On Monday we reported that the FCC had reached an agreement with the wireless phone industry. Starting next year, the agreement would require wireless carriers to inform customers if they are going over their pre-set monthly contract limits for voice, texting and data use. If there was ever an example of why such a system is needed, look no further than the recent case of Florida resident Celina Aarons.
Miam's WSVN web site reports that Aarons has a cell phone account from T-Mobile and that normally her monthly bill is around $175. But recently she experienced a huge and unwelcome shock when she got a bill for T-Mobile for $201,005.44. The kicker is that the bill amount wasn't a computer error. What happened? Aarons recently put one of her brother, Shamirs, on her cell phone plan. Shamir happens to be mute deaf and has to communicate over the phone via text messaging.
Shamir decided to go to Canada for a long two week vacation but forgot to turn off his data roaming feature on his cell phone. As a result, the 2,000 text messages he sent, along with the downloading of videos while he was in Canada, caused Aarons' bill to legally skyrocket.
When contacted, T-Mobile claimed that it had in fact texted Shamir about the higher texting rates but apparently those texts were missed. However, it did have mercy on Aarons, It decided to lower her bill to just $2,500 and gave her six months in order to pay it back.
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