

MythBuster's Adam Savage complains about $11K data roamining bill on Twitter - eo
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/26/mythbuster-adam-savage-leads-twitter-revolt-against-att/

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mingdingo
It's worth checking out his full twitter page,
<https://twitter.com/donttrythis>

In addition to being pissed at AT&T, this is what he says about the RIAA/MPAA:

"I believe the RIAA to be a bunch of venal idiots. I don't think much of the
MPAA either for that matter."

He seems to be a genuinely cool guy, with a well calibrated BS detector.

~~~
daeken
"Today the tweeps became twoops. Just got off the phone with AT&T and they've
taken care of everything to my great satisfaction.#twitterrules"

Seems like it's all settled, for him at least. Wonder about everyone else,
though.

~~~
kd5bjo
What's impressive is that this whole episode took only 5 hours from start to
finish. Sometimes, it seems like it takes that long just to get talking to a
real person.

~~~
paulgb
It has to help that he's semi-famous. I remember the exact same thing
happening to a Verizon customer a few years back, and it certainly took longer
than 5 hours for him to get his money back.

[http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-
know-...](http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-
from-cents.html) (the audio link has gone dead)

These companies need to learn math.

------
psadauskas
There was a big stink a few years about about the same 0.015 "cents" with
Verizon. The guy recorded his phone call, and wrote a series of blog posts
about it. [http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-
know-...](http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-
from-cents.html)

------
stse
We have had this problem within Europe for a long time, but the European Union
have acctually started taking care of the problem. Now there is a maximum fee
on sms and voice calls when roaming within the union. About $0.50 to call
another country and $0.20 to recive a call. From march 2010 the operator must
provide a limiting function on data roaming, which cuts you off when you reach
a certain amount.

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blasdel
I just realized something odd about this oft-repeated billing scenario: the
very few people who could realistically pay $11k overage bills also always
have the means to fight it.

Does _anyone_ ever pay these bills?

~~~
quizbiz
Everyone has the means to fight this.

Let's see, I was in 7th grade or so (6 years ago?) and Comcast came to install
their service as we followed their wish to ditch the dish. The man that came
did some damage to the house before he finished. Dad refused to pay, he
refused to finish the job. We had no TV, a large hole in a ceiling, and
more...

Dad was pissed but apparently I was even more angry after I was told someone
would come by only in a week or so. So what did I do?

I went on Google and found the email of the head of the south east region of
Comcast. I sent him a long email expressing my unhappiness and I told him I
was going to post my story on my blog. I didn't think it would lead to
anything, I did this without my family's knowledge.

Next morning I awoke as my dad shook me asking me what I did. We had 3-5
Comcast vans parked outside our house in addition to an insurance repair firm
fixing the hole. I had a blog for the purpose of learning what a blog was,
messing around with HTML/CSS, no viewers. I didn't say that of course. The
threat was enough.

With twitter/facebook, it's even easier. Managers know that company reputation
is in the grips of one unhappy customer.

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thomasswift
God this is a perfect post for techcrunch. complaining and Twitter.

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Tichy
In other news, now we know what 50K followers on Twitter are worth (or more
accurately, we have a lower bound for it's worth).

