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Years ago I got my first internet enabled mobile, and the carrier advertised it as having "300 free minutes" as part of the trial period, which is great. So I u

Years ago I got my first internet enabled mobile, and the carrier advertised it as having "300 free minutes" as part of the trial period, which is great. So I used 297 minutes of internet services in the first month, but aha actually the minutes only referred to telephony, and I was stung with a ~12,000 dollar overdue mobile internet invoice (360 dollars per megabyte or something equally ludicrous) They got done in by a massive class action, that I was tangentially a beneficiary of, not because of the minutes claim, which was standard practice, but because they had failed to provide anyone with the cost of the data. I think I paid them 300 bucks or something in the end. After further letting a 600 dollar agreement go to collections and settling with collections for 50%.

ErigmolCt 4mo ago
This is why I'm pretty sympathetic to hard caps by default
- Terr_ 4mo ago
  That makes me think of bank overdraft fees. They are another kind of "soft" cap, pitched as an automatic convenience to the customer... But in practice they are too-often deceptive and harmful. https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/are-banks-the-bad-guys-overdraft-fees-are-crushing-low-income-customers https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/are-banks-the-...
  - em-bee 4mo ago
    i always set my overdraft limit to zero. i never want to use that by accident.
    - Defletter 4mo ago
      It probably depends on the bank, but setting one's overdraft limit to zero doesn't necessarily help and may actually make things worse: some payments may still go through even if you don't have the funds, putting you in unauthorised overdraft, which tends to have a high daily fee.
      - flexagoon 4mo ago
        That is insane. What's the point of overdraft limit if it doesn't limit your overdraft?
        bot403 4mo ago
        First time? You can choose between the $20 convenience fee or the $50 no-fee fee.
    - ipsento606 4mo ago
      In the US this always seems to be called "overdraft protection", as in "do you want overdraft protection on your account?" I can never remember if overdraft protection means "we won't let your account overdraft", or "we will let your account overdraft" It is an incredibly confusing name to me I could look up the answer now, but I know I will just forget it again. I must have looked it up and then forgotten at least 10 separate times over the years
      - SoftTalker 4mo ago
        Normally means that if your checking accout balance hits zero, they will pull from your savings account rather than returning a check presented for payment. They may (probably will) still charge you a fee when this happens, but it might be less than an overdraft. Or, it might be a case where they grant you a short-term personal loan to cover the overdraft (up to some limit) rather than return checks. Again there will be fees and interest on this. In either case, since they are not rejecting payments, you avoid getting hit with fees from whomever you wrote the check to. So your only fees/penalties are paid to the bank. Of course the best answer is just keep better track of your checking account balance.
        fragmede 4mo ago
        Of course, the funny part about that is that they charge you to check your balance at the ATM. It's almost as if they don't want you to and have to pay their fee. Which of course is about as odorous fee as possible. You don't have enough money, so we're going to charge you more money?
      - BizarroLand 4mo ago
        Overdraft protection means that the bank will cover any overdrafts that you make, but then they will charge you a fee on top of it.
  - tonnydourado 4mo ago
    When one of my sisters got her first paycheck from her first real job, she didn't knew much about banking, and thought that the overdraft limit on the ATM was her actual salary, so she just withdrew the whole thing. I think it took over a year, maybe two, to pay it all back.
    - idjsndndn 4mo ago
      [dead]
  - QuantumGood 4mo ago
