95
US man returns from Europe to $143,000 T-Mobile bill for using phone overseas
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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I have T-Mobile and when I've traveled internationally or into roaming only areas, it always warns me via SMS and gives me an option to turn data roaming off... So I can only imagine this guy got that warning and ignored it...
Still 143k is a bit excessive, and it looks like after reviewing it, and also at some point after it started making news headlines, T-Mobile agreed and credited his account to make it even. Doesn't look like the article knows if that was just a result of just how much time it takes to go through the review process at T-Mobile, or if it took the news agencies inquiry to get the attention of someone high up enough at T-Mobile to make the decision.
I'm willing to bet there are ultra wealthy people who do the same kind of thing and just don't question the bills and pay them, so phone companies are incentivized to not cap the monthly bill to some percentage of what the highest plan that could have covered it would have been... Maybe T-Mobile would be better served by having a system in place where a low tier operator can reduce the bill to something like 50% over whatever they would charge someone for a global international everything unlimited type plan. So something like "ok, we see you racked up $143,000 in fees from international data roaming, if you had been on X plan, it would have only cost you $250, so I can lower your bill from $143,000 to $325." That way they can still get the money from the ultra rich who don't care while also having something in place to allow the average customer to also deal with these kinds of mistakes without bankrupting them.
I was once told, by someone that worked in the industry, that some wealthy celebrities employ someone specifically to dispute every purchase they make, because often the dispute isn't contested.
I used to work for a Canadian carrier. They had "white glove" customers where no matter what they asked for, we did it. They dispute $1000 charge? Credit it. They say they dropped their phone in the toilet and would like a new one but don't want to pay for it? Send it and credit it.
Those calls were also reviewed next business day to ensure compliance.