AT&T Slaps Family With a $19,370 Cell Phone Bill

theodp writes "Mama, don't let your babies send e-mail and photos from Vancouver. A Portland family racked up nearly $20,000 in charges on their AT&T bill after their son headed north to Vancouver and used a laptop with an AirCard twenty-one times to send photos and e-mails back home. The family said they wished they would have received some kind of warning before receiving their chock-full-of-international-fees 200-page bill in the mail for $19,370. Guess they didn't read the fine print in that 'Stay connected whether you are traveling across town, the US, or the world' AT&T AirCard pitch. Hey, at least it wasn't $85,000."

AT&T's getting more clueful.

[Shag]

The iPhone, at least, has a "Disable Data Roaming" option... of course, they probably had that clue shoved down their throats by Apple. :)

Re:Apple?

[SuperKendoll]

Apple wouldn't let this happen with the iPhone. First of all, the superior ergonomic design and technological enhancements present in the iPhone make it practically impossible for iPhone users to experience negative situations. Secondly, if this somehow was possible, I'm confident Steve Jobs would step in and either set AT&T straight or foot the bill himself.

Re:Oh Noes!

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have missed the Power of Attorney clause.

Re:Oh Noes!

[The Creator]

I blame the fine print. They are so verbose that you could be agreeing to anything.

Yes, but having to sign it in blood should have made them suspicious!

size of the bill is meaningless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Others who remember this also read Slashdot... At a previous company I worked at a 19,000 page bill was received for a test device. This device sent an SMS Test message every 5 minutes. The bill came in and actually itemized every single SMS message(which was free).

The Bill: 65 bucks, arrived via UPS and the carrier was ATT. Don't ever expect this company to do the right thing(notify you of your monster bill).

Re:Apple?

[Brickwall]

Do you expect Bill Gates to refund your money every time your identity is stolen via some Internet Explorer security hole?

No, I expect him to wiggle his butt.

Re:Perhaps some confusion about the brand Aircard

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self: lookup the word "Troll"

Re:Apple?

[zeptobyte]

How do you expect Steve Jobs to pay an $85k bill? His salary's only a dollar a year!

blame canada

[bigplrbear]

Obviously world wide doesn't cover Canada. damn Canadians

Re:Oh Noes!

[guttentag]

Funny you should mention the first-born thing. When I signed up for my iPhone at the Apple Store, the salesperson handed me what I believe was a Windows Mobile device (all traces of the Windows UI were masked by a generic one, but the on-screen keyboard was a dead giveaway) with about a 3-inch touch screen on which to read the terms and conditions for the AT&T service. As I pretended to read through it all, I muttered out loud, "must agree to use Windows Mobile... transferral of naming rights of my first born... second mortgage on my house... third mortgage on my soul... sounds ok to me... I'll take the black one."

Re:Apple?

[raju1kabir]

I don't know, but his face sure rings a bell.