Stupid is as stupid does.
Too many parents are far too lenient with their offspring regarding cell phones, etc.
Parent is a doofus. Kid is a spoiled brat, who got off with nothing in the way of consequences.
Didn’t teach either one of them a single thing.
I think at the least they should have paid about $4000 for all their stupidity. Kid should have had to pay it out of her allowance even if it took 5 years.
The Audacity of Roaming.
lol.
i used to always turn off email updates when overseas. now i just leave it off. phone is for texting home (call me at...) or voice in emergency.
I’d say that some sophisticated enough to travel to Dubai should have been aware of the charges. This is not the first time a ‘mistake’ like this has been publicized. Truthfully? If I owned the company I wouldn’t drop any charges unless there were very extenuating circumstances. She didn’t even ask about the rates.
The girl would have been better off visiting free internet hot spots (if such a thing is provided in Dubai) with a netbook.
If you have a GSM phone and are roaming where GSM is available you can often buy a local ‘chip’ and have local service for very cheap (don’t know specifically for dubai though). Iirc all of TMobile phones in the US are GSM so this should have been possible for her.
She won’t be doin’ much roamin’ if the parents ground her til she turns 30...
$16000 / $15 per MB = 1066 MB
My kids’ phones are capped at the vendor, no extraneous charges, anything that’s billable is blocked, period. No accidents, no oversights, no ridiculous ringtone expenses. I also have content filtering and parental controls. Costs me $5 a month for this power, I view it as an insurance premium. I have absolute cost certainty.
I won’t name the provider but the first letter is the 22nd letter of the alphabet.
When I traveled to Asia, there was never, ever a shortage of internet cafes around. As per my calculations, they were dirt cheap. I did bring my cell but it just took me seconds to look, then shut off.
Don't bother. All international roaming of all kinds is always horrifically expensive. Even if your US provider doesn't rape you on the charges, the network operator overseas absolutely and invariably will. Your US customer service rep has no knowledge of those overseas rates, and is under no obligation to be accurate or honest about them.
The only safe thing to do outside the country is replace your SIM card with a prepaid local SIM... if that's even an option with your handset, which between carrier locking and the US's outdated and non-standard networks it usually won't be.
By allowing the girl to rack up the charges, they set themselves up to look like the bad guy and ultimately wind up losing the whole amount in the end to PR. Don't get me wrong, the customer should have paid for the use at the agreed-upon terms, however those terms should have been in writing, not via a phone call.
But the Mom had no reason to be concerned about roman’ charges: she thought they only applied in Italy.
She said the phone company should have warned her about the ballooning charges while she was in Dubai.
Really??? I mean really????? Since when is it the companies responsibility to give that information? So a credit card company must now warn customers not to use the card if they don’t have money in the bank?
T-mobile, while I like their service, is exCEPtionally stubborn when it comes to giving back money. When I was working on a cruise ship, I must have accidentally signed up for unlimited texting with my rear end leaning against a bulkhead. (Yes, keypad lock is your friend) I saw the 2 x $20 charges 2 months later after never having sent or received a single text message in those 2 months. I could not convince them to drop the charges for hell or high water.
Does it not even occur to anyone if you go overseas to ask what it will cost to use your phone before you actually use it? Do people just assume that it costs the same everywhere?
How difficult is it to get a cell phone that only does voice calls? Is that even possible?
Here would be me,when I was a kid, asking my dad if I could have a cell phone:
Dad,can I have a cell phone?
NO!
But Dad,all the kids”POW”
I had a much smaller version of this type of problem once. I’m too tired to recount the details, it pertained to a calling card, remember those? I told the carrier straight out, I’m sorry I was confused, but there is just no way I can afford to pay this, and we did work it out. I did have to write about three times to actually get the big credit they did give me. I think it was MCI, remember them?