AT&T Cellular Unauthorized international roaming charges of about $100 per hour! Nationwide

I spent 83 minutes of conversation with five of ATT&T cell telephone representatives, none of which would waive the inappropriate $294.16 charge on my cellphone for international data transfer that I neither requested nor received any benefit from.

The issue stems from a new phone I activated in March 2015 to take pictures on a mission trip to Guatemala. Unknown to me, the new phone was set to allow roaming. I turned the phone on during two layovers at Mexico airports to utilize only the wifi at the airports.

The charges represent one fourth of the mission trip cost, and did not benefit me in any way. After amassing almost $300 in charges over about 3 hours (that is $100 per hour for no benefit), the company shut down access. The obvious question is, why do they not stop international roaming until the customer requests it? Their answer is the customer has to remember a complicated series of settings to change among the many available each time they near a border or fly into another country, or “we gotcha” (my interpretation).

I cannot believe it is allowed to bill customers for services not requested, and for which there was no benefit. Who pays bills for receiving nothing? If other companies act so outrageously, there are tens of thousands if not millions of dollars being charged via this convenient profit center for unscrupulous companies.

If this is allowed, it should not be. Consumers need protection against these ridiculous charges that are not requested and serve no benefit.