The New York Times [registration required] reports that Dave Stolte took his Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone to Ireland and England in July and returned home to a little surprise -- a bill for $3,000.
Stolte's $3,000 phone bill was a result of unanticipated European roaming charges. Consider the case of mortgage consultant, Neil Dingman. Dingman used his iPhone only a few times on a European trip this summer and had expected to see just a small increase in his next bill for roaming charges. But he failed to turn off an iPhone feature that automatically checks e-mail. Thus his iPhone roamed over networks in Italy, Croatia and Malta more than 500 times. And he ended up with $852.31 in roaming charges.
But Stolte's story has a happy ending. Thanks to the posting of Stolte's bill on the Internet, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) went from giving him a $100 credit to full credit for that $3,000 iPhone bill. The lessons? Turn off the e-mail checking feature if you're out of the U.S. And if you get a ginormous iPhone bill -- post a complaint video on Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube.
Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in the stocks mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-10-2007 @ 12:20PM
Beltway Greg said...
Apple sells I million Iphones and you write about a $3000 phone bill that resulted from customer error and was forgiven by AT & T? How about generating with some fresh ideas instead of rewriting an article from the New York Times.
How about some hints?
a. How long did it take for the other phones to reach 1 mill?
b. Will they generate more revenue via volume then they previously did in price?
c. Will the increase in traffic to the stores result in sales of other Apple products?
If you really need some help ask your students. I'll bet they can help you. You can even turn it into a teachable moment, give them a grade, steal their ideas, appear creative, and not have to rehash an article from the Times. Off to class now!
Beltway Greg.
9-10-2007 @ 12:27PM
Rich said...
I agree with Beltway Greg. Obviously this is a hack job and has no business on a financial website.
I went to Europe and did not have any problems using my phone.
And there is NO SUCH THING as an iPhone bill, there is an ATT bill; but note his headline attacked Apple.
9-10-2007 @ 3:46PM
Steve P said...
I took my iphone to Canada for 1.5 days and my bill was $700. This was due to data roaming in Canada. I know that some of the analysts said that Canada is low on the list for iPhone deployment because their service costs would be four times what we pay in the united states, but, that is just nuts. I will not be turning my iPhone on in Canada anymore.
9-10-2007 @ 5:04PM
august said...
Peter,
I like you because you're funny and you say goofy things that are either contrary to, or nothing to do with what the topic typically is. (or what the occurrence actually was) But sometimes you really drive us nuts...
As Rich, above hastened to point out. There is no such thing as an iPhone bill. An ATT or Verizon or T-Mobile bill... SURE, but NOT an iPhone or Nokia or Ericson bill. SO, why did you write about Apple, or iPhone or ANY phone? Or more to the point, why didn't you headline this piece as "Happy Ending for Stupid Customer!"
August
9-11-2007 @ 1:39PM
Scott Kochman said...
Where do you find out how much the roaming charge is before you use the phone?
9-25-2007 @ 1:13PM
nick p said...
Look. Here are the facts - from the iPhone manual:
“iPhone checks for and retrieves new email in your accounts whenever your (sic) open Mail.”[This is the default setting.]
“You CAN ALSO *SET MAIL* TO REGULARLY CHECK FOR EMAIL AND DOWNLOAD YOUR MESSAGES EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE MAIL OPEN. [Customer option.]
“Set whether iPhone checks for new messages automatically. From the Home screen choose Settings > Mail > Auto-Check, then tap Manual, “Every 15 minutes,” “Every 30 minutes,” or “Every hour.”
In other words, the iPhone doesn’t come with this feature. The customer set his iPhones to work that way – before he left the country. The guy screwed up and the media never checked out his story.