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- windfanatic, on 10/10/2007, -7/+116While there is no question AT&T's (or most other cell phone operator's) data rates are ludicrously expensive..particularly on pay per use plans.. its a free market.. they are free to charge whatever they want.. and you are free to NOT use it. .. or choose a data plan, or another operator, or whatever (even if that means *gasp*.. not using your shiny iPhone). So this guy admits to knowing that he will pay per kb downloaded as he goes, goes on a trip for a month to Europe knowing full well that.. well.. Europe is like.. another continent, that he will be roaming the whole time, and now cries foul play for getting a huge bill for service?.. this is absolutely no different from pigging out on the minibar at a hotel and then crying at the front desk cause their salted peanuts are armed robbery.. sure.. don't f*cking eat them!.
Oh.. and on top of all , a "web developer".. lol!.. gimme a break. I mean, if this was my mom, sure.. you'd be willing to understand the carelesness.. but a supposedly tech savvy person?.. hmm... excuse me but I call this a moron tax - zechariahs, on 10/10/2007, -2/+78If he's a web developer he shouldn't need to be told what $0.005/kb translates into. It sucks that they don't offer iPhone users the same plans they do Blackberry users but oh well.
- t0ny, on 10/10/2007, -2/+46According to my math $3000 / $0.005 per kb = 600,000kb / 1024 = 585mb.
- Livewired, on 10/10/2007, -1/+42FTA: UPDATE, 12:18PM PT: Dave says, "AT&T just called and agreed to waive all charges due to the 'miscommunication.' I think they have a customer for life now."
Something smells fishy. - ogletree, on 10/10/2007, -0/+39One thing caught my attention.
"I'm a web developer as part of my career and I couldn't even tell you how many KB the average web page is"
That is very sad. The guy just pointed out how much he sucks as a developer. - tdgx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+281) Buy iPhone, sign up for data plan without ever calculating how much data gets used and what it would cost.
2) Go overseas and download full length porn DVD's.
3) Get bill and become outraged at how much it costs.
4) Write article whining how it's AT&T's fault for not calculating personal data transfer and drawing diagrams to illustrate potential bills.
5) Wait for AT&T to become aware a retard with a website is on the loose and make things "right".
6) AT&T waives bill and writes it off as a "special Olympics donation".
7) ...
8) Profit? - chukd, on 10/10/2007, -3/+27A web developer should have a clue as to how much data a page uses. Who the hell buys an IPhone instead of a laptop for computer uses. Sorry dude, but you are a dumb ass.
- hmemcpy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+25http://how-to-spell-ridiculous.com/
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -5/+23If he's a web developer who doesn't know how many KB a normal webpage is, then he's obviously a very crappy web developer. Page "weight" is an important part of real web development, you have to keep your pages small in order for them to load fast.
- phoenixawe, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18Wait ... a web developer who doesn't know how much a KB is? So THAT's the guy who's responsible for those big Flash-based pages that take so long to load.
- saleem, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14it is NOT a free market when there are a limited number of vendors (at&t, verizon, sprint, t-mobile), huge barriers of entry (cell tower network nationwide, phones, etc), terrible 2-year contracts which kill transitioning between vendors, etc.
- StudsTurkel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13Coming from a married man, $40 on shoes is a very good deal.
- Gutterpunk, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13How is that not the story of an idiot?
Remind me not to contact that guy for web developing if I am looking for something streamlined or small enough to work well on small, portable device, because that web developer is clueless about a basic fact on the web : data transfer. - leftfield, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Nine Inch Nails is currently on tour in Russia and they are posting pictures from their iPhones like it's going out of style. Can't wait to see their bill.
- cawpin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+12Yes, I'm sure they'll have to worry about the bill. They probably don't even know they HAVE a bill every month.
- StudsTurkel, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14No, *****. He probably wouldn't have gotten himself into the situation in the first place.
- totorototoro, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13 "AT&T just called and agreed to waive all charges due to the 'miscommunication.' I think they have a customer for life now."
So not so much a horror story after all...more like a fairy tale. :P - stellarceltic, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10I'm not saying I wouldn't fight it, but he's an idiot for not looking into the costs ahead of time.
- jorvis, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11No kidding! He doesn't know how many kb a text message will be? Sounds like the skill of a FrontPage developer to me (who types a lot, apparently.)
- S1L3NTC, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11Then buy a different phone with a different carrier...
- sjbdallas, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10Not a chance. AT&T is not going to eat that cost. THey have to PAY the other carrier. This guy is full of crap.
- kylesellers, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8That's like saying the Mac has no competition because only Apple sells them. The iPhone is competing with every Samsung, Sony, Motorola, LG, etc. phone on the market. And AT&T is competing with Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.
Sounds pretty free market to me... - sjbdallas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6#7 is the part where everyone visits his website and hires him to do web development.
- incognit0, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7probably not though
- Jeffrey903, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7This month so far I have used 127MB of internet (which is not a lot, considering I very rarely use EDGE), and probably a lot more data using Wi-fi (fortunately it is free to use that). That being said, if I had to pay $0.005/KB (which is $5.12/MB), it would cost me $650.24. Wow. I'm glad I only pay $20/month for unlimited data in the US.
- aelias, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7"(I'm not planning any international travel for a while anyway, but 20MB would be burned in a day or two of average use - they must be kidding.) "
So he knows how fast he chews through 20MB, but he can't multiply by 8?
