I was just billed $250 on my phone statement for "roaming" charges when I travelled in Israel. I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but you barely have to touch the top right corner of a Droid Incredible before it turns on again. So my lovely phone turned on by itself in my bag, auto-updated, and charged me $250 for it.
I made no calls, received one text that was backlogged and when I called Verizon Wireless I was told that I
(1) should have left my phone in the US. Oh yes, because I never need my phone when I land to do things like arrange to be picked up from the airport.
(2) should have taken the battery out to make sure it wouldn't turn on... you can't take the battery out of an Incredible.
(3) should have actually left the phone on the entire time but in Airplane mode. ... Oh right, like I would have thought to constantly have my phone on in a country that I didn't have a dataplan for, didn't want to use it on and oh wait, if I had accidentally let it lose power, it would have rebooted when I charged it and, not remembering it was in Airplane mode, cost me $250 of roaming charges before I could switch it back to Airplane mode. Oh yes, that was the first thing I thought of.
(4) should have bought an international phone plan for $60... just in case my phone decided to turn on and update itself on Israeli phone towers of its own accord.
Now, after an hour on the phone with customer service they've very kindly agreed to only charge me the $60 for the phone plan, even though they acknowledge that I made no phone calls, sent no texts, did nothing on the phone, and could, in no way, have stopped the phone from updating itself after something tapped the top right corner. Thanks so much. Glad the poor design of the phone you built only cost me $60. Oh, but don't try to make that point: that's HTC or the Android system fault, and clearly no reflection on Verizon Wireless who endorses them. Cheers!
