AskDong

I made a bit of boo boo on my trip to Europe with respect to my phone usage.  A mistake that might cost me as much as $24.95.   Before I left for Europe, I signed for AT&T Global Traveler Add On for my iPhone.  Data roaming internationally can be ridiculously expensive.   It’s not unheard of someone racking up a couple thousand dollars in charges because he or she doesn’t know better or isn’t careful.

AT&T normally charges  0.0195 $/kb for international data, while the data add on includes a base level of Megabytes (1024 kb to a megabyte), and lower overage rate of .005 $/kb.  Unless one uses less than 1281 kilobytes, an add on package will be markedly cheaper.  Below is comparison of the available data plans, and how the pricing works out.

On the chart, I’ve cut off the Y Axis at $2000, as seen on the table the charges for data can well exceed a couple thousand dollars.  I used about 10 MBs in the course of 9 days abroad.  Without the data plan, it would’ve cost me around $200.  Instead I paid $24.95.  It’s almost a no-brainer to get the data add on if one’s going to use data while traveling internationally.  Having used my iPhone in Europe, I cannot rave enough about how great it is to be able to access google and google maps abroad.  My phone got me out of jam more than once.

Sounds good so far.  I signed up for the data plan before leaving.  I picked the right plan, the smallest data package as I easily stayed under the data limit or so I thought.  The problems?  My billing cycle ended on January 2nd.  I left Europe the morning of January 4th, and I used my phone on January 3rd.  Nor is 20 MBs  always 20 MBs.

AT&T has a particular ways of charging it’s customers.   AT&T bills based on what packages are active at the time of producing the bill, not what packages may or may not be active at the time of the use.  While I believe I can cancel my add on package, the information I’ve found so far is vague enough to warrant some caution.  For travelers who traverse to more exotic locales, it’s a greater risk as it’s possible charges do not make it to AT&T until months later (as much as 3 months according to AT&T).  In addition to having crossed over into another billing cycle, I failed to sign up for the plan early enough.  AT&T prorates the megabytes in a plan according to the date that one signed up.  I signed up on 24th out 30 days in the billing cycle, and as a result I only got 6/30 or 1/5 of the total 20 MBs (4 MBs) free.  This last item, I didn’t realize until I did some research previous to writing this post.  In actuality, I was able to knock off those excess charges because I called customer service earlier today because I didn’t understand why I was getting charged.  The woman I spoke to was kind enough to make an adjustment to my bill.

I’m hardly the only one to be trapped in the quagmire of of AT&T billing, some have ended up with bills in the 5 figures.  International roaming is a cash cow for AT&T.  Individuals at least make an attempt to be careful (which I wasn’t careful enough), and call customer service after the fact if there is a problem.  Many users are corporate users who never ever see a bill.  These are the users that AT&T is likely making a killing off of.

Yesterday, I had a meeting at work with an outside company. There were about 5 us at the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the other company handed us pens and a flash drive! I love freebies, so I was pretty excited. Obviously we were being pitched something.

All I know the last time I purchased a flash drive about 2 years ago, I’m pretty sure I paid easily over $40 for 1 GB. Yesterday, I received half the capacity for less than half the price (free). How much are flash drives these days? The answer, pretty cheap. If anything the branded flash drive I got is even cheaper. The manufacturing is quite shoddy. It’s free, and I can’t seem to find my 1 GB flash drive, so I really shouldn’t complain. Though of course, I have to worry that this might trojan horse USB drive.   In the end I think the pen I got is probably a higher priced item than drive.   To think that USB Drive has about 4000 times more memory than my first computer.   We have come a long way.

The other day I attempted to download my transactions from Yodlee as I do every month. Yodlee is an account aggregation service that I’ve been using for years, and one which I have been very happy with.  I went to clink the “Export Transaction” and it was gone, nowhere to be found.  I didn’t know what was going on.

I contacted Yodlee for the first time ever, and got a response the next day saying that I could only download transactions from only one selected account at a time. I went to the site, and selected an account and found that I could indeed download transaction from one account at a time.  However, given that I use Yodlee to track and aggregate all my accounts, I found this “new” functionality defeated one of the biggest reasons I used Yodlee, the ability to consolidate all my account into one report that I can then import into Excel.

Daunted, I return to Yodlee and sent another message, asking “why they turned off this feature (downloading all transactions) that was critical to my use.” Yodlee responded thus:

“The ‘Export completed transactions’ option in Yodlee MoneyCenter has always been respective to the account selected under ‘Show from’.”

What? Am I imagining this? I know or at least thought I knew that I could export all my completed transactions. Hell I even have spreadsheets with ALL my completed transactions.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t download my transactions account by account and then put them together myself.  I respect Yodlee’s prerogative to change their product given that I’m not paying for it.  I’m tiffed that they’ve removed functionality.  Really, what can I do?  However, I don’t like being told that I don’t know what I thought I knew. Yes, I’m getting on the years. I’ve got back pain. I’m growing hair in unexpected places.  And, admittedly my memory is not what it used to be.  However, I am pretty sure I was able to download all my transactions not so long ago.

