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Man receives $28,067.37 data overage charge from AT&T

A Slingbox and a wireless data plan are like oil and water because many carriers put a cap on data limits for your wireless data access. When overages like this occur it's generally an uneducated user blowing his cap out of the water.

An AT&T subscriber uses his data card with a slingbox to stream cable broadcasts to his laptop. While sitting in the port of Miami about to set sail for a Caribbean cruise he wanted to watch the Chicago Bears play before he left for a relaxing vacation. After watching about two hours of the game the boat was leaving port and he didn't want to be charged roaming fee's so he turned off his laptop.

After returning home he received a bill from AT&T for $28,067.31. The user was perplexed and called AT&T to report the mishap but found out the charge was legitimate. Somehow, while sitting in the port of Miami, he was picking up a rogue signal on his AT&T data card that was charging him international rates while still in the US.

The best part of the entire story was AT&T's initial defense was that "they sent a text message about the high use and roaming; however, they sent the message to the wireless card phone number, which cannot be called or texted to."

Many calls to AT&T got his bill down to $6,000, but it wasn't until he went to the media, the Chicago Sun, that AT&T finally admitted their mistake and took off the roaming charges.

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