Goddammit subby.
I just woke up, slightly hungover and I don't know where my phone is.

Traffic at the border sucks on weekends.

The Consumerist, where the customer is too stupid to realize they're the ones that farked up.

X is usually some angry house wife whose pediatrician looked at her kid funny
or a hipster who thinks eating free bread and water at a restaurant is a god given right.

Aww crap. My phone has been roaming for the past few days (which it never does), and I live in Michigan...

How many customers have just paid for improper roaming charges without looking into it?

Well people are quite stupid and don't read their itemized bill, for fear of having to wait on hold for an hour to sort the shiat out.

/besides, you have to be within a mile of the border to keep switching to roaming.
//or someone cloned their phone.... Hacked their account ..... and then went to work at their cell company in the morning all hungover....

Apparently within 150 miles of the border is "nowhere near Canada".

grinding_journalist: Apparently within 150 miles of the border is "nowhere near Canada".

In cell phone terms... 150 miles might as well be on the other side of the world.

bow: Aww crap. My phone has been roaming for the past few days (which it never does), and I live in Michigan...

Ha! Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I used to be able to see which carrier I was on with my old phone (Cingular, Nokia) and half of Grosse Ile was an American carrier, half was Rogers. This was a few years ago now but if I had to be THAT close to Canada (in the middle of the Detroit river, for the non-Michiganders) to finally end up on one of their cell phone towers...

Mind you, I don't doubt that it's possible to be in the US (more than half of one island) and end up with Canadian roaming, but I'll wager dollars to donuts that Canadian roaming charges happen when you should still be / are using an American tower for your signal.

So happy I finally said f--k you to AT&T.

AT &T, no shiat?

As a former call center rep for AT&T, this isn't uncommon. It has to do with buyouts of regional companies and acquiring their towers. It is pretty technical, but basically, these small companies used both AT&T and Rogers Cellulars "grid" to provide service to most of upstate New York. When AT&T acquired these companies and changed the billing systems over, there was a glitch where calls that are routed through a few nodes on a certain route, get billed as if they came from Canada, although they didn't. The only way to fix this was to enter a code into the customers features that tells the system, "Hey, unless you confirm the tower is more than 20 miles inside Canada, don't bill for roaming". This has worked great, but is still a problem. The only real way to fix it is a new billing system, which means EVERYONE in the US with AT&T has to go through this whole ordeal of changing billing systems because about 400,000 customers have roaming problems. Obviously, not worth it to them yet.

In short, if you are with a cell company, know for a fact you were never near the Canada or Mexican border, but have those charges then call, complain, and get a supervisor on the phone (managers are the only ones that can add this code), get them to see the situation and add the code. AT&T has their issues, but at least the call center I was in had some intelligent people and what we usually did was clear the charges and then call you back when your next bill closes to see if it was a one time deal or if it is repeating, if it repeats we get the code put in.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: bow: Aww crap. My phone has been roaming for the past few days (which it never does), and I live in Michigan...

Ha! Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I used to be able to see which carrier I was on with my old phone (Cingular, Nokia) and half of Grosse Ile was an American carrier, half was Rogers. This was a few years ago now but if I had to be THAT close to Canada (in the middle of the Detroit river, for the non-Michiganders) to finally end up on one of their cell phone towers...

Mind you, I don't doubt that it's possible to be in the US (more than half of one island) and end up with Canadian roaming, but I'll wager dollars to donuts that Canadian roaming charges happen when you should still be / are using an American tower for your signal.

So happy I finally said f--k you to AT&T.

So immediately after my post I went to an online forum to see if I could fix my phone from home. They recommended a PRL (preferred roaming list) update. It worked and took less than 5 minutes. Hopefully there are no extra charges on my bill, though. I should be fine. I have Sprint, and I've never had any extra roaming charges before.

I notice she makes no mention of how old the stepson actually is. My guess is that this is probably an older kid who snuck off w/ his buddies and maybe didn't cross into Canada but probably got far enough to pick up Canadian towers.

I used to take escalations for Cingular (before the AT&T merger), and I can ensure you that having listened to enough parents who swore up and down that their precious snowflake could never have done something like this, I assure them, yes they did. And you need to pay your farking bill already.

