UK man racks up monster bill, Vodafone says don't use your phone as a modem
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Dec 26th 2007 at 1:26PM
Wait, what? We'd suspected that carriers always secretly hated subscribers tethering their phones to their computers, but it's another matter entirely for one of the world's largest to just come right out and say it. A British man discovered that the data speeds on his Vodafone mobile were faster and more reliable than those offered by his ISP, so he cabled it up to his PC and proceeded to blow through "20 or 30" TV show downloads and a handful of albums. Next thing he knows, Voda's cutting him off and slapping him with a £27,322 (about $54,000) bill -- a bill he has no capability to pay, and a bill he'd never expected on account of a £7.50 (about $15) data plan that he thought was unlimited, but was actually designed for mobile use with 125MB of data allowance per month. Though it says that the charges are totally legit, Vodafone is considering going easy on the guy, but here's the kicker: the carrier's advice is to "never use a mobile as a modem." What's next, should we "never use a mobile as a mobile" for fear that we might go over our monthly minute allowance?[Via textually.org]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Khris @ Dec 26th 2007 1:54PM
This isn't the first time I've seen some schmuck in the news because he tethered his computer to his phone and then got a huge bill.
Are people really that stupid to realize that "Unlimited" really ISN'T Unlimited anymore? People need to read the fine print because claiming ignorance is not a viable excuse anymore.
andy @ Dec 26th 2007 5:18PM
Unlimited should mean UNLIMITED. Its false advertising, Stop being such a douche.
Iain @ Dec 26th 2007 5:34PM
Actually, Andy, does the tariff even say that it's 'unlimited'?
All the story says is that the customer THOUGHT it was unlimited.
True, there are plenty of 'unlimited' data plans out there that are anything but *cough* iPhone on O2 *cough* but we don't even know that that's even the case this time. But, as I have said, all we know is that the guy in question made an assumption that he had unlimited web access, not that Vodafone even advertised the it as such.
Anyway, not that I'm saying it's not a crappy thing to do, even if the tariff is supposedly 'unlimited', the onus is still on him for having signed a contract and not read the details.
It's a shitty world where that's the case but it's not like Vodafone would be alone in advertising things in such a manner, so it's hard to sympathise
Khris @ Dec 27th 2007 8:30PM
@ Andy
Yes, Unlimited SHOULD mean Unlimited......but 9 times out of 10, IT DOESN'T!
Next time you feel like beeking off and calling someone a douche because they have more of a clue than you do, STFU....DOUCHE!
robinsmad @ Dec 26th 2007 2:19PM
This happens all the time. There was a Canadian who got an $85,000 bill for the same thing two weeks ago. It ended up reduced to a few grand out of goodwill.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/mobe_bill/
Andrew Fong @ Dec 26th 2007 2:59PM
If there's a set cap like 125 MB, then the carrier should say 125 MB. Unlimited means unlimited and anything else is false advertising. The line between phone and regular usage is disappearing anyway. It's perfectly possible to download more than 125MB worth of stuff to a 3G smartphone.
Khris @ Dec 26th 2007 3:24PM
It most likely did make such a clarification in the fine print that EVERY offer is subject to. This guy obviously never bothered to read it.
Unlimited no longer means Unlimited.....especially when a Cell carrier is using the term to describe a product.
Iain @ Dec 26th 2007 5:35PM
Does it actually say 'unlimited' anywhere?
All we know is that the guy ASSUMED that was the case.
Jamar @ Dec 27th 2007 4:58AM
Well, it shouldn't be buried in the fine print. In China the carrier tells you up front how much data you're getting when you sign up. I pay some $6-7/month for 50MB- that's all I use. Their unlimited plan is truly unlimited, but priced accordingly so I don't buy it.
bernardino @ Dec 26th 2007 3:08PM
If you have Verizon, just pay an extra $15 a month on top of your $40 unlimited data plan to tether to your laptop. This is actually $5 cheaper than having a laptop card, which could cost $60 a month plus the price of the laptop card.
Same thing with sprint, except it's $15 for the data plan and $40 for the tethering.
AT&T is a bit confusing. You have your $40 unlimited pda plan, which includes 1500 txt messages. If you want to tether to your laptop and don't need the 1500 txt messages, just get a dataconnect plan instead for $60. If you want the txt messages and tethering, it'll be $70. Some AT&T customer reps do not realize you can use the dataconnect plan, normally for laptop cards, with a pda and instead will tell you that you have to sign up for the $70 plan to tether.
All in all, I think its silly to charge extra for tethering. If all you are doing with your dataplan is browsing then why pay more to view it on a larger screen? Mind you, bandwidth intensive activities like p2p downloading or video streaming are prohibited. They should either get rid of the tethering price and lower the data plan price to match sprint's or allow us to do bandwidth intensive activities by paying the tethering fees.
deadlock32 @ Dec 26th 2007 3:26PM
I have an n95-3 (HSDPA [3.5g]) using at&t's unlimited data plan with speeds up to 800K(bits)PS and I use it to listen to online radio w/ driving, or watch tv from my sling box, or occasionally tether it to my computers. So far i've had the plan for 4 months and have used about 16G(bytes) of data with no problems = ]
(plan is 35 dollars a month on top of my wireless plan)
Ayle @ Dec 26th 2007 3:46PM
Yeah I've never understood the difference between the pdaconnect and the regular unlimited data plan.
PEZ @ Dec 26th 2007 4:57PM
It should just stop working (for download) at 125MB. There should be some sort of message to continue, and agree to new charges. Unlimited? LIES.