    Had a tiny (<400) overdraft covered just minutes later. Called bank, they said the payment causing the overdraft wouldn't post for 24 hours. Don't remember if that was policy, or something the person would do for us. Several months later, I learned at that time, that they had instituted a standing stop payment order to the merchant we were paying, but only in the amount of exactly $600. Fast forward, we make a $600 payment, get a notification that it went through, no notification of stop payment, but later a notification from the merchant we were trying to pay (Synchrony - Amazon Store Card) stating they were closing our account due to the stop payment. Meet in person with a bank rep. They have trouble finding the problem, but once found, argue that we must have requested this specifically, for they would never have done such a thing. I didn't even know a standing stop payment for a specific amount was a thing, asked what is normal policy, what bank terminonlogy would cause such a thing. Would not give any answer other than "you must have asked for it". What would I have said? "You must have asked for it" etc. Currently fighting with the bank for audio of the phone call where they claim we requested this, and with Synchrony telling them it is the bank's fault. We immediately paid balance on closed Synchrony account, and had made ~12 payments successfully before the inadvertent stop payment.
- radu_floricica 4mo ago
  For consumer products, definitely. Any unreasonably large charge (with a comfortable margin, like 10x) should be waived by default, unless the client specifically requested the limit be removed.
- ElFitz 4mo ago
  I love hard caps, and am tired of cloud services not even offering those. May make sense for large companies. Makes no sense for hobbyists and small companies. But maybe that's the point?
soco 4mo ago
Data was counted as minutes back then for you? I only remember kB and MB costs...
- mathgeek 4mo ago
  Internet access used to be billed by the minute back in the Prodigy/Compuserve/AOL days, and early phone plans mirrored that for ease of marketing.
  - ffsm8 4mo ago
    Other way around. The phone plans were billed by the minute. Then came the Internet. In is first generation, Internet was essentially just a long distance call through a modem. Hence it was billed - like the call - by the minute. Dedicated Internet wires came much later, and then the dedicated phone lines were dropped as voip was better quality and cheaper compared to the dedicated lines. While the phone still had a dedicated line it didn't actually need a power connection, as the power through the phone wire was sufficient.
    - mathgeek 4mo ago
      I'm thoroughly confused as to how what you're saying differs from my previous post, but I believe you just misunderstand that by "early phone plans" in my post's and the parent post's context, I meant phone plans for Internet access ("early" being the feature phone era).
    - giantrobot 4mo ago
      Online services most assuredly billed by the minute. He'll, AOL had a huge marketing campaign offering "free" minutes for new customers. You might also have charges from the phone company but those were independent of the online service charges. It wasn't until the late 90s the major online services went to flat rate "unlimited" plans.
      - thaumasiotes 4mo ago
        > Online services most assuredly billed by the minute. He'll, AOL had a huge marketing campaign offering "free" minutes for new customers. You might also have charges from the phone company but those were independent of the online service charges. AOL was offering free minutes because it was an ISP, not because it was an online service. (It was also an online service. Most of that service was indeed free; some of it billed by the minute, but that was separate from the rate you paid for connecting to the internet.)
ErroneousBosh 4mo ago
Many many years ago my girlfriend at the time was on holiday with her mother so I'd added a "Roaming Bundle" to her phone. While she was away I got a call from our phone provider that she'd racked up £1700 of roaming charges. "But don't worry about it!" said the customer service person, "Just stop your direct debit for this month just in case and we will call you when the bill is generated." A couple of weeks later, they rang back, confirmed that the final amount was about two grand, and so I said "hang on, there was supposed to be a message when the bundle was halfway used and a message when the bundle was nearly used up - what happened to that?" "Oh I don't know why you'd have been told that, we've never done that! But you're right, that's what they said, we've already listened to the call. What you *should* have been offered was this *other* bundle which would have cost £150, she's used about 75% of the data that would provide, plus the £25 you originally paid for the first bundle, call it 75 quid then? I'll just take the card number..." And that, gentle reader, is why I'm still a customer.

