always to companys fault
 

Teen Racks Up $21K Cell Phone Bill
Teen Downloaded 1.5M Kilobytes Of Data

POSTED: Friday, December 11, 2009
UPDATED: 1:09 pm CST December 11, 2009

HAYWARD, Calif. -- A Hayward man is hoping his cell-phone service provider will work with him after receiving a massive bill for over $21,000 largely made up of charges incurred by his son after the teen was added to the family account, KTVU-TV in San Jose reported.

When he first got the bill in the mail, Ted Estarija couldn't believe his eyes.

Estarija said he thought adding his 13-year-old son to his cell-phone account would cost him an extra $50 a month. Instead, the recently unemployed Hayward father now owes Verizon $21,918.

"I was completely caught off guard," said Estarija. "This is outrageous. It seems like it comes to almost $100 a minute."

Estarija said he asked Verizon to restrict his son's usage to phone calls and texts, but the bill shows his son downloaded about 1.5 million kilobytes of data with his phone.

"This is not completely his fault," said Estarija. "I put more blame on Verizon than anybody. They shouldn't allow this to happen."

A Verizon spokeswoman told KTVU-TV she couldn't comment specifically about the issue while it is being investigated, but said the company planned to work with Estarija to resolve the problem.

Estarija admitted there may be a lesson to be learned here, but at almost $22,000 it comes at too high a cost.

"There's no way I can pay this, so (I'll do) whatever I can to get this resolved," said Estarija.

He said his biggest concern right now is not how to pay the bill, but helping his son. Estarija said his son has become despondent over causing his dad so much financial and emotional distress.

I don't care what the fuck who downloaded, those charges are fucking crazy and totally out of hand.

always to companys fault ?

WTF is that?

You should write fortune cookies, or instruction manuals for weed wackers.

JC

assuming this ISN'T the case

"Estarija said he asked Verizon to restrict his son's usage to phone calls and texts, " but the bill shows his son downloaded about 1.5 million kilobytes of data with his phone.

if jr D/L all that info and pops signed the contract.......why is the co. at fault?

My verizon account had to be unlocked to allow me TO download stuff :idk:

They set mine up the way I asked them too. Calls and txt ONLY. I can't download ringtones or anything unless I call to unlock, then I call them to lock it back

Don't they understand how scared of responsibility the public is?!?!!??!??

i dunno, my guess is, dad called to get phone hooked up, didn't bother to read the details...........then JR D/L's the whole i-net, and it's the co's fault.

do phone co's cap D/L info?

next somebody will be sueing cuz they asked for a D/L cap, and the cap hit just as they need to D/L something important and they loose billions cuz the D/L was cut off.

It cost 21G to move a gig and a half?
How long would it take to download 1.5 gig over a typical Verizon cell connection?

Not to defend the father, but many adults can't figure out the remote on a TV....so they don't KNOW whats out there to grab.

My son has a phone (he's 12) and thankfully we've talked about what he CAN use the phone for, and everything else he ASSUMES will be considered to default to "no you can't unless you ask Dad"

My step-daughter gets one this month (she turns 11) and we'll have to sit her down and make sure she understands that principle as well

Because twenty one thousand motherfucking dollars is too much for a month of ANYTHING short of 24 hour nursing care.

$21K plus for a month of data? On the moon, I can see it.

:lol

How is Verizon not completely out of hand?

He is Asian, right?

lol

Completely exorbitant charges are the companys fault. I have Verizon because they give the best service but I also know that they will milk you for everything you own if you give them the chance. It shouldnt even be possible to rack up a $21000 cell phone bill.

No, I get what you're saying. And, what the others are saying...

But, yesterday I went over to Verizon to check out prices and see if it was worth moving to them from TMobile. They have one price for a "service" and a separate fee per item if you don't opt for that service.

I don't recall the exact fees - but, it's like $20 for the month to download unlimited. OR, it's $x per whatever to download per item.

It seems as though Dad didn't opt for the monthly service - and didn't understand the possible line item charges. It's in black and white when you sign up - it's NOT a surprise.

What about, he should have been paying attention to what his child was doing? Maybe?

The guy is stupid, his kid is stupid, Verizon is out of hand, and oh yeah; fucking stupid too.

If they were smart, they'd have informed the guy of the issue, and offered to automatically put him on an unlimited plan to prevent such outrageous charges from ever getting this far out of hand. By being greedy stupid fucktards, they are bound to get the attention of the FCC now, and deservedly so, if you ask me.

I can download that much a month and still pay under $60 a month on my bb storm.

The problem is, he wasn't on a data plan and that's where they fuck you and he got fucked, hard.

