A story that’s making the rounds today is one from CBC where a BC man went on vacation with his family and came home to find a $22,000 bill waiting for him. Apparently, even though he had set the phone to “airplane mode” to allow his son to play games (and not use any cellular data), his son turned off “airplane mode” and then started to stream YouTube videos over the phone. As in 12 hours worth of YouTube videos. That’s where the “fun” begins. When he got in contact with Fido which is owned by Rogers, this is what happened:
Fido immediately said it would cut the bill to $2,200. However, Buie has been negotiating since to get a better deal. He believes the company is using the “shock factor” of the huge initial charge, to get him to settle for a bill that’s still too high.
“It is gouging,” said Buie. “It is $20 in Mexico [for domestic customers] to get the same amount of data [700 MB] from their carrier and it is $40 to get the same amount of data while in Canada.”
But it doesn’t end there:
Rogers’ packages for roaming in Mexico are also more expensive than its competitors — as much as five times more.
“It’s simply a way for these companies to make significant amounts of money,” said Buie, who said he didn’t buy a package because he didn’t plan to use any data on vacation.
He said what upsets him most is Fido didn’t send a message to his phone until three days of charges had piled up. If he were a Telus customer, its system would have cut off data access when the bill reached $200.
“I would rather be cut off,” said Buie. “If Fido was just reasonable about it, I would pay the amount and that would be the end of it.”
Now, should have the parent in this case better controlled the access to his phone? Yes. No question.
However Rogers/Fido doesn’t pass the smell test here because of the following reasons:
- From polling friends who are on Telus and Bell who have roamed without a data package, what CBC claims in their story seems to be true as their phones got cut off quickly and the financial damage was manageable. Rogers/Fido doesn’t seem to work that way and one has to wonder why.
- Even if you wanted to protect yourself by buying a roaming plan with Rogers, you are still going to pay more than you would with Telus or Bell. Thus it appears that with them you either pay on the front end or the back end if you do not buy one of these packages. But pay you will.
But what really doesn’t pass the smell test for me is the fact that data costs almost nothing for any cell phone provider and the rates that cell phone providers charge each other for roaming is at best 1/10 the cost that you as a consumer pay based on conversations with people who are in the position to know about this sort of thing. Thus Canadian consumers are paying too much for roaming regardless of whom the cell phone provider is. Having some competition in the Canadian cell phone marketplace would likely solve that problem. But that’s a rant discussion for another day. Let me get back on track.
How do you avoid being this guy? Simple. In order of preference, here are my tips:
- Don’t use your phone while on vacation. Besides just avoiding this issue altogether, you might feel better being unplugged from the world.
- If you must grab e-mail on your phone, use WiFi only. That will save you a pile of money.
- If you must use cellular data and voice, get a local SIM card. This of course would only work if your phone is unlocked. If it’s not, you’re out of luck on this front.
- If all else fails, buy a roaming package from your provider and monitor your usage. Avoid using your phone for things like Google Maps and the like if you can so that you don’t blow through your roaming package. You’ll pay more than you should, but at least you won’t have a $22,000 bill waiting for you when you get home.
Got any tips of your own? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
UPDATE: Rogers reached out to me (almost instantly I might add) and had this to say:
I just wanted to clarify something in your post about the Fido roaming story. The customer was never billed $22,000. When this type of situation happens, we have internal processes in place to identify these customers and their usage prior to their bill being sent out and then we proactively work with them towards a resolution.
Also, when a customer has purchased a Roaming Data Pass, customers are able to stay informed of how much data they use since they receive text message usage alerts when they reach 50%, 80% and 100% of data usage. In order to ensure customers never spend more than they expect, their usage will be suspended once their MBs are fully used. Once suspended, customers will be presented with the option to purchase another Roaming Data Pass, start using data at the regular pay-per-use rates or stop using altogether (their choice).
Thanks for the clarification.
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This entry was posted on March 4, 2013 at 10:11 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Cell Phones, Fido, Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Fido Cusotmer Gets $22,000 Bill….. How You Can Avoid Being Him [UPDATED]
A story that’s making the rounds today is one from CBC where a BC man went on vacation with his family and came home to find a $22,000 bill waiting for him. Apparently, even though he had set the phone to “airplane mode” to allow his son to play games (and not use any cellular data), his son turned off “airplane mode” and then started to stream YouTube videos over the phone. As in 12 hours worth of YouTube videos. That’s where the “fun” begins. When he got in contact with Fido which is owned by Rogers, this is what happened:
Fido immediately said it would cut the bill to $2,200. However, Buie has been negotiating since to get a better deal. He believes the company is using the “shock factor” of the huge initial charge, to get him to settle for a bill that’s still too high.
“It is gouging,” said Buie. “It is $20 in Mexico [for domestic customers] to get the same amount of data [700 MB] from their carrier and it is $40 to get the same amount of data while in Canada.”
But it doesn’t end there:
Rogers’ packages for roaming in Mexico are also more expensive than its competitors — as much as five times more.
“It’s simply a way for these companies to make significant amounts of money,” said Buie, who said he didn’t buy a package because he didn’t plan to use any data on vacation.
He said what upsets him most is Fido didn’t send a message to his phone until three days of charges had piled up. If he were a Telus customer, its system would have cut off data access when the bill reached $200.
“I would rather be cut off,” said Buie. “If Fido was just reasonable about it, I would pay the amount and that would be the end of it.”
Now, should have the parent in this case better controlled the access to his phone? Yes. No question.
However Rogers/Fido doesn’t pass the smell test here because of the following reasons:
But what really doesn’t pass the smell test for me is the fact that data costs almost nothing for any cell phone provider and the rates that cell phone providers charge each other for roaming is at best 1/10 the cost that you as a consumer pay based on conversations with people who are in the position to know about this sort of thing. Thus Canadian consumers are paying too much for roaming regardless of whom the cell phone provider is. Having some competition in the Canadian cell phone marketplace would likely solve that problem. But that’s a
rantdiscussion for another day. Let me get back on track.How do you avoid being this guy? Simple. In order of preference, here are my tips:
Got any tips of your own? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.
UPDATE: Rogers reached out to me (almost instantly I might add) and had this to say:
I just wanted to clarify something in your post about the Fido roaming story. The customer was never billed $22,000. When this type of situation happens, we have internal processes in place to identify these customers and their usage prior to their bill being sent out and then we proactively work with them towards a resolution.
Also, when a customer has purchased a Roaming Data Pass, customers are able to stay informed of how much data they use since they receive text message usage alerts when they reach 50%, 80% and 100% of data usage. In order to ensure customers never spend more than they expect, their usage will be suspended once their MBs are fully used. Once suspended, customers will be presented with the option to purchase another Roaming Data Pass, start using data at the regular pay-per-use rates or stop using altogether (their choice).
Thanks for the clarification.
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This entry was posted on March 4, 2013 at 10:11 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Cell Phones, Fido, Rogers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.