Downloading a $18,000 VerizonWireless Bill

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported today on the shock bestowed on Bob St. Germain, who recently discovered that renewing his wireless phone service contract with Verizon set him up for a $18,000 bill.

Unbeknownst to St. Germain, the two-year promotional period allowing free downloads had expired, and Verizon was now charging for downloaded kilobytes.
But St. Germain’s son, Bryan, a student at Framingham State College, didn’t realize this, and started downloading a lot of stuff to his phone. The August 2006 bill was for $12,233. When St. Germain called to complain, Verizon told him that since that last bill, he’d run up an additional $5,000 in downloading fees.

St. Germain complained to Verizon, which eventually offered to cut the bill in half, but St. Germain turned them down and Verizon sent the matter to a collection agency.

The WSJ Law Blog poses an interesting and unanswered question:

 It also seems fair to wonder how much it cost Verizon to provide the 816,000 kilobytes of stuff to Bryan Germain’s phone, though telecom companies often argue that demand on their networks, and the costs to expand networks to allow for it, can add up.

So the next time you re-up your service contract to get that "free" or subsidized low price new cellphone, think about Mr. Germain, how kind and friendly the folks at your telecom company really are, and read the fine print and ask how much everything will cost after you agree.  At a minimum, it seems that there should be some kind of requirement to give consumers a plainly worded summary of what their service plan will cost, with real examples, i.e. --- how much would it cost to upload ten photographs from your cellphone or download a five page document or how much it costs when your friends send you text messages or photographs that are not covered in your service plan.