(PCM) Any of us who deal with cell phone data plans know just how expensive those pesky data overage can be, but could you imagine getting charged over $1,000 dollars in data fees?
A traveler by the name of Jeremy Gutsche was on a flight from London to Singapore when at the conclusion of the flight he was hit with the surprise charge for in-flight WiFi in the amount of $1,171 dollars.
Gutsche was sure there had to be some kind of mistake. He admitted that he had signed up for the 30 megabyte Internet plan that was priced at $28.99. He also knew that he would be responsible for any data used above that limit. He was shocked to learn that viewing roughly 155 pages while in flight, mainly checking email and uploading a PowerPoint document had racked him up $1,142 dollars in overage charges.
Gutsche was flying on Singapore Airlines and when he reached out to them in an attempt to rectify the issue he was sadly informed that he is indeed responsible for the full amount of money. The airlines WiFi provider OnAir is based out of Switzerland and claims that their process for purchasing WiFi is totally transparent and passengers are given the opportunity to end their sessions when they reach a certain limit.
OnAir also goes on to say that there is a graphic visible on the screen that allows passengers to view their data consumption at all times. They feel that Gutsche had to be doing something else other than just basic email checking to go that far over the data limit such as access a Cloud or downloading several heavy document attachments.
Either way it was a hard lesson learned for Gutsche and we certainly urge everyone who is going to be on a long flight to be sure to monitor their data usage very carefully.
