Jennifer wrote to us about the trouble a family in South Carolina is having over a huge T-Mobile bill: “Zeb, a special needs adult living with his parents, had his cell phone stolen just prior to Christmas. By the time the theft was discovered, $6000 in calls and text messages had been made to Honduras.” The good news is that T-Mobile hasn’t asked the family to pay the full $6,000. The bad news is that they do want them to pay a fourth of that. Update: T-Mobile has let the family off the hook.

From local NBC news station WIS 10:

“The first call was made right then, on that same day. There’s an obvious pattern with the calls. If you look at the bills, ‘It’s mom, can I have a Diet Coke?’ ‘Dad, when are you coming home?’ Talks to his sister and all of a sudden Honduras, Honduras, Honduras,” said Currie.

In the span of 10 days, the Currie’s T-Mobile cell phone records show 53 texts, 4,386 international cell minutes used, all billed at $6,000. All the calls came from Columbia to a phone number in Honduras.

[…]

They say the company offered to cut their bill from $6,000 to $1,500, and left them with no other option.

Jennifer adds that the family filed a police report as soon as they found out about the theft, but that was several days after the incident:

The phone had been MIA for days prior, but this went unnoticed as it was a) during the holidays, during which Zeb’s family was mostly present (i.e. not necessitating phone use) and b) it is very very difficult to get straight answers from Zeb that correlate directly with reality. When asked about his phone, he knew he didn’t have it, but to him that meant it must’ve been in his room, so that’s what he said.

“Columbia family stiffed with $6,000 worth of calls they didn’t make” [WIS News 10]
“hey.cellphone giant that ate suncom. forgive my bill, i draw you a spider.” [Facebook page]

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