International iPhoning Results in $3,000 Bill

Wed Aug 1, 2007 8:28AM EDT

See Comments (282)

It was only going to be a matter of time before something like this happened. Someone decided to take their iPhone on a little jaunt to Europe, where he says he underwent "sporadic AT&T EDGE network usage off and on mixed with wifi when available." The bill waiting for him when he got home: three grand. (And I bet it was 40 pages long, too.)

Dave Stolte is hardly alone in the annals of absurd, accidental overseas charges, but as more and more people start traveling abroad with their iPhones, cases like this are going to become a lot more common, and fast. The iPhone is a chatty little device, constantly checking the network and calling home to the mothership, and iPhone users quickly get spoiled on its nifty data features, using them constantly to check the web, watch videos, etc. (In fairness: You do have to call AT&T first and ask for international roaming to be unlocked for this to work at all.)

Those little charges add up fast. $0.02 per kilobyte sounds pretty cheap, right? WRONG. Do the math: A 1-megabyte web page (a very common size) costs almost twenty bucks to open. 20. Dollars. Whoa. Seriously. (Thanks to Portfolio for helping out with our collective multiplication, and noting that there are various rate plans available, going down to $.005 per KB, which would still be about $5 per megabyte.)

So what do you need to do if you're going abroad with your iPhone? Portfolio suggests the same thing I do: Sign up for an affordable international voice plan but disable the data plan altogether. You can still use data services over Wi-Fi, which is free. The inconvenience of not being able to check Google Maps when you're away from a hotspot is nothing compared to a multi-thousand dollar data bill. When you get home, just turn your data services back on.

Stolte's story has a happy ending. After wide online publicity, AT&T agreed to waive the charges. As the first to report such a problem, he's the lucky one. But I doubt the next 10,000 or so people to fall into this predicament will find AT&T so accommodating. Don't become one of them. 

LINK: ATT + iPhone int'l. roaming data horror story: $3K bill 

Comments on International iPhoning Results in $3,000 Bill

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  • 26 Posted by beautiful_disaster_562 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    How about if you have a laptop which I'm sure many of us do then take it with you and use it to email home instead of ending up with a 3k bill. Can you say moron. Well I guess if he was stupid enough to buy the darn thing for the amount he paid for it he would be able to pay the bill.

  • 27 Posted by beautiful_disaster_562 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:04PM EDT Report Abuse

    How about if you have a laptop which I'm sure many of us do then take it with you and use it to email home instead of ending up with a 3k bill. Can you say moron. Well I guess if he was stupid enough to buy the darn thing for the amount he paid for it he would be able to pay the bill.

  • 28 Posted by jrod1701 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:42PM EDT Report Abuse

    Interesting that Mr. Null says quote "Stolte's story has a happy ending. After wide online publicity, AT&T agreed to waive the charges. As the first to report such a problem, he's the lucky one." Ah but wait! What is the so called problem? That this Jackalope went overseas and figured he could access girlgonewild.com for free? What a friggin dope! If you walk into a McDonalds and order a Big Mac and they tell you it cost's 4000-dollars, you dont eat the Big Mac, you walk the heck out! Accountability! It's Funtastic! :)

  • 29 Posted by aidra_corpse on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:47PM EDT Report Abuse

    And should we be shocked? You don't bring ANY cell phone to another country and expect to be charged the same rates. Especially with all the features that the iPhone has it's no surprise his bill was that high. I'm still getting an iPhone once I live in a country that makes them available to me.

  • 30 Posted by lyrical_data on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:01PM EDT Report Abuse

    7 years ago i have a HK$16,000 phone bill...and to make it clear its in a span of 1 month...then the next month was HK$13,000..third month was HK$8000...and that is A LOT of Roamings and collect calls....i still have those bills will me as a reminder...

  • 31 Posted by rhino4572003 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    Good Morning, OK the frist thing here is your on vacation why in the heck do you need a cell phone ? And if your stupid enough to take one out of the area you get roaming charges. I have a cell phone and use it and if I get far enough away I'm roaming, this is not brain surgerey is it?

  • 32 Posted by p_vung on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:23PM EDT Report Abuse

    Isn't this the reason why I do all the downloading at home and not any overseas? I mean, my last cell phone charged 1 dollar for 3 downloads, whether they were 5 gigabytes (GB) or a single byte. That is cheaper than the iPhone's rate because most of the downloads that I do are AAC musoc files, averaging 6 MB per download. 34 cents versus a hundred twenty bucks. That is why I bring 2 cell phones overseas traveling. Honestly, I havve done it before.

  • 35 Posted by idfveteran on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:22PM EDT Report Abuse

    Serves you hi tech gadget addicted knuckleheads right

  • 36 Posted by cryschicemtnch on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:31PM EDT Report Abuse

    at&t wow thats how they get their money. that really wants me to go with them nottttttttt!!!

  • 37 Posted by cryschicemtnch on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:31PM EDT Report Abuse

    at&t wow thats how they get their money. that really wants me to go with them nottttttttt!!!

  • 38 Posted by cryschicemtnch on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:31PM EDT Report Abuse

    at&t wow thats how they get their money. that really wants me to go with them nottttttttt!!!

  • 39 Posted by cryschicemtnch on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:31PM EDT Report Abuse

    at&t wow thats how they get their money. that really wants me to go with them nottttttttt!!!

  • 41 Posted by nigeriansuper_chick on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:38PM EDT Report Abuse

    its not an iphone bill..what a stupid title for an article..its a cell phone bill,..,.can happen to anyone..iphone or no iphone..DUH!

  • 42 Posted by eeprete on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    How is a 1 megabyte page common? As a web developer, I can yell you even 250K is pushing it. Anything more is either bloated or loaded with too much Flash. Smart web development is about efficiency, not latency.

  • 43 Posted by eeprete on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    How is a 1 megabyte page common? As a web developer, I can yell you even 250K is pushing it. Anything more is either bloated or loaded with too much Flash. Smart web development is about efficiency, not latency.

  • 44 Posted by eeprete on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:52PM EDT Report Abuse

    How is a 1MB webpage common? That is absurd. As a web developer I can attest that industry best practices dictate a much lower acceptable and tolerable limit.

  • 45 Posted by rick_237 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:40PM EDT Report Abuse

    He's lucky to have the charges waived. He's a moron for using the phone so much overseas without first stopping to think about what it was going to cost.

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