RSSMyth-busted, or, Would AT&T have forgiven Savage's bill if he wasn't a TV star?
By Carmi Levy | Published June 29, 2009, 10:07 AM
You've got to feel some serious empathy for Adam Savage.
The co-star of the popular Discovery Channel television show Mythbusters found himself on the receiving end of a huge bill after a recent vacation to Montreal, Canada. He had tethered a cellular modem to his laptop, and ended up racking up $11,000 in charges before returning to the US. Upon his return, AT&T, claiming he had used over 9 gigabytes of data during his foreign surfing adventure, helpfully shut his account down. Only when he called them to complain about the outage did he learn he had been hosed.
(Disclosure: I was born and raised in Montreal. Although I moved away quite some time ago, it bothers me to see visitors to my fair city have anything remotely approaching a negative experience. I can accept a sub-par smoked meat sandwich or poutine. But being charged the equivalent of a base model Hyundai for the privilege of checking e-mail and surfing the Web for a few hours is ludicrous. I know it's an American carrier, but even the most tenuous connection to my beloved hometown bugs me. End rant.)
The benefits of fame
True to his geek's soul, Savage subsequently used his Twitter following (64,270 as I write this) to pressure AT&T into excusing the bill. He posted this plaintive tweet: "Text messaging fees are stupid robbery? (they are), AT&T is attempting to charge me 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada. Pls RT!" The subsequent re-tweet storm prompted AT&T to call him the same day and resolve the issue. In the end, AT&T did the right thing and waived all charges.
As encouraged as I am to see a quick resolution to this obviously ridiculous example of antagonistic customer "service", I'm reminded that AT&T's rapid and complete response has little to do with its efficient customer service capability [cough] and everything to do with Mr. Savage's wide-ranging, tech savvy celebrity.
Not all of us star in popular television programs, nor do we have tens of thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. At one point, Savage tweeted a very telling exchange:
AT&T guy on the phone with me: "Apparently you've got enough Twitter followers to get our attention." Me: "50,000". Him: "Wow".
Good for Savage. Not so good for the rest of us. When you're an average, mostly anonymous, wage-earning, bill-paying shlub who's received a similar surprise, chances are your carrier won't be calling you in response to a broad-based outpouring of re-tweeted support. Instead, you'll be calling a toll-free number and waiting for hours to speak to a clueless agent in India, just like the rest of us average shlubs. You'll be lucky to have service restored within days, if at all.
Fighting back
All of which begs the question: How can consumers protect themselves from carriers who willingly bury terms of service deep in fine print so thick with legalese that even experienced lawyers have difficulty figuring it out? There's no perfect solution, of course, but I've evolved a few simple assumptions that have kept me from facing four- and five-digit bills upon my return.
Assume you'll get fleeced when you're roaming. Savage's experience with AT&T is typical. If you're out of the country and using a partner carrier's network, it will charge you 15 cents per kilobyte. In a world where the average Web page can range between 10 and 100K, simply looking up the weather, checking your e-mail and updating your Facebook status can easily cost you more than breakfast at a family restaurant. Stream some Internet radio and YouTube video and you've just paid for steak dinner at a high end restaurant. Or that Hyundai.
Assume your carrier won't make it easy to track usage. Would you drive a car without a functioning gas gauge? Of course not. But every day, we go online without understanding how much data we're consuming and how much it costs us. It may not matter so much when we're at home, because most broadband Internet services have sufficiently generous caps to accommodate all but the most voracious file downloaders. But mobile users already know to limit high-bandwidth usage lest they blow through their often paltry monthly data limits. Carriers will claim to helpfully provide online tools that facilitate tracking, but finding them is often an adventure in itself. Carriers make more money by keeping customers in the dark and hoping not all of them will contest overage charges.
Assume your carrier can't count. Even if online usage tracking tools are easily available, don't be misled into believing that they're remotely accurate. In Savage's case, he says he spent two or three hours engaged in basic Web surfing. He wasn't streaming audio or video, making video calls or otherwise engaged in any high-bandwidth activity. Yet AT&T's systems dinged him for 9 Gb of usage. If you think you've been wronged, who are you gonna call?
Savage planning
Whenever I travel internationally, I do two things before I get anywhere close to a border: I turn off data service on my BlackBerry, and I plan my trip around free Wi-Fi wherever possible. I've spent countless hours exhaustively reviewing my own carrier's terms of service, and the only conclusion I can draw is I'd be asking for a Hyundai-equivalent bill if I dared use a partner-carrier's cell-based network for data coverage.
The cynic in me knows full well why this is the case. The majority of customers, lacking the time, resources and will to pursue cases like this, choose to accept excessive international roaming charges. In most cases, the bills aren't anywhere near $11,000. If it's an extra $50 or so, the silent majority will likely assume it's normal, and grudgingly pay the premium as the cost of cross-border travel.
But in a world where watching one YouTube video from a foreign land can cost the equivalent of a week's wages, outdated and clearly punitive roaming plans clearly need to go.