ErigmolCt 4mo ago

This is why I'm pretty sympathetic to hard caps by default

Terr_ 4mo ago
That makes me think of bank overdraft fees. They are another kind of "soft" cap, pitched as an automatic convenience to the customer... But in practice they are too-often deceptive and harmful. https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/are-banks-the-bad-guys-overdraft-fees-are-crushing-low-income-customers https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/are-banks-the-...
- em-bee 4mo ago
  i always set my overdraft limit to zero. i never want to use that by accident.
  - Defletter 4mo ago
    It probably depends on the bank, but setting one's overdraft limit to zero doesn't necessarily help and may actually make things worse: some payments may still go through even if you don't have the funds, putting you in unauthorised overdraft, which tends to have a high daily fee.
    - flexagoon 4mo ago
      That is insane. What's the point of overdraft limit if it doesn't limit your overdraft?
      - bot403 4mo ago
        First time? You can choose between the $20 convenience fee or the $50 no-fee fee.
  - ipsento606 4mo ago
    In the US this always seems to be called "overdraft protection", as in "do you want overdraft protection on your account?" I can never remember if overdraft protection means "we won't let your account overdraft", or "we will let your account overdraft" It is an incredibly confusing name to me I could look up the answer now, but I know I will just forget it again. I must have looked it up and then forgotten at least 10 separate times over the years
    - SoftTalker 4mo ago
      Normally means that if your checking accout balance hits zero, they will pull from your savings account rather than returning a check presented for payment. They may (probably will) still charge you a fee when this happens, but it might be less than an overdraft. Or, it might be a case where they grant you a short-term personal loan to cover the overdraft (up to some limit) rather than return checks. Again there will be fees and interest on this. In either case, since they are not rejecting payments, you avoid getting hit with fees from whomever you wrote the check to. So your only fees/penalties are paid to the bank. Of course the best answer is just keep better track of your checking account balance.
      - fragmede 4mo ago
        Of course, the funny part about that is that they charge you to check your balance at the ATM. It's almost as if they don't want you to and have to pay their fee. Which of course is about as odorous fee as possible. You don't have enough money, so we're going to charge you more money?
    - BizarroLand 4mo ago
      Overdraft protection means that the bank will cover any overdrafts that you make, but then they will charge you a fee on top of it.
- tonnydourado 4mo ago
  When one of my sisters got her first paycheck from her first real job, she didn't knew much about banking, and thought that the overdraft limit on the ATM was her actual salary, so she just withdrew the whole thing. I think it took over a year, maybe two, to pay it all back.
  - idjsndndn 4mo ago
    [dead]
- QuantumGood 4mo ago
  Had a tiny (<400) overdraft covered just minutes later. Called bank, they said the payment causing the overdraft wouldn't post for 24 hours. Don't remember if that was policy, or something the person would do for us. Several months later, I learned at that time, that they had instituted a standing stop payment order to the merchant we were paying, but only in the amount of exactly $600. Fast forward, we make a $600 payment, get a notification that it went through, no notification of stop payment, but later a notification from the merchant we were trying to pay (Synchrony - Amazon Store Card) stating they were closing our account due to the stop payment. Meet in person with a bank rep. They have trouble finding the problem, but once found, argue that we must have requested this specifically, for they would never have done such a thing. I didn't even know a standing stop payment for a specific amount was a thing, asked what is normal policy, what bank terminonlogy would cause such a thing. Would not give any answer other than "you must have asked for it". What would I have said? "You must have asked for it" etc. Currently fighting with the bank for audio of the phone call where they claim we requested this, and with Synchrony telling them it is the bank's fault. We immediately paid balance on closed Synchrony account, and had made ~12 payments successfully before the inadvertent stop payment.
radu_floricica 4mo ago
For consumer products, definitely. Any unreasonably large charge (with a comfortable margin, like 10x) should be waived by default, unless the client specifically requested the limit be removed.
ElFitz 4mo ago
I love hard caps, and am tired of cloud services not even offering those. May make sense for large companies. Makes no sense for hobbyists and small companies. But maybe that's the point?

soco 4mo ago

Data was counted as minutes back then for you? I only remember kB and MB costs...

mathgeek 4mo ago
Internet access used to be billed by the minute back in the Prodigy/Compuserve/AOL days, and early phone plans mirrored that for ease of marketing.
- ffsm8 4mo ago
  Other way around. The phone plans were billed by the minute. Then came the Internet. In is first generation, Internet was essentially just a long distance call through a modem. Hence it was billed - like the call - by the minute. Dedicated Internet wires came much later, and then the dedicated phone lines were dropped as voip was better quality and cheaper compared to the dedicated lines. While the phone still had a dedicated line it didn't actually need a power connection, as the power through the phone wire was sufficient.
  - mathgeek 4mo ago
    I'm thoroughly confused as to how what you're saying differs from my previous post, but I believe you just misunderstand that by "early phone plans" in my post's and the parent post's context, I meant phone plans for Internet access ("early" being the feature phone era).
  - giantrobot 4mo ago
    Online services most assuredly billed by the minute. He'll, AOL had a huge marketing campaign offering "free" minutes for new customers. You might also have charges from the phone company but those were independent of the online service charges. It wasn't until the late 90s the major online services went to flat rate "unlimited" plans.
    - thaumasiotes 4mo ago
      > Online services most assuredly billed by the minute. He'll, AOL had a huge marketing campaign offering "free" minutes for new customers. You might also have charges from the phone company but those were independent of the online service charges. AOL was offering free minutes because it was an ISP, not because it was an online service. (It was also an online service. Most of that service was indeed free; some of it billed by the minute, but that was separate from the rate you paid for connecting to the internet.)

ErroneousBosh 4mo ago

Many many years ago my girlfriend at the time was on holiday with her mother so I'd added a "Roaming Bundle" to her phone. While she was away I got a call from our phone provider that she'd racked up £1700 of roaming charges. "But don't worry about it!" said the customer service person, "Just stop your direct debit for this month just in case and we will call you when the bill is generated." A couple of weeks later, they rang back, confirmed that the final amount was about two grand, and so I said "hang on, there was supposed to be a message when the bundle was halfway used and a message when the bundle was nearly used up - what happened to that?" "Oh I don't know why you'd have been told that, we've never done that! But you're right, that's what they said, we've already listened to the call. What you *should* have been offered was this *other* bundle which would have cost £150, she's used about 75% of the data that would provide, plus the £25 you originally paid for the first bundle, call it 75 quid then? I'll just take the card number..." And that, gentle reader, is why I'm still a customer.