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I agree. This is robbery! Completely anti-consumer! No sensible consumer or business could have pay this kind of service charge. Telstra could have easily block

I agree. This is robbery! Completely anti-consumer! No sensible consumer or business could have pay this kind of service charge. Telstra could have easily block access to any individual with excessive network activity. The judge should reject this bill and ask arbitrator to come up with reasonable payment plan. Automatically upgrade her to unlimited plan and then add a small penalty should be a reasonable resolution. Law maker should ban telco from excessive charge, say more than $1000 a month, unless authorized by the customer.

tptacek 15y ago
Basically what you're saying is that Telstra should come up with a product to support people who steal the SIM cards out of utility smart meters.
- tungwaiyip 15y ago
  I say is telecom should not be allow to gouge consumers. They should not charge consumer an amount that is clearly not agreed upon. If you have misconfigured an app on your phone and it run up $10,000 network charge in month. Will you hand over your $10,000 to the phone company? Do you think this is a fair charge? Cap the telco off how much they can charge unless authorized. I think this is most fair for both party. Telco can cut off access, but no to gouge consumer.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    The person who rips the SIM card out of their smart meter and uses to download stuff off the Internet isn't a consumer.
    - tungwaiyip 15y ago
      tptacek, in the scenario that I've construct, if you misconfigured an app that result in an astronomical bill, we you pay it without contest? Will you do it if you have to sell your house to pay off the phone company?
    - Natsu 15y ago
      Indeed. They're talking about informing the power company that someone is misusing one of their SIMs. You know, so that they can discover the theft a bit faster than they did in this case, where it took them from November 19, 2009 until February 9, 2010. A lot less would have been stolen from the power company were that the case.
- Natsu 15y ago
  This sort of thing also happens to people who do not steal SIM cards. It is all too common, sadly: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7169279 http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/bizarre&i... $22,000 bill because son's data use wasn't covered in family cell phone plan. http://www.switched.com/2007/12/14/man-gets-slapped-with-85-000-cell-phone-bill/ http://www.switched.com/2007/12/14/man-gets-slapped-with-85-... $85,000 phone bill. "It turns out that he was being charged on a per-kilobyte basis because his unlimited browsing plan didn't cover using the phone as a modem. As a "goodwill" gesture, Bell Mobility has dropped the bill to measly $3,243." Finally, here's one from Telstra: http://www.blackberryforums.com.au/forums/general-bis-discussion/1014-huge-phone-bill.html http://www.blackberryforums.com.au/forums/general-bis-discus... "I have recently signed my BB 8800 up on a Telstra $39.95/mth plan which I understood was for unlimited email and internet browsing. I got the shock of my life when I checked my data usage online and saw a bill for $250+ after only a couple of days. On examining further I note that I have not been charged for blackberry.net connections but heavily charged for wap.telstra."
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I do not accept the notion that these are remotely comparable situations. I agree with you that b2c MNO fee structures are predatory. I do not agree that the fee structure arranged between two giant corporations can be described as "predatory" when it happens to bite the ass of someone who breaks into their network and uses it to steal connectivity.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      > I do not accept the notion that these are remotely comparable situations. So you don't think that the power company got screwed here? We both know that it's unlikely that some random woman is going to be able to pay back a sum like that. Would it really be so reasonable to expect the phone company to do something to at least warn people, whether businesses or private citizens, who are suddenly racking up over a hundred thousand dollars in charges from one phone so that they can do something about the bill?
      - 15y ago
- nagrom 15y ago
  And what you are saying is that there is no possibility that such a feature network-wide (Email to main account holder: "Your phone bill has risen above $1,000 this month. Please make sure that this is not accidental.") would be useful to anyone else, ever. Which is funny, because it's more or less standard in the UK, and most of the EU.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    What phone? The devices being billed aren't phones. There are no "phone bills" involved here.
    - Natsu 15y ago
      As far as the phone company is concerned, I'm sure that they can break the charges down by SIM. They'd never have discovered which person was the culprit if they couldn't do that, after all.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        That is exactly what they did do in this case. Read the preceding comment carefully and you'll see that you've inadvertently shifted the goal posts; that comment suggests Telstra should be sending a warning to the person who stole the SIM card.
        Natsu 15y ago
        It took four months to discover this. That tells me that the power company demanded an audit, rather than Telstra informing them of anything. This inference is also consistent with the other case I linked to previously in which someone got a huge bill from them. Had Telstra informed the power company (not the thief!) it undoubtedly would have been caught earlier, when a much smaller sum had been stolen. Moreover, given that black hats can clone SIMs and such, one might think that consumers should be able to demand reasonable protection from thievery from their telecom provider. Please note that although it's possible that they have a rather long billing period (e.g. they only got bills every few months), such notices would only be useful if they could occur within a billing period, so it still would have helped protect the power company from theft of services. I have no idea how you managed to carefully read any of the comments and still confused the account holder (the power company) with the woman who misused the SIM card, whether you were reading my comments or those of nagrom.

