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Calgary man racks up $8k bill while visiting France
These kind of stories will never get old. Another mobile user who has racked up a bill while ravelling overseas. This time it’s Calgary resident Jason Boutang who went to France between June 1-7th to see some of the local attractions. He pulled out his Virgin iPhone and started to use a translator app to help him out. In addition for some reason he also decided to stream a Calgary rock radio station and send a number of text messages.
This is all good and very handy but the downside is that Boutang didn’t get himself a roaming data plan before he left… so he get’s home to find his bill totaling a whopping $7,763.70. Ouch! Even though he was there for 7 days Virgin saw his bill increase and shut it down after 3 days.
Boutang says “I opened my e-bill and fell over. I had to get three other people to look at the screen to make sure I read it right. It’s criminal… They (Virgin) said, ‘pay up, every penny … you went outside your neighbourhood, you pay the price”.
Virgin’s spokeswoman Erica Faltous said “We do our best to have warnings in place but we are looking into it to see if there’s some way we can help out”. Over the 3-day period Faltous said Boutang used about 130 megabytes.
So not Boutang has ditched his iPhone and says “it’s a nice ornament”. He’s switched to a Rogers Prepaid device and filed a complaint with the CRTC about why Virgin representatives said nothing to him about roaming packages.
Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.
Via: Canoe
Update from August 20th, 2010: For some reason we received an e-mail from Jason Boutang. It stated the following:
“Hello Kate O’Brian this is Jason Boutang the guy you obivously like to run down because your Article is no where near the truth. You remind me of a ex girlfriend that had the same name as yours always like to pick out the negatives and not the positives so im going to fill you in on whats what. My contract with rogers is a month to month one ( It’s not pay as you go). For the data I used in France would of costed me $420 on the rogers network and when I asked them they where straight and up front with me No!! Virgin run arounds I like dealing with adults rather than kids So thats what it costed me for the Data and to kiss Virgin Goodbye I don’t think I will ever go back. Maybye If the kids are more competent or Virgin and big brother Bell do something diferent then the other 2.”
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75 comments for “Calgary man racks up $8k bill while visiting France”
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dumb***
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This is not news – we’ve been seeing this story for years now, and everyone should now be perfectly clear on how to avoid these monstrous charges. Yes, it’s a rip off, but we all know how much of a rip off Canadian telcos are when roaming.
I mean, he streamed Internet radio, for heaven’s sake!
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I’m so sick and tired of people like this guy. Yes I know Virgin may not be justified for charging such outrageous rates, but there’s a reason why I diligently turn on airplane mode every time before I head into the states. Simply shoveling the blame onto virgin and playing dumb about not “knowing” is one sad excuse.
Your cellphone carrier is not your nanny, be an adult and inquire!
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Dumb Ass.
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foolish. obviously he didn’t look into the charges before he left to travel..
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Haha @ Robellus thats exactly what I was going to post.
What the hell does he expect….
I had a customer the other day who racked up about 800… I have no idea why but he thought he could just call unlimited to Dubai. It’s as though people don’t think at all. At least the guy I was helping just paid the bill on the spot then switched to prepaid.
If this guy thinks the CRTC is going to help him they probably will. They will tell him to read his contract and maybe read it to him if he needs help. He’s either going to be down about 8000 or have a huge ding on his credit score. I believe this falls under the category of “stupid tax”
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Must be a moron for not checking roaming options before leaving
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I don’t really feel bad for him. If you have an Iphone then you need to know how to use it and what the usage entails. People never want to be responsible for their actions.
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It’s guys like thie who help keep the costs down for everyone else. If he needs someone to blame he need only look in the mirror.
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Seriously though, who blindly starts using voice/data on another continent (with budget brand service) and doesn’t look into a roaming package. This guy had it coming.
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“I’m too stupid to realize what pay-as-you-go means”.
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not only is he an i***t for not thinking about roaming charges before leaving canada, but he’s also pretty dumb from going to one crappy cell company to another. maybe public mobile should set up shop in calgary as well so that once he leaves the area, HIS PHONE WON’T WORK AT ALL!!!
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Wow, $7,763.70 for 130MB. If this isn’t robbery and price gouging, I don’t know what is.