They will work it out with the guy. They know he won't be able to pay it. The computer bills what he did per his plan, once he talks to the right manager, it will be fixed.

These companies need to have some kind of filter to pull these outrageous bills straight to management so this shit doesn't happen though.

Trip, I know that, you know that, and a few others here obviously know that, but the question really boils down to this; How hard should companies like Verizon be able to fuck people who DON'T know that?

This seems a wee tad over the top, to put it mildly.

It begs for regulation, and my bet is that it will "find it".

TLDNR :lmao:

Proper parenting FTL

Sorry, I am not a fan of government making sure your dumbass gets saved when you knowingly sign a contract. These people signed a contract to pay that price for data. They fucked up. Verizon or the Government isn't responsible because you are a dumbass.

If they asked for data to be blocked and Verizon didn't do it. Then it's Verizons fault and they need to correct it. I blocked txt messages, so Verizon better not allow txt messages to reach my phone and charge me for them.

Yeah, me either...but phone companies are essentially public utilities. You have to serve stupid people too, Trip. There has to be limits as to how hurt someone can get in a month. This is outrageous.

The guy is stupid, but I'd go so far as to say it coulda conceivably even been you or me, if we had some fucked up shit going on in our lives, and weren't paying real close attention. Even the smartest among us is not immune from occasional random acts of negligent stupidity.

There has to be limits before you are moved automatically to a data plan. This scenario just underscores the need for such caps, IMHO.

Verizon just hit this issue with a highlighter pen, if you ask me, and I fully expect to see an FCC letter on it.

:lol

BS, you want the gov. to regulate phone co's, reg. healthcare what else? :lol

Your pie hole. Poor Z.

I'm no legal scholar, but I see it this way:

Since Verizon is the party that essentially will be electronically logging access, and doing all the "bookeeping", they are the party handling accounting.

As the party responsible for accounting, they should be compelled to notify all parties of major account issues...and I would say that since a data plan would be around $60, vs. a $21K+ charge on this guy's account as reported, he could have [they have the technology], and should have been notified of this alarming trend before the first full billing cycle, as the trend is so far out of whack, and could have been easily flagged.

Not to have reported it sooner IS negligent, and comes from a system structured and designed to entrap, not inform consumers.

:lol:

The fees are absurd for sure, I'm very sure Verizon will work with him on it. If not he better sign up with another provider before they ruin his credit. I notice a lot of people seem to have trouble seeing the difference between legally right and ethically right. You don't charge a guy $21k for 1.5g of data transfer.

Mr. Legal Eagle must know the definition of an unconscionable contract.

Being asked to pay 35000% more than an "Unlimited" plan's monthly charge might be considered to be exorbitant.

Yeh this sounds sorta like common sense you might be using there buddy, none of that is allowed in this discussion

Of course they do... on their "unlimited" plan. :nono:

So what if the Dad's saying is true and he asked Verizon to stop it?

they usually do. Certaintly did when they messed up our account.

Why the hell shouldn't companies be allowed to charge however much they want? It's called business, you make profit to pay employees and yourselves. If people are willing to spend x amount, charge it. Or would you rather they charged a lower amount and cut jobs?

Charge what they want? Yes.

Predatory rate schedules? Improper consumer protection in accounting? No.

This isn't rocket surgery. It's business ethics 101.

Could a reasonable person have expected the consequences of those actions to render that outcome?

That's what would be asked if it goes to court. And I think the answer is no, a reasonable person could not expect that to happen..

Yeh 21k is pretty unreasonable for a phone bill

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

you don't even have to ask.

Go here:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/index.html
Log in and change settings.

It took me 5 minutes last time I restricted text messages and data.

Verizon should have said something, but if Verizon wants to hold the man accountable to all of his dependent's phone usage then I'd hope the government would back Verizon.

My guess is that I'm going to be the one to take the hit for this once Verizon and Dumbass negotiate.

I can't believe anybody in here would defend a $21,000 phone bill as acceptable. And then denounce the guy as an idiot. :lol:

You know damn well Verizon's contract makes the data charges as indecipherable as possible. I don't have one in front of me but expect it would read along the lines of: if you opt out of the $60/month unlimited data service plan, you will pay a per use fee of $0.001943/kilobyte.

Now, forgetting that you know what a kilobyte really is because you use the internet every day, what sounds like the better deal if you don't plan on using data much if at all? How exactly should this guy, while standing at the Verizon counter with pen in hand, research what a kilobyte is and how many his son could be charged for when accessing an average web page?

