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December 16, 2007 by Asia | 0 Comments

From MSNBC.com

CALGARY, Alberta – Piotr Staniaszek normally pays $147 a month for his cell phone. So he was more than a little surprised to learn his November bill had ballooned to $59,000.

And then it got worse.

When he called to inquire about the high figure, he was told that his bill this month was $83,000.

Staniaszek, 22, said he used his cell phone to download music and movies onto a computer, an unwise move in a country where mobile carriers charge expensive fees for data.

Staniaszek said his mobile carrier, Bell Mobility, should have alerted him and not have allowed his bill to rise to a “ridiculously huge” amount in six weeks.

“They should have let me know when my phone bill started going up,” he said. “I thought it was the same thing when I plugged it into the computer and used it as a modem — I guess not.”

Staniaszek, an oil field worker, said he signed up with Bell Mobility to pay $10 a month to use a mobile browser on his cell phone.

But Bell Canada official Jeffrey Meerman said Staniaszek’s cell phone plan is not intended for downloading files to a computer, and that is in his contract.

Meerman says the plan is meant for Internet surfing, e-mail access and file downloads to the phone itself.

He said Staniaszek had been using the phone as a modem to download high-resolution movies onto a computer.

Bell and Staniaszek have since negotiated the bill to $3,195…
Story continued at MSNBC.com

In Humor | 0 Comments