We’ve come across a couple of pretty amazing stories that contain valuable lessons for telecom consumers.
First up is the tale of Wayne Burdick, an Illinois man who last November found himself on a cruise ship docked in Miami with no way to watch his hometown Chicago Bears play the lowly Detroit Lions.
But Burdick is a pretty savvy guy when it comes to technology. He’s got a Slingbox unit attached to his cable box at his home outside Chicago, which is in turn linked to the wireless modem in his laptop. Basically, his system lets him watch the same television he gets on cable at home on his laptop using an AT&T wireless modem.
It’s a pretty slick setup, but there was one problem Burdick didn’t know about. Instead of connecting to the local wireless network in Miami, the modem linked up with the wireless system on the cruise ship.
Suffice it to say that he surprised when he got his next wireless bill. Instead of the usual monthly charges of about $220 it was nearly $28,000. It seems that the two-and-a-half hours Burdick watched of the Bears game was billed at an ultra expensive international rate for data of two cents per kilobit. That might not sound like a lot, but it really adds up quickly when you are doing something like watching television on your computer. In Burdick’s case, it added up to a whopping $27,788.93.
Burdick appealed to AT&T, telling various representatives the ship was sitting at the dock the whole time he was watching the game, not out on the high seas. They gave a little, telling him they could knock the bill down to about $6,000.
Frustrated, Burdick got in touch with Stephanie Zimmerman, who writes a consumer column call “The Fixer.” The company told her the problem was that his wireless modem – his AT&T wireless modem – made a mistake by not connecting him up to the company’s wireless network in Miami.
If it had, Burdick would have been able to watch the game for free. Because of the mistake AT&T agreed to credit his account $27,776. In the end he owed AT&T about $290.
The lesson here is that you run a risk of big roaming charges anytime you are outside your home wireless market, particularly if you are traveling internationally. It’s always prudent to check with your wireless provider before you travel and make sure you don’t end up charged $28,000 to watch a lousy football game.
For the record, the Bears won the game 27-23. The Lions went on to become the only team to go 0-16 in modern NFL history. We suspect that the only people with worst memories of the forgettable Bears-Lions clash last November were Lions fans – and they aren’t going to get any sort of refund.
FCC tees up fines on phone firms for consumer privacy violations
This week the Federal Communications Commission proposed fines ranging up to $20,000 on hundreds of telecommunications companies for not complying with agency rules aimed at protecting consumer privacy.
The agency says more than 600 telecom companies failed to file an annual compliance certificate on the rules, which were adopted in 2007. In addition, a number of other telecom firms submitted of non-compliant certifications and also face fines, according to the FCC.
The rules cover what the agency calls Customer Privacy Network Information, or CPNI. They were adopted by the agency in April 2007 in response to increasing consumer complaints about data brokers selling private customer data obtained through a practice called “pretexting.” It typically involves a data broker or some other entity obtaining a customer’s personal information from a telecom company by pretending to be that person.
“I have long stressed the importance of protecting the sensitive information that telecommunications carriers collect about their customers,” said FCC Acting Chairman Michael Copps in announcing the proposed fines. “The broad nature of this enforcement action hopefully will ensure substantial compliance with our CPNI rules going forward as the Commission continues to make consumer privacy protection a top priority.”
The FCC says the companies will have an opportunity to demonstrate to the commission that the proposed fines are inapplicable or that there are reasons to reduce the penalty due to an inability to pay.
We hope the FCC will take a firm line on enforcing the fines and not let the companies off the hook, so to speak.
Consumers rightly expect their personal information will not be handed out by telecom companies to anyone who calls up claiming to be them.