I guarantee everyone in this thread crying "he signed the contract" has, more than once, agreed to terms without crawling through it line-by-line. Even if you did take the time to read each one of them, you wouldn't understand them anyway.

But go ahead and condone a $21,000 utility bill for him, he's just some guy you've never met, right? I bet the same people will cry about how the world is full of people that only care about themselves next time one of those threads come up, too.

Verizon's unlimited isn't really unlimited, is it? Friend of mine says it's capped at 5GB/month (although this is a laptop card, not a phone).

My Verizon phone warns me everytime I'm about to download a game/app/etc that if I don't have an unlimited data plan or some kind of data plan that charges will apply.
Infact I'll type it out right now.

Checked it for Guitar Hero 5 and is word for word except for the part describing the game

I feel like that's a fair warning.

Don't worry man, Smittie's gonna take the hit for it...lol

Smittie, you're such a fucking tool.

Take the hit for what? It sure as shit didn't cost VZN 21 large to provide that service.

Smitty is paying for this? Perfect. Verizon and the dude can relax now.

lol, it's ok to make $, just not to much $, i'm sure avatard wants the gov't to get in on this too......

It's OK to make as much money as you want, using honest means, Racer X.

I'm not anti-money, I just happen to be "pro-human".

How many news stories have been about this exact scenario already? Even for people that don't like big government, it may be the better option than allowing companies to continue charging unconscionable sums of money for trivial data transfers.

If Verizon and AT&T would do the common sense thing, there wouldn't be news stories or talk of the need for regulation.

i remember back in the day when my bag phone used to charge by the min.
when AOL charged for usage

so how much $ should verizon or ? cap their fee's at? or how muhc info? cuz i know people complaining that their i-net speeds are capped and they'de have to pay more for higher speeds cuz they D/L so much crap.

like i tried to say w/ the title :lol: it's always the co's fault......people aren't to blame.

Yes, that's exactly the same. It's just as easy to determine how many minutes you've been on a phone as it is to determine "how many kilobytes did that just transfer"? Brilliant analogy.

Off the top of my head, I'd say somewhere below $21,000 for a monthly service.

Once again, brilliant analogy. Tell me again how this related to being charged the price of a Chevrolet for downloading data over the course 30 days?

And you said it well.

You realize companies have ethical responsibilities too, right? Someone downloading data for a month isn't a green light to drive them into bankruptcy.

cuz some idiot will want to D/L the whole inet and when it does start to cost the carrier $, then i guess they should chalk it up as a business loss. point is people are D/L T1 levels of info at home and wanting to pay "home" rates vs business rates. but of course it's the businesses fault for capping limits.

so here we have case of uncapped usage and it burns somebody. but again it's the businesses fault.

and if dude didn't clarify how much usage his plan entailed it's carriers responsiblity to remind him......... jut like avatard wants.

Why are you back on the "home" internet service thing again? Find me a $21,000 service charge for home service and that will be relevant.

It didn't cost Verizon anywhere near $21,000 to provide that service. Passing on that large of a bill and not notifying the consumer his bill was on an astronomical trend was irresponsible of the carrier.

So you agree? I frankly can't tell what you're saying here.

:orly:

Didn't you call the fire department because your kid locked you out of the house?

whats at home pricing have to do w/ phone carrier service, a more comparable thing would be texting rates and people who send a billion text on pay as you text plans. and get suprised when they get their bill........D'OH

does it really matter what it cost verizon? furniture has a 300% markup.........ar at least thats what i'm told.

are you the voice of reason, if not who is? and why is it verizons respon. vs the owner of the phone to police his own phone?

um yeah, and they came and got me in my house. and still waiting for my bill? i guess thats what you're getting at.........or have i paid my bill w/ my taxes?

that's right, you did.........but so did everyone else.

you and everyone else in your hood is supporting the FD thru taxes.......Isn't it in your vested interest to use the FD as little as possible, or do you want your taxes to go up because of increased demand on the FD?

and if they get swamped and need more manpower my taxes will go up accordingly......or some other type service will get diminshed manpower......

You're the one that keeps bringing up home service and people wanting faster speeds, wanting "business" style service at home, etc.. Nobody else. Just you.

And now you question the validity of your own analogies. :lol

Again, counting text messages and keeping track on invisible kilobytes - not comparable. And it's not what this thread is about, this is about data charges.

The price of furniture is clearly marked. The number pieces of furniture you're purchasing is also clear. If unlimited sofas were available for $60, how many would you want for $21,000?

You should consider law school. You have a natural gift for making relevant arguments and clear, concise points.

its more like you goto a store and it says "cokes" for sale, you tell jr to get a few, and he gets a truck full, then you get pissed when you get the bill.