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Unfortunately these things happen all the time. I feel sorry for the guy that this happened to, but at the end of the day these charges were clear and available for him. It would be very NICE of Virgin to reduce these charges for him, but I don’t believe he is OWED anything.
This looks like a legitimate business agreement to me.
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Things to do when going on vacation:
- Warn credit card company that you’ll be charging abroad.
- Warn bank that you’ll be using bank card abroad.
- Get travel insurance.
- Get any shots you need.
- Talk to phone company about phone use abroad.
Isn’t all of this common sense?
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This i***t deserves the entire bill.
I would ask what kind of moron travels to France and insists on listening to a Canadian radio station… but that has already been answered.
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I personally don’t blame Virgin at all. If you want over and above service then you pay an over and above price. Who just jumps on a plane from Calgary to France and doesn’t look up phone tips for international travel?
Lots of people are doing this lately (ironically usually cheap people). They don’t want to find out they can’t do something so they aren’t proactive, and then they complain when it turns out they could but it costs extra.
He should be thanking Virgin for cutting him off at 3 days!
There are booths everywhere that he could have walked up to and asked the sales person if international travel would affect his charges. And I am sure he could have called a phone line and asked. taking 20 minutes to address this like a smart human being would have made it so he had NEVER seen this bill.
I hope the CRTC tells him to smarten up and drops it.
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Common sense isn’t common anymore. Sadly enough… *facepalm*
Yea it sucks a*s that 130MB costs you quite the pretty penny but c’mon… I’m assuming that by now every Canadian should know that if we’re already being bent over domestically, the result of going abroad should be very obvious. (Hint: Involves a pineapple, and you.
)
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regardless if you find the data rate extreme, what do you people expect when are streaming music and sending sms. i am sorry but you cannot blame the carriers because it is up to the consumer to educate themselves on voice, sms and data rate when traveling internationally. i am sick and tired of hearing people complain, everyone has a brain USE IT, be proactive instead of reactive
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I am surprised a guy this stupid can even dress himself. Streaming Calgary radio in Europe has to be cheap, right?
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such a stupid guy, he was like, i didnt know if i will get charge by using internet in europe. stupid, i wish Virgin mobile get all his money from you.
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Let’s be honest…
He had to switch the data roaming option to ON. Therefore he was aware that he was roaming!
Now I am not sure what Virgin does, but with Fido I got a text message saying that I would get charge for data roaming when I was in Florida. ( I had to make a call and I knew of the consequences.)
So, I don’t feel bad for him. He knew he was data roaming. Maybe he didn’t know the cost of his actions, but it is his responsibility to find out!
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who says he didn’t use the services there, maybe dude likes listening to country music, probably used it and thought he can call back and claim he didn’t know.
dude looks like a hillbilly, fer sure he likes country music – GIT R DONE!!!!!!!
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This guy is a f*****g i***t, how ignorant can you be
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While I agree that he should have been aware of his actions and their consequences, the bill seems “a little high”.
I don’t think any company should be able to charge a phone bill of more than $300. If you hit $300, services that cost you extra shut down. It should be a law because no company is going to play the “nice guy” card when they can get bills this big.
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Yeah, it’s ok to tirade and deride this guy for being ignorant of the charges, but at the heart of the matter is the absolutely sickening way the Canadian cell phone companies treat and gouge their clients. I once had a Bell cell phone and accidentally pushed the internet button.. It was over 3 dollars for that. I then enquired as to how much the cost per megabyte was….a whopping $51.32 cents. If this isn’t usury I do not know what is. It is time we as customers demanded fair and equitable treatment.
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LOL! And that’s why the iPhone has the option to disable Data Roaming. Why wouldn’t you investigate before going abroad with your cell phone? I did it for even a little trip out of the province (from BC to Quebec) to ensure when I tethered my iPhone to my computer I wasn’t going to see anything out side of my included data plan.
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This kind of cr*p will continue to happen until these cell companies are forced to have cutoff-caps on roaming charges. Of course they love this and won’t do it unless they’re forced — it’s easy profit!
Unless a client agrees to allow, say, $1000 in charges, there should be a $50 cap afterwhich your data access gets cut off.
