AT&T Charges $750 For One Minute of International Data Roaming

reifman (786887) writes 'Last week, AT&T shut down my data service after I turned roaming on in Canada for one minute to check Google maps. I wasn't able to connect successfully but they reported my phone burned through 50 MB and that I owed more than $750. Google maps generally require 1.3 MB per cell. They adamantly refused to reactivate my U.S. data service unless I 'agreed' to purchase an international data roaming package to cover the usage. They eventually reversed the charges but it seems that the company's billing system had bundled my U.S. data usage prior to the border crossing with the one minute of international data roaming.'

This

[koan]

Is what monopolies get you, but aside from that why would *anyone* use their US phone for such a thing?
Buy a sim or get a cheap Canadian burner phone or.... how about just asking directions.

Data roaming is a scam just like text messages.

Re:50MB = 750$

[Derekloffin]

Canada had the same thing going on with some absolutely absurd roaming charges. They recently changed the laws to limit how much you can be billed (can't comment to how effective that change was as I've had no cause to find out).

t-mobile

[FunkyELF]

... just sayin
Every one of their new plans they have unlimited data including international.

You can roam internationally without leaving USA

[MyNicknameSucks]

In parts of Niagara Falls, Canada, it's also possible to bounce between US and Canadian carriers.

I just turn off data roaming for my phone and pick up a SIM for wherever I'm staying.

I used to live there

[Solandri]

And heard lots of stories of people running into this issue. The #1 cause is user error - assuming the phone knows if it's in the U.S. or Canada. Your phone does not know which side of the border it's on; or if it does know via GPS, that info is not tied in with the phone's radio. Consequently, if you're on the U.S. side of the border but the Canadian tower has a stronger signal and your phone is set to allow roaming, your phone may roam on the Canadian tower incurring international roaming charges. Lots of people who live on the U.S. side of the border and never crossed into Canada reported this problem. In all likelihood, the 50 MB of international roaming data probably wasn't during the 1 min he saw the phone connected to a Canadian tower - it was in spurts as he drove near the border and the phone hopped between U.S. and Canadian towers.

You have to manually turn off roaming (most phones still have that setting - the carriers have only eliminated the force-roam setting). That guarantees the phone will not hop onto a Canadian tower. Only after you've crossed into Canada and the phone (still not roaming) loses signal do you turn roaming back on. That guarantees you'll be using the U.S. towers for as long as possible.

Generally anybody who regularly crosses into Canada or plans to spend some time there gets a Canadian roaming option. On my carrier 8 years ago (Sprint) it was $5 extra a month, and knocked calls down to $0.25/min and no charge for Canadian roaming data as long as I stayed within my normal roaming limit (less than 20% or so of my total monthly data usage). That actually turned out to be cheaper than getting a second Canadian cell phone (as hard as it is to believe, their carriers are worse than the U.S. carriers). People who live on the U.S. side and never crossed into Canada during the roaming periods used to be able to get the charges removed with a simple call to customer service complaining they were charged for Canadian roaming when they never went to Canada. But a few months before I moved away, I got a letter saying they would be discontinuing this courtesy and I would just have to disable roaming on my phone if I did not want to be charged international roaming, or buy the Canada roaming option (which I already had).

Re:50MB = 750$

[KiloByte]

T-Mobile "not evil"??? They gouged me $150 for 1.5MB data roaming from Bosnia (I'm from Poland), and would take more had I used a contract rather than a prepaid plan. And unlike the guy in TFA, I did not get them to reverse the charges.

Re:This

[gstoddart]

LOL ... my TomTom hasn't incurred roaming charges even once.

So far it's been compatible with every rental car I've had.

And no extra fees besides my map updates.

Re:50MB = 750$

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

FYI - carriers don't make money on regular subscriptions.

Citation needed.

Re:50MB = 750$

[91degrees]

In the EU, it's already tightly regulated; EU roaming is 45c per MB and will be going down to 20c next month.