T-Mobile forgets the "un" in "unlimited," accidentally sticks texting record attempt with $26K bill
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Apr 22nd 2009 at 2:32PM
Most buddies like to while away the hours by, say, fishing down by the docks; maybe catch the game and put down a few brewskis. You know, standard-issue stuff. On the opposite end of the spectrum are Nick Andes and Doug Klinger -- 29 and 30, respectively -- who decided that they'd try to shatter the one-month texting record by exchanging a whopping 217,000 messages, most of which were apparently meaningless garbage like "LOL" and "hello" (why they weren't able to maintain a deep, emotionally healthy conversation for the duration of 216,000 consecutive 160-character communiques is beyond us). Both men figured they were golden since they'd added unlimited texting plans to their accounts, so imagine Andes' surprise when he received a bill in a box -- complete with $27.55 in postage -- on his doorstep. Inside he found a grand total charge of $26 grand -- and while we totally think that a Guinness record is worth $26 grand, you can imagine that a couple Joe Sixpacks from Philly had never intended to blow five figures on a bunch of "LOLs" exchanged during lunch breaks. All's well that ends well, though, and T-Mobile credited the account and is investigating how it happened; let's just hope that record gets certified now, eh?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Liam @ Apr 22nd 2009 2:38PM
what are the chances that both of these guys are virgins?
tande @ Apr 22nd 2009 2:53PM
Since the one that got the bill mentioned how upset his wife was I'd say not very good.
Liam @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:07PM
Tande, I'm willing to bet that these guys both still live with their parents. What wife would put up with this?
ZachV @ Apr 22nd 2009 2:39PM
Receiving such a bill in paper form...ridiculous! If customers want detailed billing it should be offered only electronically.
jrk @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:06PM
t-mobile actively promotes their paperless billing, and only offers summary billing or paperless for free. the paper detailed bill costs $1.99 per month. thanks.
nc @ May 8th 2009 5:00AM
I'm glad I didn't try this. I signed up for "unlimited texting" on my previous carrier and in very small print, that unlimited actually meant 2,500.
Chad Moran @ Apr 22nd 2009 2:50PM
Good to see T-Mobile cares about the environment. Putting a bill in a box I'm sure isn't automated and you're telling me someone didn't look at it and think they could've saved some trees by not sending a BOX worth of paper... really?
WhatADouche @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:07PM
T-Mobile screwing people at the end of the month and not getting the billing right seems to be getting more and more common. Shame, really. I'm with T-Mobile and have been considering moving to AT&T because of this.
clintone @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:31PM
this happened to me about a year ago. i set up unlimited messaging and then a month later i received a bill for over $300 for just text messages. after fighting with them for a week someone looked into the notes on the account and saw that i was supposed to have unlimited texts but the person who was supposed to activate it forgot. they offered no concession except for a "sorry" for the hours and hours i spent talking to them.
this was not the only problem i had with them. they didnt port my number correctly so i couldnt receive texts for my first couple of months i was on t-mobile. no one in the company could figure out why. it was only after i told them numerous times i was certain it was due to a improper number porting that things got fixed.
then the company changed some of their rates, which is a breach of contract because i would not accept the alterations and they still refused to let me out of contract. how i got out was that i had to file a complaint directly with the fcc about their illegal practice. a month after that t-mobile would still not admit they were in the wrong, but did let me out of the contract
J Who @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:26PM
Honestly, I hope that there's some loophole and they get stuck with the bill. Two men by the ages of 29 and 30! Really??? I would expect this from teens, or even a couple of guys in their early 20's, but these are SUPPOSED to be some grown @ss men!!!
clintone @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:35PM
yeah, why make companies stick to their contractual and legal obligations?
Roger Alford @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:47PM
In the 5.5 years I was with T-Mobile (on the SAME 3-Day Weekend base plan) I never had a billing issue. I had add-ons that werent even offered anymore and were phased out (still never a billing issue). I used over 10,000 messages in the first month I had Unlimited SMS (upoc was big then), and still never had a billing issue.
When I canceled service, went back after 6 months to get FlexPay Monthly, THATS when the billing issues started. I was billed for Unlimited Text package, I had got rid of, for 9 months after I stopped service. I also still get a bill MONTHLY for -$5.62, yes NEGATIVE, as in a credit. I should call T-Mobile and have them send me a check for that.