And how do they get swamped? By people using them (like you).....

You're like the guy who dumps his antifreeze down the sewer, saying "one guy doing it aint gonna hurt anything".........meanwhile telling his friends about it, so they think it's ok too.

so then i should pay for a service and not use it, make sense to me.

Post of the year award!

:lol

Yes, that's exactly what it's like.

Except unlimited cokes are only $60, yet my bill is $21,000. Hmm, does that seem logical? Ethical? Reasonable? Maybe predatory?

What do you want to do next? Twinkies? That'll really make a new point.

Ethical barometer fail.

That argument only works if you had a choice to pay. You don't. So why not try and keep those tax payments as low as possible?

or if i pay for it might as well use it like my unemployment i'll be drawing come end of this month.

sounds like something the client outta look into vs signing his life away.

is it any more ethical to walk on something "you" signed up for and get bit by?

I think most people would consider an unemployment check to be more of a "necessity" than having the FD come unlock your door when you could have hired a locksmith. So now the FD has to spend probably 3-4 thousand dollars to come to your rescue, when you could have paid a locksmith only a hundred or so.

lol 3-4k for 2 guys and a 12 mi drive R/T........whateva. luckily they got paid the 3-4k in the first yr of our home ownership and taxes.

i consider it priceless cuz my daughter and i/and Z learned a valuable lesson........lol

Oh look, we've come full circle:


And of course when you sign up for a utility service, incorrect usage for 1 month should translate to "signing your life away." It's just good business.

Ed, do you have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer? Care to give me a cliffs notes version of the EUL off the top of your head?

it is what it is, $21k worth of i-net phone usage, is it our place to say NO it's not? well i guess we outta start our phone co's so we can help stupid people who don't read contracts or naive w/ their children.

now if it we're me, hell yeah the phone's co's CRAZY!
:boobs:

EUL ?

End user license agreement. So I'm guessing you didn't read it. Thanks for proving my point.

And absolutely, let's start a phone company. Ever since I started reading your posts ~4 years ago, I've been thinking "there's a bright guy I'd like to invest money in."

ok, and if i get some horrendous bill it'd still be my fault, now would i fight it tooth and nail, YES. thats doesn't mean i'm right.

just like a ticket.......i'll gladly except but i'll fight tooth and nail to have it dismissed or lessened.

i don't blame "the man" for me getting a ticket or think laws are outta line, esp. when i know i wrong.

So there it is.. Ill oaraphrase, "its ok when I do it.."

damm skippy.

Story now front page Yahoo News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091216/...VlbnJ1bnN1cGRh

...And loooook, Verizon wiped his bill!

I'm guessing they're hoping no one from the FCC reads the news today.

Good PR on their part. I doubt they could have actually made him pay it. So, they took their lumps and look good while doing it.

Actually, I've had an occasion where one of my youngins getting hold of the remote and mashing buttons resulting in all sorts of crap being ordered. Called up Verizon and explained what happened. They cancelled the charges.

It's because he was right.

Told ya'.

"He has also suspended his son's account." :lol

I wonder if he contacted Verizon before contacting the media and what their stance on his bill was.

I believe the stance was probably, "Fuck you, pay me."

If a PHONE company can't CALL you when your bill is going off the charts, something's wrong.

JC

So why have $60 phone bills if it doesn't cost Verizon anything? Let's regulate the price down to $30 or fuck it FREE. No one is allowed to make money but "us".

Besides do you have any idea how much money it costs to up keep a communications network? Between my work truck, me, and my partner my company charges the phone company $200 an hour and we are just little piss ants.

But you guys are saints. I'm sure if your company suddenly decided to pay you an extra $100,000 that was WITHIN your contract that you'd say "It's okay guys, that's too much for me so take it back".

Congratulations, your post was so fucking dumb it actually gave me a headache. Where's the Excedrin?

Read it again, he didn't say it didn't cost them anything. He said it didn't cost them $21,000. Sixty is reasonable monthly service charge, $21,000 is NOT. If you can't understand that, you're always going to have a job with your name on your shirt.

As a matter of fact, I do. In 1996 I was a cellular infrastructure engineer and I've been in the mobile industry since. Cell towers, cell phones, you name it. And no, it didn't cause $21,000 in equipment degradation to move 1.4GB of data.

Compared to the billions it cost to build the network, your $200/hr. isn't even a blip on the radar. But the cost to build a network is supported by government incentives and millions of subscribers paying an affordable monthly rate. Not by gouging some poor bastard with a 13 year that... holy shit, uses the internet a lot!

Did you and Ed go to the same school?

