[Brenda]

T-mobile has done it before. An American friend of mine got a call a while ago, telling him his bill was crossing the $500 mark, while he usually had a $100/mo bill.

That's why I don't get that they didn't do it with this one.

[peck420]

Maybe they called the brothers and they didn't here it?

Too soon?

Dr. C, when I can you are getting a rep.

Lawyer-Fu....that's brilliant.

[dino_bobba_renno]

Well I realize that the woman should have been a bit more aware of roaming charges but doesn’t it make you scratch your head when the phone company roles back the billing 95%, from $201,000 to $2,500. If they can reduce the charges by that much why did they charge so much for the roaming fees in the first place?

[BeaverFever]

Many years ago, I worked as a bill collector for a US cell company back when data was brand new and nobody understood the complex data charges in place at the time. The companies had 3 or 4 different ways of charging you...by the minute of browsing, by kb of data, the purchase price of certain games, etc...some of these charges were advertised as "Free", which is what is underscored to the customers in big bold letters but the other charges were very expensive and hidden in the fine print. Getting some poor sucker on the phone who had $5,000 in unexpected data and mobile browsing charges they couldn't understand was a daily occurrence.

I think some wireless providers take advantage of user ingornace, knowing that the majority will rack up a few hundred or a few thousand in error and will eventually just pay the bill off, albeit over time with late fees.

If my credit card can suspend a transaction of a suspicous amount and contact me to verify it before allowing it to go through, I dont see why wireless providers can't do something similar. At least something as simple as a text message that gets triggered when a usage exceeds a certain dollar amount in an unusual period of time.

On a positive note, I travelled overseas earlier this year and took a Rogers Pre-paid cell with me. As soon as I stepped off the plane in Germany and connected to the Vodafone network, a warning popped up on my phone advising that I was roaming, and it gave the international roaming rates for text, voice and data.