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rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow

Member

[Pricing] 77 Year Old Man Receives $3,000 Mifi Bill!

Can someone please help? Our 77 year old Dad received a bill for over $3,000 - for his Mifi. I get the bills here, and I know he does nothing more than read an occasional email. We have been unsuccessful in getting help from Billing. Initially we were told it was just a "glitch", but then received another bill. What can we do? It is either a billing error or his router was hacked.

Thanks!
Zach
Premium Member
join:2006-11-26
Llano, CA

Zach

Premium Member

I would start with asking for written (hard printout) detailed data usage logs. They'll claim they can't supply you with them but with enough escalation through the CSR ranks, their screw up will simply disappear and your billing will return to normal. We keep a close eye on old VZW and their data metering practices. They know damn good and well their system screws people and has long before metering the Internet without any meaningful method of limiting one's exposure became the greatest new way to rip customers off fill shareholder's pockets.
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow

Member

Zach, you are an angel. Will do!
rosiemeow

rosiemeow to Zach

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to Zach
Preview:
Anon
Re: [Pricing] 77 Year Old Man Receives $3,000 Mifi Bill!
Zach, thank you so much for your response. I did get a printout from Verizon - went down to one of their stores and a lovely young lady named Angela got that as well as some additional info. My question is - is it even possible for one person to stream that much data in such a short time? Or could it have been accessed by multiple devices? Verizon is telling me the passwords on those routers are complex (but I havent seen what it was yet) and not likely hacked, although remotely possible.

Each of the instances of data transfers runs from 1 - 6 G of data all during the day, for a total of 186G in one month.

rosiemeow

rosiemeow

Member

Zach, would playing Candy Crush on Facebook do this? Is that possible?
rosiemeow

rosiemeow

Member

We got the usage report from Verizon today - each of the data transfers were 19 minutes. What could this have been? A failed update? Malware or something? The NSA?

weaseled386
join:2008-04-13
Edgewater, FL

weaseled386 to rosiemeow

Member

to rosiemeow
I have a mifi, and I know it will host up to five devices. As for passwords my default was 8 digits -- a random mixture of letters and numbers. IE: c2bx9p3z. I changed it to include a few special characters: !?_* etc.

You need to ensure his computer isn't infected with some form of crap, and also ensure his OS (and all other programs on his PC) are not scheduled for auto updates. I've ran into issues where Vista would download SP1 over and over and over. The PC was old, and I never figured out its cause. I know many Dell computers come with online backup software. Ensure that is disabled, not installed, whatever.

You need to face the fact that there is a 50% chance that this is a legit bill. My opinion is it should shut off at its cap, but -- since it cuts into their cash flow -- it'll never happen. My dad is 69, and I've had to disinfect his computer several times. Mostly due to junk he has opened up in email. Thankfully our local cableco doesn't impose caps.
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow

Member

Thank you for your response - it is much appreciated! Yeah, I'm open to the fact it may very well be legit and that's what we're trying to determine. But now I'm told he was only accessing it with his iPad. Forgive me - he's 1,000 miles away from me and there's a little delay gathering facts. I'm trying to determine whether he kept it powered on continuously, which I tend to doubt very much.

We're hoping to get from Verizon the originating IP where this data was transferred to/from. For "some reason" they seem to be very cooperative today.

When this MiFi account was opened last year, they were told they could not get an unlimited data plan.

compuguybna
join:2009-06-17
Nashville, TN

compuguybna to rosiemeow

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to rosiemeow
186GB streamed on a slow 3G network.... WOW!
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow

Member

Exactly! Tell me about it! Without their knowledge. Since it appears all the incidents were 19 minutes it would be some type of failed software update? They tried just turning on the device today with nothing connecting to it, and no data transfers. Tomorrow they're going to connect his iPad to it to see if anything changes.

But can't Verizon simply tell them the IP address of originating/destination IPs?

