Man charged $28,000 for using data card, Slingbox to watch football game
[Via The Register]
[Via The Register]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
carcomptoy @ Feb 24th 2009 8:12AM
Yeah you definitely have to be careful about that, especially if you live in a border city. My friend used to pick up Mexican signals with his Cingular RAZR even though we were right smack dab in the American side. That was definitely tinder to further my disgust with Cingular at the time LOL.
zoodude @ Feb 24th 2009 8:25AM
And I thought my international data bill from last December was high, over $16,000. (traveled to Spain and France) You should have seen the face of our accountant when he opened that bill! Thankfully ATT credited it back for around $14,000 with a couple a calls to customer service. I guess the hotel charge for daily $19.00 WIFI wasn't so bad after all...
carcomptoy @ Feb 24th 2009 9:03AM
If you had T-Mobile UMA service, you could also have made calls back to America for no extra charge with the hotel WiFi.
zephxiii @ Feb 24th 2009 8:37AM
Wow, it should be a no-brainer that data is extremely expensive while roaming internationally.
000000 @ Feb 24th 2009 8:48AM
Yes, if he was in international land. But if you read the article it states he was in Miami on a cruise ship. Is a cruise ship international land? No, not until it hits international water.
Derek @ Feb 24th 2009 8:38AM
Well at least the Bears won.
000000 @ Feb 24th 2009 8:48AM
Anybody who plays the Lions wins... :(
SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Feb 24th 2009 10:41AM
lol so true
mingkee @ Feb 24th 2009 9:08AM
I was charged $60 just for checking my bank account while roaming in Kuwait
be very careful of that, and check your phone Alpha Tag
The_BORG @ Feb 24th 2009 9:20AM
People never learn. They never pay attention to detail... They want it now and don't care about anything else. DEE DEE DEE! Anyone remember 1.5 years ago when people with their brand new iPhones would travel abroad and rack up insanely high bills from DATA CHARGES from their iPhone trying to fetch email every few minutes?????
slamEVIL @ Feb 24th 2009 12:47PM
RTFA!!!!!
kg @ Feb 24th 2009 9:34AM
Puff is looking at the $1 like he's never seen one before.
SoCoolCurt (PSN: KillaKornbread - XBL: SoCoolCurt) @ Feb 24th 2009 10:40AM
lol Puff has no use for simple bills such as this. he couldn't even make it rain with that.
Roger Alford @ Feb 24th 2009 12:01PM
Im calling BS on this one...
I went on a cruise last year in October, and the "ship coverage" for mobile use, does NOT turn on until you are out in the water, AND away from land based signals, generally 3-5 miles. Which remain on the entire time in the water, and then turn off again when back near land.
So if someone caught some "international ship signal" then three things may have happened.
1. Someone is lying about their bill for fame.
2. The person whos bill is in question was NOT really in Miami when it happened
3. Someone on board the ship didnt turn off mobile communication while at land.
Eludium-Q36 @ Feb 24th 2009 12:35PM
My BS alarms went off too, Roger. First, when you connect, don't you have to recognize and confirm what net you're connecting to ? Certainly, if you're not on AT&T's data network wouldn't that be kind of obvious and need like one or two confirmations before you connected ? Yeh, this story sounds Miami-style "fishy".
Duran Dujam @ Feb 24th 2009 11:17PM
@Eludium-Q36
No. It would not make you confirm because it appears as native coverage.
I've done it before on international ferries between the UK and Ireland.
When you get close to Ireland, you get a text saying "T-Mobile (or whatever GSM carrier you have) welcomes you to the Republic of Ireland. Calls cost..." and when you get close to Britain, you get "T-Mobile welcomes you to the UK. Calls cost...," but while on or near the ship, you never lose what appears to be native coverage and are never told that the ship would charge US$5/min for voice. (I never actually made that mistake; I just remembered it from my WorldClass roaming book from back when I got my phone.)
There is no confirmation and your regular phone company apperars on the carrier line of your display, the same way that back when Cingular and T-Mobile were sharing parts of their networks in NY and CA, your own carrier would always be on the screen, regardless of which network you were actually connected to.
Chris @ Feb 24th 2009 1:36PM
looks like pdiddy is confused
champ22 @ Feb 24th 2009 2:38PM
i love it ....diddy is like WHAT THE?...WHO THE?...HOW THE HELL DID THIS GET IN HERE!!
Darrell @ Feb 24th 2009 4:00PM
That picture gets me every time.
kevin @ Feb 24th 2009 4:01PM
Anybody have an idea how much data that would've actually used?
would it have been like downloading the whole football game?
klmsu19 @ Feb 24th 2009 4:19PM
I call BS too. i live in Miami personally and 500 ft on a dock isnt international or else EVERYONE on ATT in miami by the water would have similar kinds of issues. I call straight BS by logic for someone trying to gain recognition with this "story"
Chris @ Feb 24th 2009 7:26PM
Lets not forget...The lions lost every game last season....
gunner23 @ Feb 24th 2009 4:59PM
My father (a real tightwad) and mother took a cruise out of Jacksonsville, FL. Just as the ship set sail, my mom called my dad to say "here we go" or something like that - anyway, that call cost him $6.00. He still is still pissed! An AT&T rep told him that the ship activates something on board that routes the phones thru the ship (?) They must be able to do this, because the ship was basically still in port.
Luc @ Feb 25th 2009 2:25AM
I made a whole bunch of calls when I'm on ship (not boat) while I was on a cruise out of Miami. Never got charged for roaming. I was also able to receive phone calls when I was in Cancun. Sprint is the best...btw my friends who have T-Mobile couldn't even pick up signal while we were out at sea
e-fan @ Mar 4th 2009 7:42AM
lol, what the f?
3G is coming to China now, maybe there will be many alike cases while people watching TV through it .
SS @ Feb 27th 2009 10:09AM
Use Cellhire they specialize in this stuff. www.cellhireusa.com