We tend to get in trouble here when we call someone a moron, but I really don’t have any other way to describe what happened to the guy in the video clip posted above.
No matter how often people are warned, and no matter how many horror stories people read, there are always going to be travelers who take their mobile data service abroad and download as much as they would back home.
The guy in the video went to Mexico, and in his infinite wisdom started downloading Wall-E using his data card. End result? One video of a cute robot, and a mobile phone bill for $62,000. Oops.
The math is simple – international data on most operators will cost you about $20 per megabyte. Wall-E in HD is about 3 Gigabytes.
AT&T eventually helped the guy out by lowering his bill to a much more reasonable $17,000, but that is still about the price of a nice family car.
So, please remember to turn off your International data, or to call your operator and have them add an International data package. Just be sure to keep a very close eye on your usage. Downloading a couple of emails won’t add too much to the bill, but downloading an HD movie with your mobile card is about the dumbest thing you can do.