No sympathy for this idiot. - oosnoopy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Math is hard for some people
- StealthGod, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6It would appear that he was misquoted... it was likely $0.05 per kb. Another "verizon can't do the math" situation.
- mikes1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6The guy's trying to spin a fable.
First he says he's clueless about how much bandwidth he would use, a few paragraphs later, he says "20MB would be burned in a day or two of average use," showing he knows full well. - fkr3, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Not if it's $0.005 a kilobit. Then it's 4 cents a kilobyte, suddenly it's only 75mb.
- Spuy767, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5This guy is a web dev and he doesn't know what a ***** kilobyte is? On second thought. . . He likely used the wrong abbreviation as kilobyte would be kB, but what if it was per kilobit? That would whittle his data to just over 70 megs.
- MechCow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I think the web has tremendous power to help the little man fight the big man by breaking real stories about companies abusing their powers. Unfortunately it has the power for one small idiot to do a lot of damage by making a lot of noise. Why did bX2 publish this drivel - the guy is a moron and put 600 MB through his phone internationally without properly understanding the charges? Now he whines on the web and gets all the money back in credit. Newsflash - those EDGE networks do not have a lot of bandwidth and if we we're all to behave like this tool they would be crippled. Pay or use a cheaper technology, don't use it then whine on the internet.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8edit: http://www.3rdeyedesign.com/
Not a web developer just a wannabe. - ahhell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Damn it. Where did I put that picture of Nelson?
That guy really deserves some HA HA!! - stellarceltic, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Nobody put a gun to his head and made him use an iPhone. He chose it, he has to live with its rules and policies.
- petereality, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I didn't know they allowed gay marriage in heaven?
- AshsToAshs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4It would be next to impossible to transfer 585mb on Atnt's EDGE network in only two weeks.
More likely he was charged $0.05/KB and he ended up using 58MB in two weeks... which is still kinda alot.
-Ash- - Kazbaeden, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"TO make a long story short AT&T are scum bags who pray on their customers."
I dunno, that seems very nice of them... - I_am_so_smrt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Nice. I don't think I'll ever spell that word incorrectly again :)
- Fletchi18, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I don't know if this has been said in this thread or if anyone else is with me but, frankly, I'm sick and tired of these 'I'm a moron and I did something stupid and XX company is charging me for it and I don't want to pay so I'll post it on the internet and the company is bound to crumble under the pressure' stories. By digging stories like this, we're rewarding stupidity in this country. Buried!!
- scottschiller, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I was looking forward to teasing my friends in Canada when I visit soon, but it sounds like I'll have to run the phone in "Airplane mode" only - I don't want to get hit with massive roaming data charges (I was told it's 2 cents per KB for data in Canada, and something like 79 cents a minute for voice calls.) The scary part is the phone does check your mail etc. in the background, so it's rather hard to actually prevent data use (unless I'm mistaken.) I'd love to know if there's a way to turn off EDGE use, and only use wifi / voice features.
- duggo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3iPhone Settings -> Usage. They provide you a running total of EDGE Network Data sent and received on your phone which you can reset at the beginning of your trip. None of this "I didn't know how much I was using"...
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6*****, as Verizion doesnt work overseas at all.
- cawpin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5What a moron.
@kevin45 - It looks to me like he's one of those guys that makes all the annoying artsy schitt on webpages. I hate that stuff. - amacinnis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I used to work at a call center which took AT&T business end user customer support calls. We'd always laugh at guys like this. You'd be surprised (okay, maybe you wouldn't) at how many times we'd get calls almost EXACTLY like this one.
Surprise! If you travel to another country, you're going to get charged a different rate for data! "The rep quoted me $.005 per KB but did not disclose what that would translate to in layman's language." Gee, did he think to ask? That's what they're paying their employees for. If you don't ask "How many kilobytes in an average e-mail?" they're going to assume you know how many kilobytes are in an average e-mail. Remember: they're paid to answer phones, not read minds.
Honestly, I've gotten calls from people like this and denied them any credit. There's no reason for it. He was told exactly what the rate would be. The huge bill is due to his failure to ask further questions.
Also, sadly enough, $3000 is pretty minor compared to some bills I've seen. One woman got her daughter a text messaging plan that was too small, ended up stuck with a $7500 bill at the end of the month.
Unfortunately, saying "But I wasn't told!" constitutes a valid defense when you call in to AT&T, because 99% of the time they'll credit the charges back to you, even if they're 100% valid. Here's a hint to everybody: if you see an upgrade fee on your bill next time you upgrade your phone, just call 611. Complain enough, claim you "weren't told about it", and (if they resist) speak to their supervisor. I guarantee you you'll get it put back into your account. - StudsTurkel, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Maybe YOU shouldn't make it so easy for companies to "gouge consumers" by NOT BEING A ***** IDIOT!
- I_am_so_smrt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4The site was constructed with iWeb. Hmm, that's advanced stuff. HA!
- raynar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2You need another plan then. Mine doesnt.
- dark_helmet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Its $15/MB on most carriers in Canada. a 1GB plan is about $100/month. 1GB is usually enough for people doing 'normal' things on a cell phone. Where i work people use their laptops on the cell network, and unless there is personal use like browsing YouTube on the phone there is rarely overages. Once case stands out where a user went over and there was a $22,000 bill for one month.
- stellarceltic, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I never said it was a free market. He claimed that when it came to the iPhone, there was no free market, ie. this guy HAD TO use AT&T. Yes, but he didn't HAVE TO use an iPhone and rack up such an outrageous bill.
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