usb modem plugged into a desktop, near a window, hitting a tower about 4 miles away...worked great, but then anything was an improvement over dialup....6 months after in OUR rural setting, out of the blue, comes Embarq with DSL, they had originally told us five more years...have had dsl for the last 18 months..I guess I could have bought out the Alltel/verizon contract, but it was still nice to have a laptop with HS internet, anywhere, anytime, any weather. So after two years now, switching to prepaid data on a month to month...IMO, time to "squeeze" verizon back, in my own little way...and yes, mine too is unlimited, they came out with that Cap, IIRC, about two months or so after I signed up....I remember going into the Alltel store after I saw that, and the gal said, "Oh you dont have to worry about any cap, we dont stand behind it, it is just a ploy to try to keep usage down..we dont charge anyone for going over".. Yeah right, tell that to the above mentioned Mr. St. Germain...
Thanks for the insult to my daughter who proudly serves her country. I can assure you that my daughter was not doing anything she was not allowed to do during her port call. geesh
Insult not intended, thank her for service. I suspect we are in the same rate, I retire in a few months and need a good Sailor to replace me.
Not when he still lives at home!
Oh I wish you were always right on that, because I’m always very nice in dealing with folks on the phone. But I’ve run into my share of little tyrants on there.
The problem I have with big companies is that no one sseems to know what anyone else is doing. (”That’s handled by another dept.”)
THis is one advantage of a pay-as-you-go phone. The phone only has so much money, and then it has to “top up”, and while that is “automatic”, it can only happen with a notification to the phone, which means the user knows they are getting hit with charges. So while my kids have accidentally activated services which generated daily charges, we never lost more than $15 or so.
And if I want, I can disable the auto-topups, so we have to take action to recharge the phones.
Cricket offers reasonably priced unlimited plans. This works for both consumer and provider. The consumer gets all the use they want and Cricket eliminates an entire department of people whose jobs would be to deal with unhappy customers who have been charged for exceeding their limits.
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