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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  • 266 Posted by rlw_4_jesus on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:44PM EDT Report Abuse

    AT&T has a way of making (stealing) money. I have unlimited long distance on my home land line. They took my account WITHOUT my permission, then charged me with the individual long distance calls. They threatened me with collections until I finially paid. That is like me ordering a magazine subscription for someone without their concent, then handing them the bill and telling them to pay for it. AT&T has now bought out my original service provider. Yes, I'm scared!!! With today's every changing technologies, people need to be more aware of what is happening. Be familiar with the small print on contracts or/and do their homework if they are going to buy fancy gadgets. Read, read, and do more reading so they do not get themselves in this perdicament of outrageous bills. Prepare yourself to avoid this sort of thing.

  • 267 Posted by kgv7751 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:50PM EDT Report Abuse

    I can't believe a person would go overseas or even to Canada and not check on roaming charges. What a dork! He deserved it.

  • 268 Posted by mr_hernand on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:28PM EDT Report Abuse

    this is almost like with texing a couple of years ago... I got a 2,500.00 bill from at&t because of my daughter texing too much. And i know i was not the only parent, there are many that had the same problem. Some which are still paying it.

  • 269 Posted by iocat25 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    Get an unlocked phone and get a SIM card for the country/area you will be traveling to. heck of a lot cheaper than AT&T's plan. Oh, and drop all of that wifi/network crap. If you can't live without having to check your e-mail every 2 seconds, then you have bigger problems, beside the roaming charges.

  • 270 Posted by wantanewbikeguy on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:40PM EDT Report Abuse

    The roaming charges come from the overseas carries - not AT&T.

  • 271 Posted by frenchfl239 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:03PM EDT Report Abuse

    all that craze for the new i phone, people spending hours and days awaiting them to release, ha ha this is what you get. have to have the best and the new, well ya got screwed

  • 272 Posted by cawillms on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    Buyer Beware!Don't get spoiled on easy usage in good ole USA.

  • 273 Posted by redbu1196 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:33PM EDT Report Abuse

    People just blindly buy any piece of crap Jobs and Apple pinch off. This boob got what he deserved...LOL!

  • 274 Posted by thereugo67 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:05PM EDT Report Abuse

    I knew there would be all-kind of problems for the glitter of the iphone, just like ipod's you have to go thru all kind of problems on the computer, cant use window media, just to much drama...apple know's how to hook them buyers, got t-mobile and it works fine....

  • 275 Posted by cama1ama on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:17PM EDT Report Abuse

    Wholesale roaming charges for data in Europe are insane. Doesn't matter what US operator you use, with whatever data device you generate usage with, when you're roaming INTL for data, it's going to cost you an arm and a leg. And the more devices and services that are offered by the cosumer base that requires large amounts of data (video share, video telephony, HSDPA cards, iPhones, etc.), the more the wholesale data rapage will come to global light.

  • 276 Posted by mhidoyaga on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:17PM EDT Report Abuse

    I got a bill for $1,700.00 from AT&T. There was the activation fee that they feel entitled to for making me wait five days, there were the eighty bucks I actually signed up for, there were mysterious charges with unintelligible acronyms, and then there was over $1300 for data consumption, charged by the kilobyte while I was in France for two weeks. Before I left, I signed up for international service. I was given a choice: either I pay a buck and a half a minute for phone calls, or I pay five bucks a month to earn the right to pay only ninety-nine cents a minute. Outrageous, but I agreed to it. Since I go once a year to visit my stepmother, I chose the recurring plan. I budgeted for two, three hundred bucks of telephone service. I get a lot of calls because I’m a public defender. Nobody said a word about data. Nothing. And I never gave it any thought. I guess I assumed data would be unlimited like it is here. OK, maybe that wasn’t too bright for a lawyer, but how would I have imagined they’d charge by the kilobyte? It’s like going out to a bar with your friends and being charged for beer by the spoonful. When I got the bill, I was floored. I called to complain, and a sweet-sounding midwestern girl back-doored me into a different plan which lowered my bill to $611.00. An improvement, but still a rip-off. This is beyond absurd, or silly, or bumbling, or overwhelmed. This is downright dishonest. This is larceny. This is like car salesmen in the seventies who asked whether you wanted tires with your new car. This should be a crime. Whenever people ask to see my new toy, I show them all the cool features on my iPhone, but I tell them about the $1,700.00 bill, plus the dropped calls, plus the slow and intermittent EDGE network, and I tell them to wait until Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T is over and they go with other carriers. I can’t wait to get back with T-Mobile, myself. Michael Idoyaga

  • 277 Posted by ucantstopmeiamdaman on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:27PM EDT Report Abuse

    that thing is expensive and they r makin the bill more expensive i just dont get it

  • 278 Posted by minnnikittti on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:21PM EDT Report Abuse

    That's not true, the iphone works without unlocking internationally. Furthermore, there is no indication that you are roaming. I just recieved my $800.00 bill $600.00 from international wi-fi (my plan says unlimited internet), all this in Vancouver (minutes away from Seatlle), Canada and Alaska. I bought and activated my iphone a day before I left. Due to AT&T's limited support hours (bankers hours) I was unable to reach support until I arrived to Vancouver to contact them. I was informed by recording that this support service was not available in this area. Going by my new contract, I was purchasing unlimited intenet on my monthly plan. No exception or clauses were mentioned. I have had no problems with AT%T over the past 10 or 11 years. I plan to dispute this first bill since the plan I purchased did not offer enough information, and support was unavailable. I consider myself schooled, and still love love love my new iphone.

  • 279 Posted by peeeeeanut on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:05PM EDT Report Abuse

    This is like car salesmen in the seventies who asked whether you wanted tires with your new car. This should be a crime. Heh. Yeah. The real "crime" is that AT&T's plans are full of things called "unlimited data plan", which is, well, simply not an unlimited data plan. I ran into their kilobyte charges when I bought a Treo 680 to use for dialup networking. Lucky for me I had to call them to enable the DUN feature, and was told it'd be 5 cents a kilobyte or whatever they're charging for it. I told 'em to stuff it and sent the Treo back. I've still got my old Treo 650 (was going to buy an IPhone but I don't like the keyboard interface). It's unlocked and I really need to dump AT&T. Their most recent travesty was charging me over $100 for text messages I sent over the course of a week...I had stupidly assumed my "unlimited data plan" would cover them. (You know what though? At least I have AT&T to bring up in conversation with right-wing types who play the 'all government is bad' card...not all private industry is necessarily efficient.)

  • 280 Posted by yo.brad on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:56PM EDT Report Abuse

    My phone bill was almost 1000$, to help pay that off, i resorted to online programs. It's really easy to do. http://youcangetpaidforsurveys.blogspot.com

  • 281 Posted by ratsttam on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:29PM EDT Report Abuse

    geez. why can't they do what Sprint has done, and set spending limits. My account simply freezes when my outstanding charges (roaming, data, messages, etc) reaches $300. Sure, having my phone shut off is much better than having to spend a months salary paying off my bill!

  • 282 Posted by pivnickp on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:13PM EDT Report Abuse

    okay, maybe it's different in the states... maybe you get a different box? Maybe AT&T employees don't do what they're told? Either way, got mine in Canada and, well, even though i'm smart enough to read about the product I'm buying and know what I'm getting into, it was still made very clear to me a few times along the way that overseas roaming charges are expensive. They didn't shy from the word excessive either. That said, the bigger chunk of those fees don't come from YOUR carrier but the network you happened to roam into.

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