AT&T and Rogers Communications Ticking Off Customers Again

[Ed Hansberry]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.canada.com/MythBuster+uses+Twitter+fight+phone+bill/1741348/story.html' target='_blank'>http://www.canada.com/MythBuster+us...1348/story.html</a><br /><br /></div><p>Just in case you missed it, AT&amp;T tried to charge MythBusters star Adam Savage $11,000 for a recent trip to Canada for roaming. It had to do with the wording in their contract that says roaming data will be charged at ".015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb" AT&amp;T seems to have gone to the same school of math that Verizon did a few years ago where in their strange carrier world, .015 cents = a penny and a half.</p><p>In other related user ticking-off news, Rogers Communications in Canada is going to start charging users 15 cents for <em>incoming</em> text messages, though if you have a text plan, you probably won't be hit by that charge.</p>

[mmidgley]

US$110.00 is still a rip-off. i hope he involves lawyers competent enough to straighten at&t out.

m.

[Pete Paxton]

I wonder if it depends on who you talk to. I took a Caribbean cruise last year and accessed the internet while in various ports. I'm not much of a traveler and didn't quite get the whole roaming charge thing. I only checked a few emails and a couple of baseball scores and when I got back I had a bill for an extra $125. I called AT&T and talked to a rep about it. She put me on hold for about a minute and came back and informed me that she took the entire charge off my bill.

[leslietroyer]

How about paying international roaming, without even leaving the states?? We often frequent a cabin in the San Juan Islands (Washington State). It doesn't have a land line. We get GREAT cell phone reception. Unfortunatly it is from Victoria BC. The towers there overpower the towers on the island. We've had this problem with both ATT & Verizon. Both agree to remove the roaming charges ONCE and ONCE only. I feel cheated, as I am clearly in an area outlined on their coverage maps - they both say too bad.


LEs

[frazell]

OK seriously... Is this country full of people with an entitlement problem or are the majority of people so mentally incompetent that the society is on a crash course for destruction?

Last time I checked $0.015 is equal to 1.5 cents is it not? Cell phone roaming isn't the only charge that is denominated in fractions of a cent. Fuel is another one that is sold in fractions of a cent so I'm not sure what the problem is.

If people can't bother themselves to read a contract or inquire about potential roaming charges prior to roaming then they don't have a valid reason to complain. If you go to another country and expect your phone to work as it does in the US for free then you are either too stupid to own a cell phone or looking to push the cost off to someone else.

It is a shame that people don't read contracts and then they love to jump up and down about how they shouldn't get charged some charge they agreed to be charged. If you don't agree with the terms of the contract I have a very bright idea... DON'T SIGN IT!

Enough of my rant, but complaints like this just piss me off.

[Gerard]

Last time I checked $0.015 is equal to 1.5 cents is it not?

Um... did you read the quote? ".015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb" does not say $0.015. .015 cents is a rather smaller amount, per kb, as in the decimal is placed two spaces over. So the question becomes, which is it?

[daS]

Last time I checked $0.015 is equal to 1.5 cents is it not?

It is a shame that people don't read contracts and then they love to jump up and down about how they shouldn't get charged some charge they agreed to be charged. If you don't agree with the terms of the contract I have a very bright idea... DON'T SIGN IT!

Enough of my rant, but complaints like this just piss me off.

Before you get too pissed off, the issue here is that the contract reads 0.015 cents per 1KB, i.e. $0.00015 not $0.015. I actually have to find and read my contract with AT&T, but I know that was certainly the case with the Verizon issue a couple of years ago.

[daS]

I just got my AT&T bill that includes a trip I made to Korea. They are charging me $0.0195/Kb for data and $0.50 per SMS message!

I see that these are the published rates listed on their web site. What I can't find is the contract that I signed quite a while ago for my specific plan, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the rate.

What annoys me about this more than anything, is that while I was there, I really didn't have much need for data, but each time I tried to disconnect from the GPRS network, the AT&T Fuze just reconnected the next time I turned on the phone. I couldn't find a setting that said "don't connect to data when roaming". Most of the "data connect" charges were one or 2 KBs, but there were a couple in the 200 and 400KB ranges that added up quite fast.

Both voice and data added up to $54 in usage charges. However, considering their cheapest plans for international voice and data would cost $40/month and would still include usage charges - just at much lower rates, I'd rather pay this huge bill since I don't do more than a few international trips a year.

I also used Skype from my laptop at the hotels while I was there. It worked great, cost nothing to call home and I even had video when talking to the family.

