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Fido Dings Dad $22k

Crazy... Fido sent a B.C. dad a bill for 22 grand for charges his son ran up on his cell phone. You can read the full story here.

I don't know why carriers don't offer customers an option to cap charges. So for instance, if your bill gets above say 70 bucks, the carrier cuts off your data connection.

This kind of stuff is a PR nightmare for carriers because customers read about it and worry 'Oh my god, if I go with Fido and I'm not careful I could end up with a $20k bill'.

Fido did cut the bill down to $2,200. While this was wise from a PR perspective, what would be far wiser would be to implement either some kind of optional billing cap for customers OR be very very specific about how billing works (as in spend 30 minutes explaining it to them when they buy the phone).

You can't expect a kid, or many seniors for that matter, to understand roaming fees and the like. So you either have to educate them or put something in place that cuts off service (and hence charges) at a certain point.


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