"I had a R12k cellphone bill years ago before WiFi"

"I had a R12k cellphone bill years ago before WiFi"

We would be stressed out if we received a bill like this!

Woman holding documents and smartphone in hands
Woman holding documents and smartphone in hands/Pexels/@Mikhail Nilov

Month end comes with happy and sad faces. 

Happy is the person who hears their phone beep with the notification of their salary coming into their bank accounts, and sad is the person who hears the beeps of all your debit orders going off. 

It seems just as we receive we have to let go... the nature of life. But an even sadder reality is when you receive an unexpected debit or bill. 

A story that got us thinking about receiving bills that are unexpected happened a while back. It involved a woman who received a shocking discovery when receiving her cellphone bill.

"Celina Aarons has her two deaf-mute brothers on her plan. They communicate by texting and use their phones to watch videos. Normally, that's not a problem. Aarons has the appropriate data plan, and her bill is about $175." (CBS

That's roughly R3,100.

The shocker happened when her brothers went to Canada for two weeks and Celina failed to change her package to suit international tariffs. 

Her cellphone service provider sent her a bill that came to a total of $201,000 (R3,560,694.90). 

After racking up what seemed like the most unreachable bill, she approached Miami TV station WSVN. 

They called the service provider, T-Mobile, and they ended up cutting her bill to $2,500 (R44,300), and she was given six months to pay off her bill. 

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After giving her bill a closer look, it was said that "each text cost her an average of about $100.50, making even simple messages like 'OK' to meet for a pint" cost more than the pint. 

It got us thinking about being charged for something without knowing you are being charged for it. 

Vic Naidoo shared a little titbit from his past that he once received a cellphone bill amounting to R12,000 from his service provider at the time. This was all before WiFi became popular. 

Has this ever happened to you before? 

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East Coast Radio

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