When AT&T gobbles up T-Mobile, the calls will be routed to Germany -- either Canadian Germany or US Germany.

mikesup: As a former call center rep for AT&T, this isn't uncommon. It has to do with buyouts of regional companies and acquiring their towers. It is pretty technical, but basically, these small companies used both AT&T and Rogers Cellulars "grid" to provide service to most of upstate New York. When AT&T acquired these companies and changed the billing systems over, there was a glitch where calls that are routed through a few nodes on a certain route, get billed as if they came from Canada, although they didn't. The only way to fix this was to enter a code into the customers features that tells the system, "Hey, unless you confirm the tower is more than 20 miles inside Canada, don't bill for roaming". This has worked great, but is still a problem. The only real way to fix it is a new billing system, which means EVERYONE in the US with AT&T has to go through this whole ordeal of changing billing systems because about 400,000 customers have roaming problems. Obviously, not worth it to them yet.

In short, if you are with a cell company, know for a fact you were never near the Canada or Mexican border, but have those charges then call, complain, and get a supervisor on the phone (managers are the only ones that can add this code), get them to see the situation and add the code. AT&T has their issues, but at least the call center I was in had some intelligent people and what we usually did was clear the charges and then call you back when your next bill closes to see if it was a one time deal or if it is repeating, if it repeats we get the code put in.

Very good job! I'm impressed

When a number from the 600 area code calls, unless you know someone who's traveling in America's Attic with a satellite phone, don't pick up or call back.

I currently work for a phone provider and this isn't uncommon at all. I get a lot of calls about this when people are near the boarder in Texas. What happens is when you don't update your phone to locate the towers or when you're close to the boarder.

To avoid this... just turn off roaming in your phone... easy

Second, I doubt their son was 150 miles away

Wait the minute you mean that the company simply did the reversal of charges and the end? OM MAGOODNESS THE OUTRAGE IS WITH ME. For those who do not get this that was the sarcastic statement. I am not sure if the Consumerist.cry is a website for whiners but it sure seems this way. Next the fat person will complain about needing to buy the three seats on the plane.

RockChalkH1N1: to the boarder.

Well yes she has been in the house of me for quite some time but I am not sure why she would cause the difference in cellular phone transmissions.

Get Lost: How many customers have just paid for improper roaming charges without looking into it?

Probably quite a few, because a lot of people are too stupid/lazy to look at their bill. Do you expect your wireless provider to proactively review your bill for you and alert you to any bogus charges? Because if they did, you know they'd charge you for this delightfully helpful service. I'd rather just read my bill.

...my gut reaction is that this is a load of hogwash and the company is trying to scam more money out of customers that don't pay attention to this bill.

As much as I'm not a fan of AT&T, sorry, you're wrong. Wireless companies don't gain anything by scamming their customers. It's a fiercely competitive business, and they know people can easily switch to another carrier at any time, especially since porting your number is so easy, and they've been forced to relax their early termination fee policies. So if you don't like AT&T, then by all means switch. Otherwise shaddup.

This happened to me about a decade ago. I asked prior to planning a trip if I would be charged for roaming in Springfield, Massachusetts with my plan, and the person at the AT&T store showed me a map saying that all of western mass was included and I would be fine. I get my bill for $550 because I got dinged for roaming in NYC, Hartford CT, and Boston... I never left Springfield for my entire trip. I was too young and stupid to fight it, so it just went to collections. All of my plans are nationwide now, and AT&T can suck a fat sack of crap.

ElLoco: In cell phone terms... 150 miles might as well be on the other side of the world.

My record was when I once checked my voicemail about 60 miles from the nearest tower (from a viewpoint on the Queen Charlotte islands, across the ocean to Prince Rupert).

mikesup:

EIP, ping me. I would like to share a story with you.

meow said the dog: Wait the minute you mean that the company simply did the reversal of charges and the end? OM MAGOODNESS THE OUTRAGE IS WITH ME. For those who do not get this that was the sarcastic statement. I am not sure if the Consumerist.cry is a website for whiners but it sure seems this way. Next the fat person will complain about needing to buy the three seats on the plane.

RockChalkH1N1: to the boarder.

Well yes she has been in the house of me for quite some time but I am not sure why she would cause the difference in cellular phone transmissions.

Lady, would you please move? You're BLOCKING THE SUN my non-roaming reception!

How far away is he from the border? I've worked as a CSR with Virgin Mobile, we regularly told Canadian users near the U.S. border (within 200km) to set their handset to "home only" so it wouldn't switch to a U.S. tower accidentally.

