Quebec City Mayor Picks Up More Than CAD$20,000 Tab In Data Roaming Charges

“Bill shock” cases do not come across as shocking anymore these days, and here we are with yet another case which will involve someone of a higher office in life – the mayor of Quebec City, Régis Labeaume, cited ignorance when it comes to the matters of mobile billing, with international roaming in particular, and certainly received the shock of his life when his phone bill pointed to data roaming charges that was in excess of CAD$20,000 after a trip to Rome, Italy.

Apparently, as Labeaume was roaming his way through Rome (pardon the pun) with his iPad that was connected to the local mobile networks for its data fix, it cost him $11,800 in total, Apart from that, he also made use of his Internet connected smartphone, and that bad boy racked up data roaming fees in excess of $8,000. In addition, as he had a vacation in the US in the same year, Labeaume was charged another $2,100 in data charges for using his tablet. He mentioned, “If you ask me why, I do not know. I’m very angry. I do not understand how cellphone companies allows this to happen.”

He claimed that he was unaware of data roaming fees and how it can snowball so fast, citing, “They told me I was using the 3G instead of Wi-Fi. I’m not sure I understand everything.” Do you think that smartphones and tablets ought to be even more explicit before one enables data roaming when you are outside the home country, just to make sure that such cases do not repeat themselves?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Smartphones