Fixed.

JC

Really? $60 a month is reasonable? What about $65 or $100 a month? Or what about $20 a month? Who determines what is reasonable? You?

How much it costs the company to send the data is not necesarrily the point (it still costs to upkeep the infrastructure). The guy signed a contract and decided he didn't want the data plan. Sorry that the guy is a dumbass but he signed it and agreed that if he downloaded apps, music, games, etc that he'd pay for the data transfer.

None of this would be a problem if the father bought a data plan (even if unlimited is 5GBs then the kid would have been fine) for a little extra. Or better yet if the father took responsibility of his kid.

I don't believe the father's story of "I called verizon to have them turn it off" but if he did and they charged him then I'd side with the father. Until then, I want the government to hold him up to the contract he signed unless Verizon decides out of the goodness of their hearts or a coin flip to waive the fees.

By the way I suggest children's tylenol for you.

DING DING DING..............round 2


http://www.icollector.com/images/271..._0086_1_lg.jpg

Right on man, $60, $100, $21,000....its all the same.

Well what if they decide to raise their rates to $21,000 a month? Who's job is it to determine what their plan is worth?

Ideally? Angered citizens with torches and pitchforks by the hundreds marching to Verizon corporate headquarters.

Why not march over to T-mobile or AT&T?

Angered citizens with torches and pitchforks will be stopped by police. Angered citizens going to T-mobile will hurt those "Fat cat CEOs" more than threats of violence.

They tried that. It didn't work. That's why this thread is here..

Seriously dude, seriously? (pssst, contracts and other bullshit)

The torch and pitchfork approach should be applied to any out of control business, corporation, governmental entity or group of people and so forth.

They didn't raise their rates on the father. They charged him for the services that he purchased.

No. If they`d have charged him for what he purchased, the bill would be 60. But, they saw the error of their ways and "ate" the additional 20,940 dollars that it didn't cost them to begin with.

The company saw the mistake/issue and fixed it. If they can get over it, I'm sure you can.

Devils advocate here:

The issue isn't always "does it actually cost anything to deliver X gigabytes"

The issue might be more like, "If a precedent is set, people will start taking advantage of us, claiming they "accidentally" downloaded a lot of data"

If you owned a movie theatre, would you let someone in for free, just because it "doesn't cost you anything" to fill one more seat?

No, you're wrong. If the kid didn't download 1.something GBs his bill would have been $60. If he got the unlimited plan for $70 a month (making a number up) and his son downloaded 1.something GBs then his bill would be $70.

They didn't fix a mistake either. They fixed an issue that was exploding on them.

If anything you can say it was the private market at work. People like you guys were getting outraged at the bill. The company saw that they could lose potential customers if they stuck to the bill so they waved the fee seeing they could make up the $21,000 that they are owed by not loosing 350 $60 a month customers (or gaining 100 $60 a month customers for their generosity and make some more money).

Curious, was there any government involvement? No, was the problem resolved in favor of the father? Yes. If it went to the courts the government would honor the contract and regardless of BS fine print or not he would be forced to pay the $21k.

Again the private sector prevails.

In those cases it would be most prudent to "accidentally" promote their plan to one that includes data, giving them the option to pay the one-time (multi-thousands of dollars) bill instead as a one time fee, if they prefer.

I'll take the $200 hit over $21000 any day.

"They F**K you with the cell phone!"

For your sake, I hope you're just intentionally being dumb because you need the attention. Either way, I'm embarrassed for you.
Customers decide what's reasonable. Are you going to sign up for a utility that costs $21,000/mohth? I doubt many will.

These numbers, including the $60, were not pulled out of thin air. If 10 pages of posts haven't cleared it up for you, I doubt my single post will, but I'll give it a shot:

Verizon charges $60 per month for unlimited data.
Mr. Estarija's bill was $21,917 for one month's use of data.

Here's to hoping your IQ skyrockets into the double-digits and you can suddenly comprehend the difference.:cheers:


You've signed contracts you didn't read fully and understand, too. Hell, I'm beginning to doubt you can understand the instructions on a bottle of shampoo, much less a SW license or car rental agreement. There's no reason a man should assume a data bill could reach over 20 grand if he doesn't take the $60 unlimited plan, it defies logic.

I'll send Mr. Estarija some Ambien, he's gonna need it.

You want the government to step in and enforce a bill that Verizon has already waived? Or are you still on page 2 and haven't got to the part where Verizon reversed the charges?

Go ahead and read through the rest of the posts, I'll check back in with you Tuesday.

If I have to read one more post from you, nothing short of Vicodin will begin to help.