When it was suggested that the WiFi Assist feature on iOS was eating more data than users would like, Apple came forward and reassured its customers that the additional data consumed would be minimal. Maybe that’s true for some, but for a family in San Francisco, they claim to have been severely affected by the feature.
So much so that when they received their phone bill last month, they were shocked (and rightfully so) to see that their bill had amounted to a whopping $2,000 no thanks to data overages. According to the family, their bill typically comes up to around $300 but apparently due to WiFi Assist, it kept eating away at their data without their knowledge.
Apparently this is because their router’s signal did not cover the entire home, meaning that from time to time when the signal became weak, WiFi Assist came in and did its job. The text message that alerts them when they’re approaching their data cap was also not sent to the primary account holder’s device, meaning that he/she did not know they were racking up such a huge bill.
Thankfully AT&T has decided to drop the invoice, but we doubt they will be so willing the next time. Apple has been hit with a couple of class action lawsuits over WiFi Assist. In the meantime if you’d like to avoid bill shock, head on over to Settings, Cellular, scroll to the bottom and disable the feature.