Ask HN: $13,000 bill from ATT mobile - What to do?

[tremt]

Hey HN,

Would love some help here. We gave an iphone to my father last christmas and he was fine with it (but not using much).

He then went for a trip to UK last month and now he got a 13k bill from ATT. Way more than what he can afford...

In the bill it sais that he used 900,000 kb (or similar) at around 10am and it cost him almost 13k for just that internet usage.

Is that possible? He tried to call them, but they said that he HAS to pay because the charges came from the UK company....

He said he didn't use it much (but tried to check the email, but was so slow that he gave up).

Any suggestions?

[noonespecial]

Firstly, I feel for you. Its a strange commentary on the human condition where little bits of institutionalized dishonesty like this are allowed to persist despite the fact that literally everyone knows that its wrong. I'm not sure how the people answering the phones tell old men that they owe $13,000 overages are able to do this job.

The advice is that persistence is key. Everyone knows that this is a mistake, even the jerks at the phone company making this stuff up. You just have to keep calling, insisting that there's been a mistake and moving on up the chain. Try to find other routes into the system as well, call some PR guys, look up the names of company officers on the internet and email (or call if you can find numbers).

Even if your phone did DL 900meg, it probably did so outside of your fathers control, and the marginal cost of providing this data to an iphone in a big city is 0. Its just a stupid shell game intended to fleece a few hundred bucks from folks here and there that in your case went horribly wrong. Make enough noise and you'll probably be able to get them to agree to take the few hundred and let it go. It will take some work though.

You local TV news might be interested in it as a fluff piece as well.

[PonyGumbo]

I'd add Consumerist to this list. They live for this kind of stuff.

[dave1619]

local tv news sounds like an interesting option. you need a powerful advocate, and local news could be that.

[dave1619]

also, maybe local newspaper, and try to set up a website sharing your story with the links to the news stories about your story. try to stir up publicity. even email the ceo of AT&T and senior VPs directly.

[kerben]

My friend was faced with a similar problem (10K+ ATT bill) after traveling to the middle east. He hired an attorney, who was able to negotiate with ATT and after some back and forth they agreed to significantly adjust and settle the bill for only a few hundred dollars.

[good_human]

I had a similar issue when I traveled to Japan and China. I'm a customer of T-mobile, and yes I did in fact use internet on my android phone (had no idea how much it was going to cost me). But even with almost full usage, my bill came out to $1,300 (Data and voice).

I called T-mobile and asked them what the charges is, and after they explained its mainly my data charge lied to them that I never used my data there. The whole time I was being nice and persistent, and the person on the other line agreed that since it's a smartphone it uses data connection automatically, and spoke to the higher ups to revoke the high charge (still had to pay for voice but I was happy with data fee out of the way).

So call AT&T, be nice but also be persistent, and tell them your story in good faith. That it is your father who had the phone and he has no idea how to use the internet yet. Also mention that you think all the data usage is the iPhone itself connecting to update itself (update time and what not). You can say that these charges were never explained to you. If all fails, go to the store. You being there in person is going to be harder than the line "dropping" if you were to call.

Good luck!

[imechura]

The same thing happened to my company with AT&T back in 2006. We where sending our sales team to London and Paris to meet with our banking customers and they where running up data usage bills up to 25k per month per phone.

Unfortunately, there was no way out of it other than to pay, up and educate the staff on the costs associated with travel and data usage. The end result was that our teams would turn data features off when traveling abroad and use land lines to call as much as possible.

If your dad is retiring and owns his home then he may just decide to not pay it and let them report it to his credit.

If he is still going to rely on credit then he needs to setup a payment plan and ask them to forgive part of the bill. However, my experience with ATT is that there is no chance of that happening. You will be lucky if you can speak with a rep who even knows what a phone is.

[masti2100]

Same thing happened to me when I went to India for 3 weeks. before I went, I had ordered the "unlimited" international data plan from AT&T for $200 per month. After i came back, I got a $1,800 bill from AT&T. When I called, they said that the unlimited plan was not really unlimited....they just called it unlimited.

So I told them that they had 2 options. Either to cancel the entire $1,800 and accept the $200 unlimited plan as unlimited or I would pay nothing and they could take me to court.

They called 2 hours later and cancelled the entire $1,800 bill. Basically AT&T is nothing but a bunch of crooks trying to cheat as many people as they can.

Here's my gripe about the whole industry http://bit.ly/f2WEq5

[davepm]

900mb? in the UK? on data? only if you try for a few months. data here is so slow its painful. But fairly cheap ( i pay £5 ($10US) for 1gb a month.

All you can do is complain, and complain hard. Its bullsh*t and they know it.

[frou_dh]

Data in the UK isn't that slow for me. With a tethered iPhone (NetShare) and now a MiFi, I've often slurped 1GB+ a day.

[davepm]

yeah, might be time i upgraded :p

[vshlos]

A few years ago I went to Belarus. I made probably 1 20-30 minute call. I got a bill from ATT for ~$1000. The call cost $5 an minute!! Anyway, we called ATT and cut that payment, however I did still have to pay around $500. Call them and fight it for a while, tell them that you are going to sue them on some grounds (such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unjust_enrichment).

[mapster]

Talk to a lawyer.