And that's no myth.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
I guess some people aren't smart enough to realize that Canada is another country or perhaps they don't realize that nationwide means "in the nation of the USA" in this case. If you use a USA cell phone service outside of the USA for voice or data service you will be charged massive amounts of money. This is not robbery, theft, false advertising or misleading terms of service and it is perfectly legal for any cell phone carrier. Customers need to be more careful so they don't get these massive phone bills.
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|Nice article Carmi, I agree with you on everything there...The fact is that we've all come to almost accept the terrible service and high prices that the carriers charge us, when in fact they can be doing tons better to help the consumer, they choose to deny corporate responsibility and let the consumer suffer...I can't even count how many people I know who have to call up their phone companies disputing charges, and it becomes really degrading and sad when it becomes an almost regular thing...In this case, as I said, carriers have completely disowned any responsibility, and even though I am incredibly pro-capitalism, I believe this is an example when the government / FCC needs to step in and really make sure consumers know what they are getting and don't have nasty surprises during their contract.
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|having flashbacks of st. catharines street
good article to
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|I didn't used to, but OH MAN how I hate Montreal now.
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|When I worked in Europe, my monthly mobile bills were usually in the $1200 range due to outrageous roaming charges. I've always been surprised that one of the multi-country carriers doesn't offer a plan to businesses with roaming charges that are only 50-100% higher than domestic (outrageous, but better than 5000%). They'd be able to scoop up every company contract that has people who travel in an instant. I guess they are all just too addicted to the revenue.
I guess, now that the EU is forcing their hand, Vodafone is trying it out. It would certainly win my business if I was making the choice.
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|My phone turned on the data connection by itself in Sweden.
The bill was going to be upwards of $600.
AT&T took it all off!
It took ONE call.
I just can't complain about that!
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|All: Adam Savage (@donttrythis) will be interviewed by CBC Radio's Home Run program later this afternoon (from 5:10 p.m. EDT). Click the listen live link at http://www.cbc.ca/homerun
I'll be on-air discussing this issue at 5:50 p.m. EDT. Tweeting updates at @carmilevy
"In": I generally prefer to go right to the source. You can argue decimal points until you're blue in the face, but the real issue is carriers charge punitive overages and are happy to make it less-than-easy to prepare for major surprises in advance.
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|I did go to the source and even provided the source links, something which you failed to do - I guess journalism and academia differentiate in the fact that you actually have to provide more than a passing reference to your source.
Anyway, I don't disagree with your last point that they are happy to rip customers off, however the decimal point issue is the key point in both Mr. Savage's case and the verizon case which I also pointed the link to. How can you expect to get an accurate bill if the company making the bills doesn't understand the underlying math?
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|They're the Phone Company (what's left of it), they don't care, they don't have to.
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|This article is wrong. AT&T's contract says .015 cents per kilobyte which is much different from 15 cents per kilobyte. (reference: article says $0.15 whereas the contract actually translates into .00015 or maybe .0015)
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|I kindly beg to differ. According to AT&T's web site:
"International data roaming can get expensive quickly.
For example, opening an email with a 5 megapixel picture in it, or downloading a 3-minute video on YouTube, each takes about 2 MB of data. The cost would be almost $40, based on pay-per-use international data rates of $0.0195/KB."
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|wrong wrong wrong - read directly from his twitter account on what they told him http://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/2349264849 "And I got the "data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb". About to try to explain the difference to them. Sigh."
The argument that they're (incorrectly) trying to make is that .015 cents is the same thing as .015 dollars WHICH IT IS NOT. The exact same thing happened with Verizon a few years ago - http://verizonmath.blogs...dollars-from-cents.html
This is a simple math problem which is being confused by people who don't understand how math works.
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|Regarding the "decimal point", I believe that Mr. Savage was told by one customer service rep (erroneously) that it was .015 cents
The actual contractual rate is $0.015, so 1.5 cents per kb, which is still outrageous, but a lot better than 15 cents ($0.15).
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|Doesn't AT&T warn you repeatedly when you turn on foreign roaming? By default this is turned off, at least it is on my GF's iPhone.
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|they would not of forgiven it at all, it would of went to court... AT&T may in the end of dwindled the bill down to $6000 :P like thats any kind of 'fair' deal for the avg person lol
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|I think AT&T should have made him pay the bill.. at least a decent portion of it.. There was enough publicity over huge bills when the iPhone first came out that any with an AT&T phone or any phone for that matter should be very certain of what charges they may face when accessing their phone outside of their normal coverage area.
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|I like the article but this isn't exactly new behavior. We see it from even governmental agencies, police departments, etc.
The average joe doesn't pay a speeding ticket/has several/etc. It's jail for quite some time.
A star does it. Nada. Pay a fine, slap on the wrist (go to jail for 4 days, worst case scenario).
It's about visibility. The average joe, heck...even Mr./Mrs. social butterfly has only so much 'pull'. Let's put some numbers out there...1000 friends, even - not in the numbers that would really bother a computer.
A star, even a smaller one..D list - as long as they are in the public eye, it brings visibility to what the issue is about. Companies don't want that.
I agree that roaming charges need to go though! I'm pretty happy with Tmobile but I've heard horror stories about the Iphone and roaming. I have a G1, and though I can turn off data roaming, you never know what might slip through when you're using a phone that LIVES to connect to the internet.
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