It’s already ridiculous how much data roaming can cost. Pulling up the home page of a major news site will likely cause you $10 in a min. Stupid.
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What an i***t!! He streamed a Calgary rock station for 3 days!! I wouldn’t even do that IN CANADA.
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Just proves that being an i***t can be expensive.
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This tells me that this guy has no idea how to use an iphone. $200 on average a month?! holy crap! I pay $80 for 2 phones buddy! And there’s WIFI on your phone i***t and you can go into Airport mode to shut the phone off so you wouldn’t be charged! Plus you can get a pre paid phone in Europe for cheap! I guess he doesn’t travel much.
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I do not feel bad for him at all! What a moron! He should look into it himself! He’s not old, he should be up to date on this kind of thing, if not he should have called to ask what was involved with roaming. This is not a phenomenon specific to Canada, any country in the world has roaming fees!
God, what a moron!
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Arrggg ppl like that piss me off… this guys deserves every penny of that bill and a smack in the face… what a tard!!! I dont know about Virgin but I know that Rogers and Fido send an SMS with full detailed rates when you are roaming… and may still offer 50% off or right size your plan if its the first time it happens … but still Jason Boutang YOU ARE A MORON DIDNT YOU REALISE WHEN YOU TURNED DATA ROAMING TO ON IT STATES YOU WILL BE CHARGED SUBSTANTIAL ROAMING CHARGES ??? MORON
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This a*s gave Virgin a bad rap,He blamed Virgin for his own falt put this story on front page of Calgary Sun on national news. if I owned Virgin I would sue his a*s.Virgin even eight most of his bill,Droped it to $2000 from $8000 in outherwords Virgin costomers payed for his stupidity.
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While I think he should’ve looked into it, not all people are even aware of roaming. There’s a lot of education that needs to be done with consumers, which I think is the CRTC and phones companies responsibility.
Course we know they won’t because it’s more profitable if people remain stupid.
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Not a very smart individual. He should simply pay for his stupidity but I am sure Virgin will do something to cut his bill woes. Guy isn’t that smart he could have easily turned off Roaming and he could unlock his iPhone with a bunch of mouse clicks and would have saved about $7000.
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Guys, $51/MB. Even if the person was an i***t, there’s some seriously terrible price gouging going on. Virgin in NO WAY gets a free pass on this.
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@ DON
Do you honestly think he only used 130mb’s ?? They are probably not talking all the voice calls and SMS this tard has used
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What
an
i***t.
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On any iPhone, to enable international data he would’ve had to take an explicit action – there’s a switch in settings. When you do that it warns you that there will be additional charges for roaming data.
So the guy does that and just assumes that the charges will be some arbitrary amount that he comes up with (according to him, $1500) without bothering to check and then proceeds to listen to stream radio for hours on end. Is this guy sane, or what???
Virgin Mobile, please don’t discount his bill. If he doesn’t learn that there are consequences in life for his actions, he, and others around him may suffer when he does something more dangerous and then claim he didn’t expect there would be consequences!
“I had to get three other people to look at the screen to make sure I read it right”
This statement right here is enough to tell you this guy should not be out there on our streets. He didn’t trust his own reading comprehension, nor that of 2 other people (people he presumably trusted if he asked them to confirm).
I hope I never have a friend like this. Some jerk who calls people over to read the numbers off his screen that he himself could easily read. After which he didn’t believe them and asked two more people to read the same numbers… Just where would you tell this ‘friend’ to go?
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Ok if they give him a break then I want a 8000 dollar credit on my bill! My 2 yr old knows roaming is a no no.
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SO I’m in agreement with everyone here, This guy is an Idiot!
@Dogg $300 is pretty low, on trips to the US I can hit that with out blinking, cost of doing business, though I do think you should be asked to put a monthly limit when you register at what point do you want your account frozen, that would be a great use of User accounts online.
@goalee39, $200/month isn’t too bad if you do a lot of talking and Stream Radio, it is a bit pricey but the iPhone is the biggest Data pig on the market.
They didn’t go into his exact BILL but incoming and outgoing txt messages into the US are 50c each, I bet they are $1each way to france, so in 3 days with a short chat couple 100 of that could be SMS, and if any where MMS double that.
