South Florida woman shocked by $200,000 cell phone bill
MIAMI — A South Florida woman got the shock of her life when she opened a recent cell phone bill: she owed $201,000. It was no mistake.
Celina Aarons has her two deaf-mute brothers on her plan. They communicate by texting and use their phones to watch videos. Normally, that’s not a problem. Aarons has the appropriate data plan and her bill is about $175.
But her brothers spent two weeks in Canada, and Aarons never changed to an international plan. Her brothers sent more than 2,000 texts and also downloaded videos, sometimes racking up $2,000 in data charges.
T-Mobile told Aarons the bill was correct. She called Miami TV station WSVN, which contacted T-Mobile. The station reports that T-Mobile cut Aarons’ bill to $2,500 and gave her six months to pay.
Goddess here: Okay, these two guys go to a foreign country and sister doesn’t change her cell plan. She calls T-Mobile to argue that her stupidity her error should force allow them to lower the bill. nada on that route … So she calls a television station because she doesn’t want to pay the bill she owes (and I don’t care if her brothers are deaf, dumb, blind and on crutches, ’cause you might as well just say you have a teenager as far as texting and vids are concerned). T-Mobile agrees to reduce the bill by 99% and gives her six months to pay. maybe they should require her to complete a course in geography…
Stupidty has taken over this country. I couldn’t agree with you more.
I actually agree with the lady, because that’d be like if a video store charged a $1000/day late fee. It’s posted / in the fine print though, so can’t say we didn’t warn you? No. I mean really, how much extra do you think it cost T-Mobile in this situation? $20?
I am sort of with the lady on this one too… On one hand, I SOOO agree that Americans, for the most part are dumbasses and have no clue about geography. In her defense, however, you don’t need to dial an international prefix to call to and from Canada, so I can see how one might assume that while it might cost a bit more, it wouldn’t be like, say, the price of a house. I think the $2,500 bill sounds about right in the end.
Also, “deaf-mute”???? I thought that term went out the window like 30 years ago. Most deaf people don’t have anything wrong with their voice boxes! Silly Associated Press. Maybe they are the ones in need of some classes in journalism. 😉
Deaf-mute means they can’t hear or speak.
Cara was commenting that “deaf-mute” hasn’t been used in many years, not that she didn’t understand the term.