Image via Complex Original
Intro
We’re sure you’ve heard or read the horror stories about random people being hit with ridiculous phone statements because they chose not to read their contract clauses or simply neglected their package details. Between international roaming, limited wireless capabilities, data caps, and unlimited messaging—additional charges are practically unavoidable—no mater the data plan. And while most mobile subscribers have become more conscious of their cellular activity, others have abused their data privileges, or became victims of massive oversights. Learn from these mobile catastrophes by reading up on the 10 Most Outrageous Cell Phone Bills Of All-Time.
Bob St. Germain
10. $18,000
Subscriber: Bob St. Germain
Back in 2006, Bob. St. Germain renewed his family's Verizon wireless service, but little did he know the carrier's two-year promotional period for free downloads had already expired. So when son, Bryan, went on a downloading spree with his phone, Verizon shot daddy-o a $12,233 bill that also included an additional $5,000 download tariff. While Big Red offered to cut the charges in half, Germain still refused to pay up, and after a four-year battle with the mobile company his bill was dismissed. Bawse!
Wendy Nguyen
9. $26,000
Subscriber: Wendy Nguyen
Losing your phone sucks. It's even worse when some asshole finds it and runs up your bill. That’s exactly what happened to Wendy Nguyen, who discovered her cell was missing shortly after leaving on an overseas vacation—witnessing her $50 monthly Cingular bill shoot up to $26,000. Oh, it gets worse. Apparently, the company demanded payment and suggested she file for bankruptcy if the bill couldn't be paid: "Should your cell phone be lost or stolen you are responsible for any costs incurred for unauthorized calls made prior to reporting the cell phone missing." Unsurprisingly, Cingular harassed Nguyen for several months, until she took her story to KPIX-TV in San Francisco, forcing the AT&T subsidiary to eat the charges.
Nick Andes and Doug Klinger
8. $26,300
Subscribers: Nick Andes and Doug Klinger
These two Philly natives set out to break the world record for most texts sent in a month by shooting 217,000 messages to each other: beating out the original record of 182,000 sent by India’s Deepak Sharma. How did they manage that? By delivering up to 7,000 texts on certain days and using simple terms such as “Hello” and “LOL”. Though both text mongers had unlimited T-Mobile data plans, Andes was issued a $26,000 phone bill that cost nearly $28 to ship to his address. Dude lucked out because the mobile network credited his account and charged him the standard unlimited monthly rate.
Wayne Burdick
7. $27,000
Subscriber: Wayne Burdick
Charge: $27,000
What’s a Chicago Bears fan to do when he’s sailing onboard a Caribbean cruise liner and is dying to catch his favorite NFL team in action? Answer: Pull out a laptop, wireless card, and Slingbox device to watch the game over the Internet. Clever, but AT&T charged him for international roaming at a rate of $0.02 per kilobyte. Burdick claimed he was at a Miami port during his viewing session, but Ma Bell wasn’t buying it. In the end, he pleaded his case with 14 different AT&T representatives and got the bill reduced to $6,000, then had the charges officially dropped after the Chicago Sun-Times shared his story.
Alanna Fero
6. $37,000
Subscriber: Alanna Fero
Someone should of warned Canadian Alanna Fero about Telus' ridiculous international roaming and data rates ($14 to $15 per megabyte) during her two-week vacation in Egypt. The wireless carrier claims it did just that by cutting off her service after noticing a huge spike in mobile activity, but Fero insisted it be turned back on. She ran through 1,600 MBs (1.6 GB) worth of data on her iPhone making phone calls, sending emails, and—what else—tweeting. Surprisingly, Telus was stuck with the damages, claiming it would "absorb those charges" and "take a significant loss."
Ian Simpson
5. $54,000
Subscriber: Ian Simpson
This factory worker said he laughed out loud when receiving his farcical Vodafone mobile bill. That was short lived though, as he started contemplating bankruptcy once noticing his £41.50-a-month packaged didn’t include unlimited Internet service, which he milked to download television shows and albums onto his laptop. A Vodafone representative went on to say, “The rules are clearly stated. Mobile web pages use fewer megabytes. That package is not designed for large-scale downloading or computer-speed web use.” Simpson’s response: "If I'd known it would cost so much, I wouldn't have done it." Riiight.
Alberto
4. $62,000
Subscriber: Alberto
During his vacation in Mexico, the anonymous figure known as Alberto downloaded the Disney film, Wall-E, for his pestering nephew and came home to a $62,000 invoice courtesy of his mobile carrier. Mortified by his data roaming blunder, he called “money expert” Clark Howard to share his horror story on the CNN program, HLN. Alberto contested the charge and had it reduced, but only to $17,000—the same amount his carrier claims cost them in bandwidth. Note to self: avoid his mobile carrier at all costs.
Piotr Staniaszek
3. $83,700
Subscriber: Piotr Staniaszek
Staniaszek was under the impression his son could use his new phone as a modem to go online with his computer under Bell Mobility’s unlimited browser plan. That wasn’t the case. The Canadian's seed racked up $60,000 in charges downloading movies and high-res files, a cost that soon climbed to $85,000 due to lack of payment. In defense, Staniaszek stood up for his son’s actions: "He's working in the field sometimes, alone, in the shack. What to do? Drink vodka or go on the Internet?" Good point. Bell dropped the bill to $3,400: a fee Staniaszek felt was “still high.”
Celina Aarons
2. $200,000
Subscriber: Celina Aarons
South Florida resident Celina Aarons has two deaf-mute brothers, both of whom are under her T-Mobile plan and use their phones to communicate with their sister through text messaging. When her disabled siblings traveled to Canada for two weeks, she neglected to change her plan to an international one. The result: over 2,000 texts sent and a ton of roaming expenses. So you could sympathize with her when she expressed her grief: "I was shaking, crying, I couldn't even talk that much on the phone. I was like, my life is over.” However, T-Mobile stepped in and reduced the charge to $2,500, giving Aarons a six-month payment deadline. How generous.
Yahaya Wahab
1. $218 Trillon
Subscriber: Yahaya Wahab
Nearly one year after disconnecting his deceased father’s mobile line, Wahab received an 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill in the mail courtesy of Telekom Malaysia. If that's not outrageous enough, the telecommunications provider claimed the charges were for recent calls made and ordered the Malaysian man to pay up within 10 days or face legal action. Wahab told the New Straight Times, "If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it…In fact, I can't wait to face it." It’s still unclear whether the phone was being illegally used or if the bill was a complete mistake. We're more interested in see what happened to Wahab.