Then he said a few phone calls, well again phone calls in the US are about 1.50per min, I bet you’re talking 5per min in France since Virgin probably doesn’t have roaming agreements in place to make there devices cheaper for them, they are a discount company here.
130MB of data at $30/MB is probably reasonable, you got to figure, they need to cover for the people who forfeit on the bill so if they are charged $10/MB after banking fees and currency conversion they need to make money so jack it up, and if it goes to collections they don’t miss out when they only get 70% after fees to the collections agency
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It is one of the reasons for me also to stay with prepaid service.
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He should pay the entire bill. It’s his fault for not inquiring about roaming services. And his ignorance will cost him $8,000. Nice.
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Let this article be a warning to anyone who goes abroad with a smartphone without asking questions to their provider first.. It would of been cheaper for him to purchase an iPhone 3GS unlocked from Apple Canada, get a sim card in France and pay for data and voice there.
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He deserves it! What does he expect? You get charged roaming when you cross the border into the states, did he actually think they wouldn’t charge him roaming in FRANCE?! Imbecile!
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What a mor@n!! Whining about the bill after streaming a radio station while in France… hey doofus, did you not realize you can put music on your iPhone? And $150 in text/call charges? Doiy.
Don’t try saying that nobody warned you about roaming charges, it’s in the contract you sign up for and info that’s readily available (gee, check the website and see how much it will cost to roam? There’s a concept!).
Did you think roaming overseas was going to be free?
At least Virgin gets rid of this guy soon, but unfortunately he’ll probably whine when he’s on another carrier.
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I understand that his bill is being reduced.
But why does stupidity get rewarded in our culture?
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The fact that he switched to Rogers pre-paid is proof he doesn’t do his research, lmao.
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Ha-ha-ha; was the point of this story to garner sympathy, empathy, or just a chance to laugh at a dumb a*s? Ha-ha-ha, dumb a*s!
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I think this moron should pay the bill after all he used his phone. Streaming radio station from home while overseas, come on how stupid can you be and not expect much of a bill?
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Not sure about Virgin but at least Rogers sends you a text message when you are outside of Canada reminding you of charges when using your phone….
And yes his bill got cut but its still like $2000ish and quite heavy, but he deserves it and so does everyone else who likes traveling to the USA and using their phone just like at home and complains about how high it was. Or simply being close to the boarder and picking up AT&T and not realizing it when you place a call.
…silly people
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“He pulled out his Virgin iPhone and started to use a translator app to help him out. In addition for some reason he also decided to stream a Calgary rock radio station and send a number of text messages.”
>> As mentioned previously, the iPhone comes with data roaming turned -OFF- by default. He would have had to manually enable it (and acknowledge the message warning of “substantial roaming charges”
“He’s … filed a complaint with the CRTC about why Virgin representatives said nothing to him about roaming packages.”
Note the story doesn’t mention him calling Virgin before deciding to head over to France and use data.
If he’s trying to argue that Virgin should have telepathically knew he was going to travel and called and informed of roaming features, he’s delusional.
If he’s trying to argue that Virgin should have noticed the roaming usage and notify him, they did. Domestic usage can take up to 2 days to show up in billing systems, so I think 3 days to catch his usage in France is reasonable.
In conclusion, this guy is an i***t.
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Price gouging yes. Tremendously stupid person unaware of roaming, hard to believe. At least with the $6000 he is saving he can get himself a proper haircut.
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What irks me is that data roaming is turned off by default on the iPhone. So he had to go into settings and turn on data roaming. And right there under data roaming is a nice warning about huge costs associated with using data when roaming.
And what the hell – he’s on holidays and he has to listen to a Calgary radio station for 5 hours??? I guess he needed to hear Nickelback.
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What a car salesman getting screwed? HAHAHA what sweet justice. Guess he didn’t buy the diamond protection plan.
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moron!
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when your stupid your stupid… ppl look for a quarter before making a call on a public phone what did this guy think? he’s on an all paid vacation everytime he made a call…. don’t blame the company for ur stupidness, if i was virgin i wud charge him a stupidity fee before going to court.
