phone bill!!!!!!!!

Cp3094

My husband is currently deployed. We added the international plan for an extra 100$ a month. We also pay for a personal hotspot for him to have over there. We talk everyday and he uses WiFi calling so we wont get charged extra. I’d love to know why my bill went from 250$ to 960$! Last month. And then I find out it’s 1275$ this month!!! This is beyond ridiculous!!! I’m beyond infuriated!! What do I do about this?

SynthpopAddict

Ouch. The International Service Plan has a voice minutes cap of 250 minutes with a 0.25/minute charge for overage and a data cap of 20 gigs, after which data runs at 3G speeds for the rest of the month if cellular service is on. If your husband was using WiFi calling (which runs over the internet and thus uses data), I think what happened was that the foreign ISP then passed all data charges through to Verizon because the cellular plan with the international service was not being utilized. Using WiFi overseas is not free, because the ISP can tell by the IP address of the device that it's not a local device and therefore whomever is using said device is not a taxpaying citizen of that country, so then you end up paying the Pay As You Go rates for international roaming.

Unless the country your husband is currently in is not included in the International Plan coverage map, I would suggest he leave his phone on cellular service. This is going to limit the amount of usage, but I can't see a way around it without having to pay a huge phone bill.

P.S. - I don't know how the hotspot usage is getting billed. You could be racking up international roaming fees on the hotspot too.