Tag: BILLS

They pale in comparison to the teen with the $21,000 Verizon bill, but brother and sister Sam, 13, and Sarah Ivanhoe, 11, while on vacation to the Dead Sea with their mom, amassed a cell phone bill that cost nearly as much as their trip. According to My Fox Houston, Cindy, who pays for her kids' phones, received a bill totaling more than $9,700 from Verizon Wireless upon returning home to ...

Well, this should delight anybody who has a cell phone and likes to have money (i.e., most everybody). According to The New York Times, the Federal Communications Commission has apparently outlined a plan that would require cell phone providers to warn us of the wacky charges they're piling on us when we unwittingly exceed our plans. The plan was spearheaded by the FCC's chief of Consumer and ...

If at all possible, we here at Switched avoid making trips to the bank; on the fun-meter, the visits rank right up there with going to the dentist. Long lines, annoying forms, and rude tellers waiting for us once we walk in the door tend to be the normal experience, and it appears we aren't the only folks that feel this way, either. CNET News writes of a recent survey by the Gartner Group that ...

With story after story of outrageous cell phone bills, you'd think people would know better. But with online bill payment services, we often only give a quick glance to our statements, enter our credit card information, and never give it a second thought. After reading about the recent troubles of one California man, though, we'll be sure to look a little closer next time we pay our cell phone ...

Next time you are traveling abroad and feel the need to download a movie, you may want to think twice. If you don't believe us, just listen to the sad story of this man that called into CNN to chat with Financial Expert Clark Howard. The caller, whose name is Alberto, was on a trip to Mexico when, as a gift for his nephew, he downloaded the film 'Wall-E' to his computer. Alberto, who used a ...

A Bristol, Virginia man didn't get angry when his electric company screwed him; he just decided to return the favor. John Almany was shocked when his monthly electric bill from Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU) jumped to $350, but Almany, being the upstanding citizen that he is, decided to pay every cent. Accompanied by a friend/accomplice, Almany visited several banks and proceeded to exchange ...

It's no surprise that Americans are overpaying for cellular service, but you may be disturbed to learn exactly how much cash you're actually coughing up per minute of air time. A new study from the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN) estimates that people are paying an average of $3.02 per minute of actual talk time. Of course, that average is skewed by a relatively small percentage of ...

Last week at CES, 4Home Inc. showed off its new 4Home Energy system that lets you track and control the amount of heat and electricity used by any device in your home. The outlet modules and thermostat all report back to a base unit which can be accessed via a Web browser. From there, consumers can see not only broad energy use reports, but can drill down and see how much electricity a ...

We in America get up in arms every time we hear about a waste of taxpayer dollars or abuses by public servants. It seems that Australia is trying to upstage the States when it comes to ethically questionable behavior from public employees. According to the Northern Territory News, an unidentified public servant, who has since left his post, racked up a $200,000 ($135,380 in U.S. dollars) mobile ...

Poor libraries -- they just want to fill our kids' heads with porn and violence. Is that so wrong? First, libraries were forced to start filtering out obscene content in 2000. Then came the Patriot Act, which granted the government the right to examine the books you checked out and the sites you visited on a library's public computers. Now, lawmakers are trying to ban children from accessing ...

We've covered a number of stories about crazy cell phone bills. Usually they're due to misunderstandings about what's included in "unlimited" data plans or frequent travelers making a few too many calls while overseas. This one, though, had nothing to do with the user. At fault was the cell phone, which sent 4,700 text messages in one night. A woman in China set down her supposedly high-end ...

If you have a cell phone (and we're pretty sure you do), have you thought about giving up your land line (a.k.a. a traditional phone that plugs into the wall)? Maybe you've already ditched your old talker. If you haven't, consider how much you spend on your cell phone plan versus your land line. If you're like us, you've either totally given up on a wired line to your home, or the bills from ...