Yowza! David’s eyes popped out his head when he saw his $7,865.84 bill from Verizon.

The charges stemmed from a recent trip to Tel Aviv where he used 350,000 kb of data on his Mifi connection. As we’ve extensively documented, Verizon charges 2 cents per kilobyte. Before leaving the states, a Verizon rep told him how much it would cost. Not used to thinking in kilobytes, David asked what his normal data usage was. His response was that David was on the unlimited plan so he was not charged by kilobyte. While a truthful statement, it didn’t exactly answer David’s question.

David is going to pay his bill, which Verizon offered to go hafsies on. He writes that he accepts full responsibility for not doing the math and for not taking advantage of the VZ Manager software that pops up when you tether your phone that can track your kb usage. David just wishes Verizon had been less obtuse in its explanation, and/or had told him about the VZ Manager tool.

I can connect up to 5 of my employees to my Mifi; if I had traveled with a team to Tel Aviv and used my full 5 GB of a lotted monthly usage I would have come to a $100,000 bill- something that usually costs me $50. The thought of that even “accidentally” being allowed to happen makes my head spin.

Word to the wise, don’t use your American cellphone overseas to track your Farmville operation, or really, do anything with it.

Verizon Data Roaming Nightmare [David Snyder’s Snydey Sense]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.