Be careful when you go abroad and you bring your Internet-enabled phone with you. Your e-mailing and surfing could end up costing you thousands of dollars. Several people have been caught unaware and ended up owing their cell phone providers a lot of money.
Take the case of the Terry family from Portland, Oregon. When their son flew north to Vancouver, BC, he fired up an AirCard on his laptop to send photos and e-mails back home. He used the service 21 times.
What the family didn’t know was that AT&T, their cell phone provider, charges international fees for the service. It ended up costing them $19,370 on their cell phone bill. Dave Terry, the father, said that he was never told about the international fees, nor were they contacted by AT&T when their bill reached over $1,000. He felt that AT&T should’ve been proactive and informed them because the card could have been stolen.
AT&T said that they are looking into the matter and will have an answer in the next few days.
David Stolte, a Web designer from California, took his iPhone to England and Ireland. When he called AT&T, he said that the rep only quoted him one plan, $.005 per KB. Since his iPhone can’t be unlocked to use the European SIMs, he ended up with a bill of $3,000.
When he first contacted AT&T, the best they could offer him, at that time, was a $400 courtesy credit if he signed up for a $300 per year international data plan which comes with 20MB per month. Not satisfied with that, he took his case to Web sites BoingBoing and the Consumerist. He finally did get AT&T to waive all charges because of the miscommunication.
Scott Carmichael of Gadling says that there is good news and bad news. Some operators do have discounted plans, but they don’t come with enough data transfers.
He suggests switching to the T-Mobile Blackberry data package which comes with unlimited e-mail on a Blackberry-enabled Smartphone for $19.99. It’s usable in countries that have a T-Mobile roaming agreement.
Additionally, if you get a WiFi enabled T-Mobile Blackberry, you can make “unlimited phone calls back home when you are connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot and add the $10 T-mobile Hotspot@Home service to your account.”