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ya the guy was stupid, but cell phone companies should be forced to get a confirmation from clients whenever they rack up charges over a few hundred $. Because no one in their right mind would agree to thousands of dollars in phone bills in one month. I man really, these kind of rates are criminal.
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Is this guy absolutely brain dead?
UNLESS YOU HAVE A ROAMING PLAN WHEN YOU LEAVE THE COUNTRY, AIRPLANE MODE: ON!
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*brinnnggg* *brringggg*
Dumb-a*s: “Who is it?”
Operator: “It’s dumb-a*s, do you accept the charges?”
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haha, once I’ve seen a Fido customer’s invoice of $13k for data usage.
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You guys do realize that roaming rates are negotiated between EVERY carrier right? It’s not a magical number they just spontaneously pull out of their a*s… the company you roamed ON gets a good cut of that money.
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Yeah with Wind you get a text right when you land explaining this stuff. At least Virgin cut it off, they could have let it keep going for the whole trip…
I just wonder why it took until his bill to arrive for him to enquire about it, did he not wonder why his phone didn’t work until he got it bill??
Case in point : he knew it was coming.
Virgin, please make this d*****s pay every cent.
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Dumb or Lazy, the telcos setup the system, so unless they have an explicit charge an arm and leg policy at whatever they feel like charges, the telcos are at fault
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I dunno if anyone said this cause there’s so many comments, but Don’t blame Virgin, dont any of you realize that Virgin has to pay that cost to the company’s who’s network he used. They dont profit off ppl’s idiotic use in other countries, if dude doesnt pay Virgin eats the cost.
wake up
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Douche Bag, Dumb a*s…Ditto Ditto…Everyone said all i wanted to say. Where does the madness stop. Payup dirtbag
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After reading all the comments i have to agree with all of them.
1. He would have had to manually turned on the data usage while roaming.
2. He is stupid for not checking with virgin before leaving.
3. I think hes just doing this as a publicity stunt (Balloon Boy anyone?)
4. im surprised that virgin didn’t send him a text to alert him that he was roaming (maybe they only do this when u roam in the usa?) I know when i get close to the border i get a text from TELUS telling me all the roaming rates for voice, data, and text in the USA. the little triangle also shows up saying that im roaming on AT&T.
Note to ANYONE who owns a cell phone:
ROAMING/NOT IN CANADA/TRAVELLING/VACATIONING = $$$$$$$$
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Its besides the point; we pay too much for cell phones when you think of what the service really is broken down. A signal…
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A car-salesman should know better about the fine print. They are the Kings of Sleeze when it comes to business ethics. Maybe this it just karma rearing it’s beautiful head. Virgin should make him pay every cent.
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Vast majority of us abide by the rules that we agreed to when we sign up to various services. Nobody forces us to sign up in first place, it’s a choice, and if you do that then please honour your contract.
Vast majority of us live by that, and limit ourselves to what we can afford. When I was in Europe, or Cuba, I did not go crazy racking up phone calls and data, because I knew, I will have to pay up in the end. I don’t want somebody that cannot exercise the same self-control to be sponsored by my fees! If it was reasonable to expect that my fees would be dropped just because I thought they’re too high, wouldn’t you think I would’ve enjoyed my mobile phone just a tad more overseas?
It’s people like that that mess up the society, from those suing McDonalds for coffee they spill on themselves to Boutangs of the world. The government is babysitting us like some irresponsible kids that cannot be allowed to make any decisions, this kind of thing will only lead us further. It’s becoming ok to be an i***t, and it’s always someone else’s fault.
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How much do you want to bet that Jason Boutang sells USED CARS.
SLEEEEEEEEEEZE
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Roaming charges are pretty standard across the board for Canadian telco companies, why is it the company fault? People like this guy, (and there are A LOT of them) equally frustrate and infuriate me. Would you walk into a 5 star resturant have a 5 course meal then blame the place for the bill when it comes AFTER you’ve filled your face?
Um no. So why is it people think they can “claim” they had no idea when using a POST-paid service.
Idiot!
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If you can’t call France from Calgary without incurring long distance charges why the hell would it be okay to use the phone in France at no cost?
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If you can’t call France from Calgary without incurring long distance charges why the h**l would it be okay to use the phone in France at no cost?
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