tptacek 15y ago

Basically what you're saying is that Telstra should come up with a product to support people who steal the SIM cards out of utility smart meters.

tungwaiyip 15y ago
I say is telecom should not be allow to gouge consumers. They should not charge consumer an amount that is clearly not agreed upon. If you have misconfigured an app on your phone and it run up $10,000 network charge in month. Will you hand over your $10,000 to the phone company? Do you think this is a fair charge? Cap the telco off how much they can charge unless authorized. I think this is most fair for both party. Telco can cut off access, but no to gouge consumer.
- tptacek 15y ago
  The person who rips the SIM card out of their smart meter and uses to download stuff off the Internet isn't a consumer.
  - tungwaiyip 15y ago
    tptacek, in the scenario that I've construct, if you misconfigured an app that result in an astronomical bill, we you pay it without contest? Will you do it if you have to sell your house to pay off the phone company?
  - Natsu 15y ago
    Indeed. They're talking about informing the power company that someone is misusing one of their SIMs. You know, so that they can discover the theft a bit faster than they did in this case, where it took them from November 19, 2009 until February 9, 2010. A lot less would have been stolen from the power company were that the case.
Natsu 15y ago
This sort of thing also happens to people who do not steal SIM cards. It is all too common, sadly: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/bizarre&id=7169279 http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/bizarre&i... $22,000 bill because son's data use wasn't covered in family cell phone plan. http://www.switched.com/2007/12/14/man-gets-slapped-with-85-000-cell-phone-bill/ http://www.switched.com/2007/12/14/man-gets-slapped-with-85-... $85,000 phone bill. "It turns out that he was being charged on a per-kilobyte basis because his unlimited browsing plan didn't cover using the phone as a modem. As a "goodwill" gesture, Bell Mobility has dropped the bill to measly $3,243." Finally, here's one from Telstra: http://www.blackberryforums.com.au/forums/general-bis-discussion/1014-huge-phone-bill.html http://www.blackberryforums.com.au/forums/general-bis-discus... "I have recently signed my BB 8800 up on a Telstra $39.95/mth plan which I understood was for unlimited email and internet browsing. I got the shock of my life when I checked my data usage online and saw a bill for $250+ after only a couple of days. On examining further I note that I have not been charged for blackberry.net connections but heavily charged for wap.telstra."
- tptacek 15y ago
  I do not accept the notion that these are remotely comparable situations. I agree with you that b2c MNO fee structures are predatory. I do not agree that the fee structure arranged between two giant corporations can be described as "predatory" when it happens to bite the ass of someone who breaks into their network and uses it to steal connectivity.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    > I do not accept the notion that these are remotely comparable situations. So you don't think that the power company got screwed here? We both know that it's unlikely that some random woman is going to be able to pay back a sum like that. Would it really be so reasonable to expect the phone company to do something to at least warn people, whether businesses or private citizens, who are suddenly racking up over a hundred thousand dollars in charges from one phone so that they can do something about the bill?
    - 15y ago
nagrom 15y ago
And what you are saying is that there is no possibility that such a feature network-wide (Email to main account holder: "Your phone bill has risen above $1,000 this month. Please make sure that this is not accidental.") would be useful to anyone else, ever. Which is funny, because it's more or less standard in the UK, and most of the EU.
- tptacek 15y ago
  What phone? The devices being billed aren't phones. There are no "phone bills" involved here.
  - Natsu 15y ago
    As far as the phone company is concerned, I'm sure that they can break the charges down by SIM. They'd never have discovered which person was the culprit if they couldn't do that, after all.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      That is exactly what they did do in this case. Read the preceding comment carefully and you'll see that you've inadvertently shifted the goal posts; that comment suggests Telstra should be sending a warning to the person who stole the SIM card.
      - Natsu 15y ago
        It took four months to discover this. That tells me that the power company demanded an audit, rather than Telstra informing them of anything. This inference is also consistent with the other case I linked to previously in which someone got a huge bill from them. Had Telstra informed the power company (not the thief!) it undoubtedly would have been caught earlier, when a much smaller sum had been stolen. Moreover, given that black hats can clone SIMs and such, one might think that consumers should be able to demand reasonable protection from thievery from their telecom provider. Please note that although it's possible that they have a rather long billing period (e.g. they only got bills every few months), such notices would only be useful if they could occur within a billing period, so it still would have helped protect the power company from theft of services. I have no idea how you managed to carefully read any of the comments and still confused the account holder (the power company) with the woman who misused the SIM card, whether you were reading my comments or those of nagrom.