Bryan @ Dec 26th 2007 6:25PM
Exactly. When I had a land line, I had an unlimited nationwide calling package. Was I to assume that meant I could only make 150 phone calls a month?
Essentially this is what some of you guys are saying.
Bryan @ Dec 26th 2007 4:27PM
Khris,
You're saying that when a company states that something is unlimited it's okay for them to not really owe up to what they say they offer?
I'm trying to understand what you mean.
john @ Dec 26th 2007 4:34PM
125MB is pretty hard to get to on a mobile phone. He's an idiot for tethering (where can you get unlimited internet for 7.50 pounds? it's ridiculous to expect so much for so little) and a shmuch for going on the media. I hope he needs to take out a mortgage to pay this off. what a tard.
deadlock32 @ Dec 26th 2007 7:38PM
Did i not just say I used 16GB with my mobile phone in 4 months ^_^ and I'm in the USA where our cellphones and such are supposed to suck compared to UK and Japan. (which the do... except for our n95 ;P thought the n95 8gb screen is nice)
Then again S. Korea Pwns us all.
Jamar @ Dec 27th 2007 5:00AM
I can't get unlimited for 7.50pounds but I can certainly get a heck of a lot more than 125MB (800MB, to be exact).
karatedog @ Dec 27th 2007 2:58PM
This user is simply stupid, and the carrier is irresponsible not building security into its service. It is no use to let users (even accidentally) create such a huge bill, when the carrier exactly knows what amount of money their customers are able and willing to pay (that's called marketing). Here in Hungary if you use a service and use it about 150-200% more than in the previous month, you get an interim bill. If you reach ~300% usage, the service will be disabled, until you pay the bill.
It is like blocking premium-rate telephone numbers by default, and let the user enable it.
mingkee @ Dec 26th 2007 9:54PM
T-Mobile US is behind on cellular technology, but when it comes to "unlimited", I can say it's truly "unlimited", at least by my past 4-5 years of tethering experience
though it's kinda slow, T-mobile Internet is a real "gem" for $19.99 a month on top of voice
Mike Bentley @ Dec 26th 2007 11:13PM
I believe a recent court case concluded that a well-known service provider was wrong to state that service coverage was "unlimited" when the rate was valid only for the first X megabytes during the monthly billing period. I don't understand why the cell service provider's definition of "unlimited" is allowed to be different.
The cell service provider may offer a cut rate deal to avoid going to court and winding up being slapped with the same term abuse by the judge.
Tired_ @ Dec 26th 2007 11:10PM
I hope my cell provider read the small print under my signature on my contract with them...it says they agree to provide me with a million dollars on New Years Day.
I'd be willing to let them go with only giving me $10,000 if they didn't read it first, though.
M @ Jan 7th 2008 12:15AM
Lauged Out Loud, thanks for that one!
rosewood @ Dec 27th 2007 2:29AM
I don't get how so many companies are getting away with calling something unlimited and then putting limits on it. A local rural GSM carrier (Westlink) offers unlimited calling, yet when my cousin racked up a few thousand minutes in back to back months, they dumped him. The only clause in the contact was if he was "roaming" onto another network, and he wasn't. It took a week for them to get back with him to find out why exactly he was terminated and it was for over using the system.
We see people getting dropped or over billed for going over on "unlimited internet;" we see fatties getting kicked out of all you can eat buffets; etc. etc.
So the question is, is it the user's responsibility to be reasonable when told they don't have to be or is it the company's responsibility to market responsibly?
Mike Time @ Dec 27th 2007 9:24AM
http://www.whatmobile.net/forumvb/showthread.php?t=25261
7.50 for 125 megs a month (to all consumers) "The internet is now (cough) mobile (cough cough)"
30 for UNLIMITED - they say at least 3 gigs a month (to everyone through the DATACARD/3G USB for laptops)
In my opinion this is certainly a massive price difference:
1MB = 1048576 characters
1GB = 1073741824 characters
1048576 x 125 megs= 131072000 for 7.50 = 17476266 (characters per )
3221225472 x 3 gigs= 3221225472 for 30 = 107374182 (characters per )
Without boring you 107374182 / 17476266 = 6.144
Mike Time @ Dec 27th 2007 9:40AM
Using data on my normal contract SIM is 6 times more expensive than their "data only" SIM.
lmjabreu @ Dec 27th 2007 2:38PM
Vodafone is pure evul.
Rsaeire @ Dec 27th 2007 5:21PM
A similar situation occured with a customer in Ireland on the Vodafone network. Please see the below link for the outcome of that case.
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055008874&page=5
Imahottguy @ Dec 28th 2007 5:37AM
This guys a total douche! Signing up for 'unlimited' internet for ones' mobile phone allows just that, not for one to then connect the mobile to a computer and use the device as a modem purely. He deserves every a la carte data charge that was applied. I pay $20 for my unlimited data on my iPhone, and have had no desire to tether it. It's EDGE anyhow, but even if it were 3G, unless I needed the internet for an emergency (yeah, right), I wouldn't violate the TOS.
Also, if you are going to violate TOS and do this, at least be smart enough to spoof the user agent, or do whatever is necessary to fool your provider.
Sounds like a n00b to me! :D
Pamela @ Dec 29th 2007 10:06AM
if you are going to tether never download files or streaming, that's common sense. only use it for checking email and surfing the web. but even then i wouldn't use it as my only modem, just a backup for traveling, when your internet service is down, or if there's a blackout and you want to go online with your laptop.