[frazell]

Before you get too pissed off, the issue here is that the contract reads 0.015 cents per 1KB, i.e. $0.00015 not $0.015. I actually have to find and read my contract with AT&T, but I know that was certainly the case with the Verizon issue a couple of years ago.

Maybe I'm a bit thick, but I'm not sure I get what you are saying at all. $0.015 per Kilobyte is what the source article said. That would translate to $15.36 ($0.015x1024) per megabyte. Those rates are in line with the industry for GSM carriers as I think T-Mobile was well over $10 per MB when I was a subscriber a few years back.

I'm not sure where exactly you are getting $0.00015 and etc.?

Besides, his charges look pretty accurate to me. He used a laptop data card on top of it all...

Seriously, he should have just paid his bill. People piss me off using the media as a pulpit to enrich themselves. AT&T still has to pay the share Rogers gets so the costs will be rolled over to everyone else.

But I guess it is all fine because he's famous? Give me a break.

[ctmagnus]

We often frequent a cabin in the San Juan Islands (Washington State). It doesn't have a land line. We get GREAT cell phone reception. Unfortunatly it is from Victoria BC. The towers there overpower the towers on the island.

And there's a spot in Victoria where the only cell signal you can get is from the States. :p

[daS]

Maybe I'm a bit thick, but I'm not sure I get what you are saying at all. $0.015 per Kilobyte is what the source article said.

No, you're not "a bit thick", I should have read the article before commenting. Sorry. :rolleyes:

You are right that this case is not about AT&T missing the difference between 0.015 cents and 0.015 dollars. That was the situation for the Verizon issue a few years ago, but this one is just that AT&T charges crazy rates - but those are the published rates.

AT&T still has to pay the share Rogers gets so the costs will be rolled over to everyone else.

But I guess it is all fine because he's famous? Give me a break.

Well I do disagree here. While I agree that he has no legal grounds to not pay the bill (unless as he indicates, there's a question as to how much data he actually used, but that's a weak argument at best.) I do think that it's legitimate to expose the exorbitant roaming rates that wireless carriers charge.

I was in the telecom business for about 5 years (and still consult to a number of telecom companies that specialize in VoIP backhauls for long distance and international.) I can tell you that international roaming is a huge profit for wireless carriers - far exceeding anything else. And while the EU has been talking about regulating mobile roaming rates, I would much rather see the carriers be "forced" to set reasonable rates not due to government regulation, but because of public exposure of their price strategy. If enough people complain, then something will be done.

As someone who is now responsible for Sale and Marketing for a (abet smaller company than AT&T), I would much rather have customers complain about something than simply quietly pay their invoice and then take their business to a competitor. If I hear that our customer's are unhappy with our price(s) I have an opportunity to either explain why our price is what it is, or look into ways that we could reduce the price if possible. But customers who are unhappy and never complain can't be turned around into satisfied customers.

[frazell]

Well I do disagree here. While I agree that he has no legal grounds to not pay the bill (unless as he indicates, there's a question as to how much data he actually used, but that's a weak argument at best.) I do think that it's legitimate to expose the exorbitant roaming rates that wireless carriers charge.

I was in the telecom business for about 5 years (and still consult to a number of telecom companies that specialize in VoIP backhauls for long distance and international.) I can tell you that international roaming is a huge profit for wireless carriers - far exceeding anything else. And while the EU has been talking about regulating mobile roaming rates, I would much rather see the carriers be "forced" to set reasonable rates not due to government regulation, but because of public exposure of their price strategy. If enough people complain, then something will be done.

As someone who is now responsible for Sale and Marketing for a (abet smaller company than AT&T), I would much rather have customers complain about something than simply quietly pay their invoice and then take their business to a competitor. If I hear that our customer's are unhappy with our price(s) I have an opportunity to either explain why our price is what it is, or look into ways that we could reduce the price if possible. But customers who are unhappy and never complain can't be turned around into satisfied customers.

Yea I agree that roaming charges can be insane. It was one of the reasons I signed up for Sprint. Their rates are 1/5th or 1/10th what T-Mobile's roaming rates were and they have a $40 flat rate add-on that I saw. So if people shop around for their needs the market can be forced to work its magic.

I also agree that using the media to expose the insane rates is a good thing. I just don't like the way the source article and the one on here painted it. They made it less about the fee being too high and more about him having to fight tooth and claw to get out of a fee he legally agreed to. He should instead have paid the bill and been leading a campaign to expose the rates.