While Im not going to bad mouth T-Mobile, I do think the billing issues are within FlexPay plans, and I wouldnt doubt that one of these two, if not both are on FlexPay - which is why there is issues here.
ChromeCW @ Apr 22nd 2009 3:46PM
As far as most billing systems are concerned, there is no such thing as "unlimited" - you usually still need to give a numerical value to the number of "bucket mins" in a plan or feature - My guess is that the unlimited bucket here was 99,999 messages - since the customer exceded that number they were probably billed overage at whatever the overage rate is setup to be for that plan or feature. Tmobile probably could have avoided the billing from ever happening though if they had simply set the overage charge rate to $0.00.
TMB @ Apr 22nd 2009 4:34PM
You're exactly right. In the billing systems, unlimited is listed as 99,999 whatever (minutes, messages, megabytes, etc.) Doing the math, 217,000 - 99,999 = 117,000 messages. 117,000 messages x $0.20 = $23,400. Assume the local, state, and federal taxes are about 12%, and you end up with approximately $26000.
Honestly, it's a limitation in the billing system that has NEVER come up the entire time I've leased my soul to the magenta army; you'd have to do over 3300 texts per day. But maybe that just means I've not worked with that many people in the entire 3 years I've been there...
A @ May 8th 2009 12:46PM
Im not sure about that, ive seen a couple of customers with over 100,000 text before and they were not charged overage. My favorite moment ever was when a customer of mine denied unl text after i told her she needed it with a 14yr old boy and a 12yr old girl. i told her over and over...... Next month she came in with a bill a little over 10K (it was at US Cellular where they offer free incoming text too!)
Riley Freeman @ Apr 22nd 2009 4:00PM
this is not a tmobile thing. i see all american carriers advertising unlimited packages of internet or data card or whatever only to have a fine print with a cap saying 5gb.
well if its unlimited u cant have a cap. its amazing that with all the dumbass lawsuits that go on in the u.s. carriers havent been banned from using the word unlimited when theres a cap
Danny @ Apr 22nd 2009 4:11PM
Nobody is screwing anyone.
This is just a technical glitch that bypassed the standard billing mechanism.
T-Mobile even credited their accounts.
I for one think these guys are morons and need to get a job, a life, a GF or all three not in any particular order. Unfortunately, obsessive compulsive personalities coupled with similar disorders are hard to stop.
badchad @ Apr 22nd 2009 4:41PM
They should get stuck with the bill. Just for being worthless enough to attempt such a feat.
Jacky @ Apr 22nd 2009 5:20PM
These are the type of idiots that ruin "unlimited," for everyone. ;-)
Anthony @ Apr 22nd 2009 10:48PM
I agree. Being dumb for dumb's sake is, well...
Gib @ Apr 22nd 2009 10:03PM
Dam I want a job that allows me to maintain employment AND text 4k plus a day. Assuming they have jobs.
Dylan @ Apr 24th 2009 12:45AM
Chris, nice article. I can't begin to imagine what it was like for that guy Nick Andes to get a $26K phone bill, especially if he actually had a comprehensive plan with unlimited texting. Talk about shock! I get particularly riled when people are stuck with huge, often erroneous cell bills; I hear about this all the time because I work for the consumer advocacy website http://www.fixmycellbill.com , powered by a company called Validas, where we slash the average cell bill by 22 percent. Consumers like Nick Andes may not have been actively misled by their wireless providers, but his example seems to illustrate that cell plans are clearly not impervious to problematic charging and subsequently many “unlimited” plans remain vulnerable to significant usage. I could go on and on about how shifty these cell companies can be in their attempts to make you overpay. I'll mention that at Validas, we stop them and have currently put over $5,000,000 back in the pockets of consumers. You can check out Validas’s fixmycellbill.com in the national news media, seen recently on Good Morning America at http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6887412&page=1.
Good luck to everyone trying to cut your wireless expenses in this rough economy.
Dylan
cant.beliveit @ Apr 24th 2009 5:15PM
T-Mobile customer "service" has become abusive. I had massive incoming international calls from numbers that are untraceable appear on my bill and T-Mobile insists that the charges are "indisputable" because their records show my serial number, and I have to pay them without explanation. It's Kafka-esque.
I have used them for a long time but I would NOT recommend anyone looking for a carrier to go with T-Mobile at this point.