I recently used Singapore Airlines to fly to Asia and I used their internet service. It was very clear what the charges were, $10 for 10 MB of internet access, and $0.15 per 100 KB overage. I even took a picture of it because I was shocked at how expensive it was, but it was very clear what the price was.
The author apparently didn't care to read the very clear instructions, and didn't monitor his usage, which the connection also provided. If he was charged $1200, that's more than 500MB of data usage, so he clearly was doing a lot more than uploading a 4MB file and 155 page views.
While I certainly question a system that allows a person to run up such a steep tab in the first place, this story smells.
>"So what does it take to rack up $1200 of internet use? In my case, just 155 page views, mostly to my email."
Looking at SA per MB pricing [1] you'd need to pull down just shy of 1.2GB to be charged that much - 7.5MB per "page view". Personally, my Gmail and Outlook Inbox are a few hundred K each.
So maybe the author just doesn't know what he's talking about? according to his bio [2]...
>"Today, I design and code Trend Hunter until 4am because I like it."
It would seem likely that statement is an exaggeration, the one about the number of page views is disingenuous or both.
Either way, the author loses credibility.
In any case, the author is apparently the globe trotting, baja racing, "rule breaking", former banker son of a VC [2] - he can surely afford to pay for - at best - failing to pay attention to the terms.
Emirates charge $25/100MB[0] which is their "heavy" plan. The fact a user can get charged this insane amount after the fact is a little bit off, isn't it?
In the past SA have ran promotions at unlimited data for $25[1]. How does something like this happen? They know most customers won't complain if they go a bit over and get charged a hefty fee.
Prepaid I think would be the way to go ethically, but not putting a bar on the connection or warning seems scummy to me.
Even so, are users expected to count bytes on their own? Is a $1000 bill considered typical? If not, how about a little popup alert when you blow through the included bytes. Maybe an Are you sure? prompt somewhere around $100?
I recently used Singapore Airlines to fly to Asia and I used their internet service. It was very clear what the charges were, $10 for 10 MB of internet access, and $0.15 per 100 KB overage. I even took a picture of it because I was shocked at how expensive it was, but it was very clear what the price was.
The author apparently didn't care to read the very clear instructions, and didn't monitor his usage, which the connection also provided. If he was charged $1200, that's more than 500MB of data usage, so he clearly was doing a lot more than uploading a 4MB file and 155 page views.