Canada Causes $200,000 T-Mobile Bill - The UpStream

Data roaming charges are a bitch. Florida resident and T-Mobile user, Celina Aarons, realized this after receiving a phone call from the telecom company about her data roaming and that she owed them $201,005.44. This is proof that data should be turned off when roaming on a 4G 3G network that has a spotty network comparable to Swiss cheese.

Aarons' bill typically runs around $175 per month, so $200,000 seems to be a little bit on the high side. So high, in fact, that she claimed she was "freaking out" when they let her know of such an overage. There has to be a reason to such a high bill, though, right?

Well, there is an explanation. On her plan, she has three lines: her own and one for each of her two brothers, who are both legally deaf and mute. Her brothers use their cell phones to only text and use data. One of her brothers, Shamir, took a trip up to Canada and forgot to turn off roaming on his phone. So, for the two weeks he spent up there, a-textin' he went, and the bill kept going up.

Clearly, Aarons' bill caused her to get extremely mad when T-Mobile hadn't alerted her of the overages, even at the 50k or 100k levels. Fortunately, T-Mobile has compromised with her and dropped the total cost to only $2,500, which, while still a lot, she has six months to pay the balance off.

In reality, especially after this whole AT&T merger thing going on, they should drop the bill entirely. This isn't going to be good for T-Mobile when more and more news agencies get a hold of this story. So, until the FCC steps up and kills this bill, shock syndrome that these companies like to impose on their customers, make sure you have your network's coverage before you go YouTubing.