Are any other Yodlee users encountering this said same problem?

I own a iPhone. I even stood in line to get it. So this post is going to sound awfully hypocritical, and you know what, it probably is. Except for those slated for sainthood of the world, people tend to fall into camps 1) hypocrites 2) justifiers. I’m more the former than the latter. I was pointed to the following Canadian Ad from Virgin Mobile(some people may consider the ad a bit risque> from the folks at Crackberry.

There are so many things wrong with the ad, and I’m not in the puritan camp. I think it’s ok to show a little skin. Hell, I’m writing this without a shirt - though I guess my shades are drawn and I’m home alone, and Virgin mobile hasn’t offered to film my daily routine, so it’s not really a big deal. Nor is it just because I could be mistaken for being an Apple iPhone fanboy. It’s the grumpy old anti-consumerist in me.

Virgin Mobile targets a younger (often students) and generally speaking more financially constrained crowd. I would know I used to be a Virgin mobile customer. I was on a prepaid plan not too many years ago. Many people on prepaid plans are on them because they don’t have good credit. I wasn’t one of these individuals. I was just trying to be frugal. I hardly use any minutes, so the paying by the minute actually made more financial sense. I switched off that plan when I went to a family plan that made even more economic sense. Now, I’m an iPhone Family plan that’s really not very economic, but quite fun

What Virgin is selling is a lifestyle. Nothing wrong with that lifestyle, but they are marketing a lifestyle knowing full well their target market cannot afford that lifestyle. How many 20 year olds live alone in such swank digs? I know when I was 22 and straight out of college, I lived in a rodent infested apartment with ratty carpets with two other guys. While everyone is responsible for their own actions, it would be naive to believe that we, the Consumerist North Americana, are not a influenced by the images we are constantly shown. I don’t have a problem with the Ads such as this that pitch the high life, I just wish that there was also more counterbalancing images. Maybe they should show the same girl featured in the Ad asking mom and dad for money, or eating ramen noodles?

-Sent from an iPhone

I am moving into my condo in Brookline at the end of the month and have two important questions. I was told by my brother Steve that
you would be the best one to answer them.

1. I need to get cable and internet. I have not decided if i am going to get a land line yet. Any thoughts on who i should use? Comcast seems like the obvious choice.
2. I need to buy a TV. I do not want to spend more than $350 or so. Any suggestions? I am assuming that I should get an HD TV at this point, but am not sure.

Thanks,
Sara

Sara congratulations on the new condo. As for your first question, I think Comcast is OK, but far from the most economic choice. I personally have Dishnetwork and have found it more affordable. Of course the drawback is that you need to install a satellite dish, something that many condo associations do not allow. In addition to satellite providers like Dishnetwork and DirectTV, Brookline is also serviced in some areas by RCN.

The satellite providers are almost always cheaper than the cable providers. Doing some quick digging, I found the following. The basic packages at Dishnetwork and DirectTV start at $24.95 and $29.95 for a basic package with local channels. Comcast start at $29.95 for only the first 6 months and only if order on the web. I couldn’t find an offer for RCN without entering a valid address.

The real advantage of going with a cable provider versus a satellite provider is the ability to get bundled Internet services, often at a discounted rate. In the same way if you’re lucky enough to live in area that offers Verizon FIOS service, you have another option for bundled internet, cable, and phone service. The rub with all these bundled services is that the best deal often forces you to get a phone line as well. Landlines are so 1980. I think if you can avoid it, forgo the landline. That said, there are still some very good offers for bundled service that only include cable and internet.

• Verizon Fios: $96 for HD Cable and FIOS Internet
• Comcast: $78 for HD Cable and Internet for 12 Months
• RCN: $75 for Cable and Phone and High Speed Internet

Non Bundled HD Cable Packages

1. Dishnetwork: $30 for HD Cable (TurboHD Bronze)
2. DirectTV: $40 for the Family Package plus HD
3. Comcast: $40 for the Digital Starter Package and HD

The key with many of these offers is that they are only available to new customers, or every X months. Financially it often makes sense to switch providers every two years. I’m looking at making switch myself. Also some of these offers are only available through the web. Installation and hardware charges will vary depending on what you need. For instance a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) is usually at least $5 extra month.

TV
For $350 you can get a number of quality high definition televisions, though not very many bigger than 22 inches. Personally I think it’s worth potentially spending the extra money to get a flat screen TV that’s 26 inches or larger if it’s going to primary television for the living room. I’ve been very happy with my Vizio, and Costco has a 22″ model for $349. The next size up for the Vizio is 32 inches and $600. I do feel that that 26 inches is really the minimum size that should be considered for high definition television for the main living space. A HD TV of the same inch measurements is actually smaller than a standard television of the same size because of the aspect ratio(16:9 vs 3:4). For example a 25 inch standard TV has 300 square inches of viewing space, while 26 inch HD TV only has 288 square inches despite the larger diagonal measurement.