Cingular cell phones beware!

I sailed on the AOS for Thanksgiving week (southern Caribbean) with my husdband and two boys (14 and 16). We have a really wonderful time....

Today I got my cell phone bill. We have Cingular, and my 16 year old son apparently had some really great chats with his girlfriend back in the US to the tune of $600! He says that he did nothing special! When we boarded the boat in Puerto Rico, he thought it was really cool that his phone was working!

Does anyone know how this could happen? I read some posts stating that you had to call Cingular and have international roaming turned on.. (which I would never do for a child!). I never saw anything on the cruise about using cell phones, and any costs associated with them while out to sea! This looks like a huge scam to me!

Any suggestions for how to get Cingular to drop the charges? Has this happened to anyone else and were you successful at getting the charges dropped??

Why is your thread titled "Cingular Cell Phones Beware" :confused: :rolleyes:

How about "teenager with Cell Phone Beware" :eek: Yes, for him it was "very cool" to still be able to use his phone, however I believe Cingular has towers(??) on all RCI ships.

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Buyer Beware!!! Cingular is very clear that it charges roaming for international calls. Even if you get an international plan you still pay. We had a very large cingular bill after our Navigator trip with our two teens. A call from me to our daughters phone on ship was $1.99 just for one minute. Imagine a call from your son for an extended period of time back home to his girl. It adds up. Buyer beware! Live and learn.

I think international roaming is automatic on Cingular phones that have that capability. I've never "activated" it on my phone - it just came that way. We had to get DH's phone un-blocked - for some reason he could receive in Mexico but not make calls.

I think that Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are considered domestic, BTW, and I've read here that the Cingular towers are turned off while the ship is in port - otherwise anybody on the pier using his or her phone might end up routed through the ship's tower and pay $1.99/minute or more. But once you're out of range, the ship's towers take over, or once you're in a foreign country, the rates for that country will apply.

I wouldn't call it a scam - why would you or your son think that the calls would be part of your domestic plan?

All you needed to do was go to Cingular's website, pull up the Travel Guide and select Royal Caribbean and it would have told you the cost per minute and what service you would've had. The information is out there.

Personally I think it was naive to assume that the cost would be the same as in the US. Why did you let your son have his cell phone with him if you didn't want him to use it?

I sailed on the AOS for Thanksgiving week (southern Caribbean) with my husdband and two boys (14 and 16). We have a really wonderful time....

 

Today I got my cell phone bill. We have Cingular, and my 16 year old son apparently had some really great chats with his girlfriend back in the US to the tune of $600! He says that he did nothing special! :confused: When we boarded the boat in Puerto Rico, he thought it was really cool that his phone was working!

 

Does anyone know how this could happen? :rolleyes: I read some posts stating that you had to call Cingular and have international roaming turned on.. (which I would never do for a child!). I never saw anything on the cruise about using cell phones, and any costs associated with them while out to sea! This looks like a huge scam to me!

 

Any suggestions for how to get Cingular to drop the charges? Has this happened to anyone else and were you successful at getting the charges dropped??

:confused: :confused: :confused:

I thought "Cingular at Sea" is $2.95/minute. Not that we had any reason to find out. We saw that we were getting Cingular service and shut the phones off after we satisfied our curiousity. :)

I don't understand how this could be considered a scam. It's the buyers/consumers responsibility to be be aware of the different roaming charges/services available while at sea. The last time I was on a cruise I called cingular before to find out the charges while at sea, and they warned me that if I made a call in close proximity to the ships towers I would be charged that rate, even if I was docked in a port. (He was funny....he said that if I didn't want to get charged an arm and a leg for calls, get as far away from the ship as possible!) Bet your tush I turned my cell off the second I got onboard!

You can't just play dumb and expect cingular to have sympathy for you. Sorry.

Laura

a tip from a mom of three young men...

