Shocking phone-bill horror stories motivate regulators

Yahoo ^ | 10/14/10 | Liz Goodwin

[jerry557]

Kerfye Pierre's thanks for helping out victims of Haiti's earthquake? A $35,000 bill from T-Mobile.

Pierre tells CNN that she racked up about $35,000 while texting family and friends from Haiti with the news that she had just survived the devastating earthquake. T-Mobile offered to waive voice plans for Americans who were volunteering there after the crippling disaster, but Pierre said she didn't realize that the waiver didn't include text messages.

The company has now reduced her bill to approximately $5,000, but Pierre says she still can't pay that.

"I would be OK to pay for it if everything was disclosed, and I knew upfront that, if I used this part of the service, I would be charged," she told CNN. "But I did not know."

The FCC voted today to explore the issue of cell-phone-bill sticker shock, and will decide whether cell-phone companies must do a better job of informing customers when they are about to be charged extra for text and data charges. The FCC may rule that companies must send text-message alerts to customers when they reach their plan's data limits or are incurring roaming charges.

According to the Washington Post, two Republican commissioners voiced concerns that the rules could raise costs for the cell-phone companies -- and that such costs would then translate into more expensive plans for customers.

An FCC survey found that millions of Americans have suffered some kind of "bill shock" from a cell-phone bill. Film publicist Reid Rosefelt, for instance, went to Canada for five days for a film festival and returned with a $1,723 bill from AT&T. He said he received no email or text telling him he was using excessive data on his phone, and that he didn't know how to turn off data services to avoid the charges.

[WorkingClassFilth]

People are sheep. If you pushed putting a carrot in your ear through the media propaganda long enough, ‘cutting edge’ sheep would eventually walk around with a carrot shoved in their ears. After awhile (~14%) most people would begin to do the same.

In my 50’s and still with carrot-free hearing.

[Jacktown]

Just turned 50 and doing the same. I love the freedom.

[rusty millet]

I never attempt to contact home from another country except by email. Have had too many $urpri$es$!

I look forward to the day where cell phone rates are low and consistent. Anyone else remember the days when long distance calls (yes, on rotary landline phones to all you sanctimonious old goats) were outrageously expensive and times had to be monitored to avoid a bank-breaking bill?

Every few years I get hit with a bank-breaking cell phone bill for one reason or another. As a general business model, infuriating your customers every few years is a poor plan, but will monopoly regulations ever break up the cell phone companies to increase competition as was done with the old long-distance services?