This happens all the time. However, I believe in cock-up before conspiracy. Therefore, I conclude the wife took the kids phone to chat with her Canadian BF. The man is being cheated on.

csb time:

I worked as a CSR for AT&T, one times an irate lady called about the bill. I explained the charges were from texting on one of the phones. She asked which phone, it was her husbands. She also recognised the number that was being texted. Over the phone I heard a woman go from being mad at what she thoughts was her kids, to realising her marriage was over.

/ok ok not really much of a cs.

StreetlightInTheGhetto: bow: Aww crap. My phone has been roaming for the past few days (which it never does), and I live in Michigan...

Ha! Yeah, this is gonna be fun. I used to be able to see which carrier I was on with my old phone (Cingular, Nokia) and half of Grosse Ile was an American carrier, half was Rogers. This was a few years ago now but if I had to be THAT close to Canada (in the middle of the Detroit river, for the non-Michiganders) to finally end up on one of their cell phone towers...

Mind you, I don't doubt that it's possible to be in the US (more than half of one island) and end up with Canadian roaming, but I'll wager dollars to donuts that Canadian roaming charges happen when you should still be / are using an American tower for your signal.

So happy I finally said f--k you to AT&T.


Before legislation was passed that requires all Windsor radio broadcasters to use unidirectional antennas that are specifically pointed away from Detroit, we were able to pick up Rogers from Ypsilanti before Sprint PCS's license came online.

matthew_tray: I notice she makes no mention of how old the stepson actually is. My guess is that this is probably an older kid who snuck off w/ his buddies and maybe didn't cross into Canada but probably got far enough to pick up Canadian towers.

I used to take escalations for Cingular (before the AT&T merger), and I can ensure you that having listened to enough parents who swore up and down that their precious snowflake could never have done something like this, I assure them, yes they did. And you need to pay your farking bill already.

She refers to him as "young" in the article.

$150 for cell phone service? I'll just leave this here.

zez: $150 for cell phone service? I'll just leave this here.

[www.virginmobileusa.com image 640x213]

Well the $150 bill does involve 3 cell phones.

This reminds me to check my girlfriends cell bill. We went to the States last month, and both put our phones on Airplane Mode for the whole trip. Once we crossed back into Canada, her phone connected to AT&T, mine was no problem. I actually had my on about 5-10 minutes before she did, so I was surprised that hers picked up AT&T.

"It's easier to steal a dollar from ten million people than ten million dollars from one person, but nevertheless, ten million dollars have been stolen."

Shenanigans!: As much as I'm not a fan of AT&T, sorry, you're wrong. Wireless companies don't gain anything by scamming their customers.

Yes.Yes, they do, by the hundreds of millions of dollars:
Verizon wireless lost a class action suit four months ago due to ghost 1.99 data charges. Another has been launched against AT&T for a tenfold multiple in iPhone data transmission compared to what their towers actually, in fact, receive; Sprint has been hemorrhaging customers for years, with one of the major complaints being "false bills"; and my brother still has to call Verizon every single +ucking month because they will send him a bill for some completely arbitrary quantity of money, say $300.99, or -26.20, or 103.27999999ERROR, that the statement generator is parsing through out of semi-random bit sequences from God-knows-where bowels of some database somewhere, because Verizon sure as hell doesn't, and no one there knows how the billing system works, because they yanked it from some bought-out smaller company, and do not possess the wherewithal to fix it.

All the cell phone companies do this, because they all require the signing of a mandatory arbitration agreement before they provide service, so they cannot be sued in any court of law, forever, and for any reason whatsoever. Their word is literally law. If they want to send you a bill tomorrow for a billion dollars, they can do it.

If I found a cell phone company that didn't scam its customers, I'd switch in a New York Minute.

st1d: When a number from the 600 area code calls, unless you know someone who's traveling in America's Attic with a satellite phone, don't pick up or call back.

Why? Is it some kind of scam?

Reading the comments in the article I doubt its skipping like shortwave radios do.
I use to DX alot with my shortwave but the signal from a low wattage cell phone would still need to get to the ionospere, 50 - 60 + km for it to even begin to "skip" then travel normally the 50+ km back down to earth.
You're looking at well over a 100km distance of normal line of site transmission for this signal to transmit clearly with no dropout.
How many bars do you have?

Fark AT&T. They let someone in Florida (I live in DC) buy 3 cell phones and charge them to my cell phone number.

Yes, cell phone number. Didn't need a name or any other kind of identifiable information. Just 10 random numbers.