DON"T give them a cell phone at all on a ship......yikes! (this is a recipe for disaster)

You might call Cingular but I would seriously doubt they will drop any of the charges. I would tell my son to find a job or items to ebay to PAY for this nice $600 phone bill (this is what I would do if this were my child...and I hadn't choked him as of yet). I would make this his responsibilty to pay for it no matter what he had to sell.

best of luck,

Esmerelda

It's not a scam, but a service...and a pretty reasonably priced one when you compare it to the $7.95 per minute charge if he had used the cabin phone. It never dawned on your 16 year old son that this "really cool" thing just might cost a bit more on a ship? :)

......Today I got my cell phone bill. We have Cingular, and my 16 year old son apparently had some really great chats with his girlfriend back in the US to the tune of $600! He says that he did nothing special! When we boarded the boat in Puerto Rico, he thought it was really cool that his phone was working!

 

Does anyone know how this could happen? I read some posts stating that you had to call Cingular and have international roaming turned on.. (which I would never do for a child!). I never saw anything on the cruise about using cell phones, and any costs associated with them while out to sea! This looks like a huge scam to me!

 

Any suggestions for how to get Cingular to drop the charges? Has this happened to anyone else and were you successful at getting the charges dropped??

I am lost for words. Rather than have your son take responsibility, you are looking for ... how can I get the charges dropped..... why didn't they warn me ...... I never saw anything on the cruise.........I thought I had to have something turned on...... Is this a scam......

Little sympathy here. Chalk it up to a hard lesson. I would think a 16 year old should know what the parameters are for the use of a cell phone if he is old enough and responsible enough to have one. He should at least be mature enough if he did not know, to ask.......

Show him an example and you take responsibility.

I am lost for words. Rather than have your son take responsibility, you are looking for ... how can I get the charges dropped..... why didn't they warn me ...... I never saw anything on the cruise.........I thought I had to have something turned on...... Is this a scam......

 

Little sympathy here. Chalk it up to a hard lesson. I would think a 16 year old should know what the parameters are for the use of a cell phone if he is old enough and responsible enough to have one. He should at least be mature enough if he did not know, to ask.......

 

Show him an example and you take responsibility.

Or...show him responsibility and make HIM pay the bill.

I agree with the above posters, make him pay the phone bill. I have always told my teenager that she is NOT to use the phone when we were on the ship or at ports or it is her bill.

I think cell phones have become annoying. They are good for an emergency but other than that should not be used in public.

I am lost for words. Rather than have your son take responsibility, you are looking for ... how can I get the charges dropped..... why didn't they warn me ...... I never saw anything on the cruise.........I thought I had to have something turned on...... Is this a scam......

 

Little sympathy here. Chalk it up to a hard lesson. I would think a 16 year old should know what the parameters are for the use of a cell phone if he is old enough and responsible enough to have one. He should at least be mature enough if he did not know, to ask.......

 

Show him an example and you take responsibility.

Love It

$600/$2.99 = 203 minutes of talk time. Probably not to unusual for a teenage boy talking to a girl. I wonder what the cost is for test messaging, which seems to be the big thing amongst teens right now. I know our 23 year old step daughter had no problems running up hundreds of texts per month. She couldn't understand why her cell bills were so high. I took a look at them and found she was texting at a phenominal rate at a cost of 10 cents per minute. She could easily run up 1,000 text messages a month and that's just chatting with friends. Not a teenager in love situation which, I bet could ring up a lot more texts.

