CALGARY, Alberta - Piotr Staniaszek normally pays $147 a month for his cell phone. So he was more than a little surprised to learn his November bill had ballooned to $59,000.
And then it got worse.
When he called to inquire about the high figure, he was told that his bill this month was $83,000.
Staniaszek, 22, said he used his cell phone to download music and movies onto a computer, an unwise move in a country where mobile carriers charge expensive fees for data.
Staniaszek said his mobile carrier, Bell Mobility, should have alerted him and not have allowed his bill to rise to a “ridiculously huge” amount in six weeks.
“They should have let me know when my phone bill started going up,” he said. “I thought it was the same thing when I plugged it into the computer and used it as a modem — I guess not.”
Staniaszek, an oil field worker, said he signed up with Bell Mobility to pay $10 a month to use a mobile browser on his cell phone.
But Bell Canada official Jeffrey Meerman said Staniaszek’s cell phone plan is not intended for downloading files to a computer, and that is in his contract.
Meerman says the plan is meant for Internet surfing, e-mail access and file downloads to the phone itself.
He said Staniaszek had been using the phone as a modem to download high-resolution movies onto a computer.
Bell and Staniaszek have since negotiated the bill to $3,195…
Story continued at MSNBC.com
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