All default settings did not enable logging of any kind. They've now enabled it to see if anything changes.
kevnich24
join:2006-04-19
Mulberry, FL

kevnich24 to compuguybna

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to compuguybna
Where does it mention this was a 3G hotspot? I don't think 3G would even be able to hit that much. 4g definitely could but I don't think it'd be updates. It would be video streaming, File sharing, things like that but the mifi would have to be on a lot of the time.
dmc271
join:2008-09-02
Stillwater, OK

dmc271 to rosiemeow

Member

to rosiemeow
Regardless of the usage, I would suggest you ask the customer service rep for a one-time courtesy waive of the bill. If you're persistent (and this might take multiple calls to get the right rep), they should at least waive part of the bill.
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow to kevnich24

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to kevnich24
Kevnich24 thank you for your input. I'm sorry I should have specified it is MiFi – 4G LTE - 4510L. As I understand it he'd left the MiFi device on continually, but I'm still trying to ascertain if he also left the iPad on continually as well. I do not believe he did.
rosiemeow

rosiemeow to dmc271

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to dmc271
DMC271 thanks for the suggestion. We have tried this but they are unwilling to budge at this point. So far we've spoken to maybe 4 reps. What they did offer was if we paid it, once they investigated it if they find it was unwarranted, they would refund the overage amount. We do have to return the device, but first we're trying to look at it to see what it's doing now, before we send it back.
kbriss42
join:2013-06-17
Church Point, LA

kbriss42 to rosiemeow

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to rosiemeow
We got hit with a 2,000 bill. The rep didn't know much about home fusion and misrepresented it to me. I have 5 lines with Verizon for my wife, myself,and three teenagers. Well we were under impression that it was like wifi and its not. Plus we have two smart TV's that that cycles updates. I have been trying to do the right thing and pay with payment agreements because its ties to our cell share all data plan and I have been dropping 6-700dollars a month with 100 dollar payments in between but every month my new bill is added along with reconnect fees. Going to sleep but when I wake I assure u I have had enough and going to let robin Roberts on gma know how Verizon is taking advantage of rural areas I tried to get out if hole but they keep increasing the size of the hole!!!! At first I was like its our mistake so I will just keep payment arrangements,but the more I think about it it's like they should know that nobody in their right mind runs up a 2000 bill on equipment that was being tested in our area. It's like a good looking woman dressed very revealing and a man saying she was asking to be raped and I had a right to do it because of the way she was dressed. I feel like I have been raped and blaming myself. We are in rural area and century link is very slow so the Verizon rep hyped up this home fusion to be the cure to the rural mans plight. I am a Christ follower but am soooo angry. Pray for me y'all because in a few hours y'all will know my name. Because I will go to abc morning news with George and robin. Just call me KB from Louisiana!

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to rosiemeow

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to rosiemeow
"But can't Verizon simply tell them the IP address of originating/destination IPs?"

They won't be able to see the source IP on his side of the MiFi and I highly doubt they are logging the destination IP. I don't think any provider is going to dedicate the resources needed to keep this kind of detailed record keeping unless they are ordered to by the government.
ractar
join:2013-06-03
Henderson, TN

ractar to rosiemeow

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to rosiemeow
19 minutes? Netflix "30 minute" shows are usually 23 mins, with 4 mins of buffering, could it be that dad's been going crazy on Netflix?
ArizonaSteve
join:2004-01-31
Apache Junction, AZ

ArizonaSteve

Member

If someone down loads a movie using bittorrent, Navi-x or whatever each one uses about 1Gb and would probably take 19 minutes or so depending on connection speed so it looks like someone downloaded 186 movies!
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow to ractar

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to ractar
Thanks for the response! Nah, he plays golf all day long - and he goes to bed early - lots of these were in the middle of the night!

milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

By any chance was it always at about 3 AM? That's the default setting for automatic Windows Updates.
rosiemeow
join:2004-08-07
Louisville, KY

rosiemeow

Member

There are various times, day and night and they just seem to be random - morning noon and night. I did attach a copy of part of the report in a thread above. We'd thought of the possibility of a Windows update as well but he only was using an iPad.

milnoc
join:2001-03-05
Ottawa

milnoc

Member

Is there a router? Can you see if the logging is active? And which client machines are connected to it? Are there any machines names you don't recognize?