Sorry, no advice on how to get the charges dropped. Your family ran up the bill and you've learned an expensive lesson. Don't use your cell phone out of the service area and know what that service area is. If you're not certain, then don't use the phone.

i agree with Esmerelda---he really needs to take responsibilty for this. he made the calls. ebay is a wonderful way to "raise" the money, plus he is learning accountibilty. whether he "knew" or not, it is still his responsibility.

i have a 16 y/o son, i know alllllllll about cellphone charges.:eek:

i wish you the best of luck here...let him learn his life lesson...you are doing him a great disservice if you "take care of it". i am sure he is a sweet kid and i hope his girlfriend appreciated his call, LOL:)

happy sailing and happy dialing folks!!!:p

Well it's not a Cingular thing but I do have Cingular and depending on the plan there may or may not be charges in some of the islands. My plan allows me to call from San Juan and St. Thomas and there are no roaming or long distance fees but if I use it on the ship, then yes I pay. The responsibility here is with your son and not the ship. He should have been told not to use the phone period. As someone else posted above, you need to take the responsibility on this with your son. I don't see where the cell phone company should drop the charges either. He made the calls so let him pay. It's not a scam.

of all his belingings that will be sold to pay the bill. He will learn a tough lesson, but he will grow from it. You can call Cingular for a listing of all calls on that bill. It will show when, how long & from what area. That goes to the son to pay immediately and he has no phone til he pays it.

You can't pleed not knowing on this... it's very common knowledge that if you use your cell phone even the next state over there is a roaming charge, if you don't have one you have a special plan... right? Well the same applies out of the US but more so just like your home phone! You have to have known and your son at 16 knows too, you can't convince me he's a phone idiot and didn't know that his phone was roaming, he's a kid and they know everything their phone is doing!

He should get a job if he doesn't have one and pay the bill.

I guess I will disagree here and say 'who is the adult here?' The kid used his phone just like he always does, the parent should have said it is very expensive to use your phone while were out of the country and had him shut it off. Why would a kid know the high cost, they have the phone they use it, it is usually the parent paying the bill and the kid not worrying about the cost.

Perhaps if the kid knew the cost he would have made a couple of short calls and otherwise use the internet.

I say split the bill and each pay half. A lesson learned by both. Our phones stay locked in the safe till we get back to USA port.

Bev

I am amazed at how this could be called a scam! Children and parents both need to be responsible.By giving him the phone he assumed the responsibility and by purchasing the phone you assumed responsibility for paying the bill.How its get done is your business but do not put the blame on someone else!

As far as roaming you can get certain international packages that save you a little but not much.We activate it with cingular when we go on cruises and when we go to Mexico.Considering the calls we make its worth it but not for everyone!

Sorry for your bad experience but as everyone has stated LIVE AND LEARN!

I agree with the other posters on this one. Also, I feel you should bear some of the blame. You knew you were leaving the continental US. Why did you not check out your cell phone providers web site or call them about consequences of using a cell phone on your cruise?

I went to cingular's home page and typed in cruise in the search box. It too me right to a page where all the cruise ships they service were listed. I clicked on the AOS and got this:

http://www.cingular.com/travelguide/coverage/coverage_details.jsp?CIDL=1520&MNC=380

OP, here's the big flick for the phone. Cingular works on all RCL ships, because they have Cingular at Sea towers operated by MTN/Cingular onboard. Now, IF YOU WANT the lower roaming rates, you have to specifically turn on the International Roaming by telling Cingular that YOU want it turned on. If you do that, the rate is $2.49/minute onboard ship. http://www.cingular.com/learn/international/roaming/international-roaming.jsp is the Cingular website, and if you click on country and scroll down to the Royal Caribbean ships, it will show you that the rate is $2.49/min on all RCL ships, provided you have the international roaming turned on as per the paragraph on Getting Started. As someone else mentioned, when you're out of the U. S., a text message is no longer free, it's $0.20 to send, and $0.10 to receive. Lord only knows how much it costs to send pictures, or receive them if he was doing that.

Sorry, no advice on getting them to lower, much less cancel the charges. Satellite time is very, very expensive, as evidenced by you $600 bill. Sorry, but the boy got you into this one, you're going to have to suck it up, be responsible this time and pay it, and figure out how to make the boy pay it back and be responsible next time.

I agree with all of the previous statements that say you and your son need to take responsibility for the bill. Cingular did nothing wrong except provide you with a service. It's up to you to understand the terms. Pay the bill and STOP trying to pass the buck.