As it turned out, she said, the break from T-Mobile only applied to voice calls from her mobile phone. The texts she sent to family members in the United States -- telling them she had lived through the earthquake, which killed 220,000 people -- and the Facebook messages she sent to friends for similar reasons were not covered.
"I would be OK to pay for it if everything was disclosed, and I knew upfront that, if I used this part of the service [data and texts], I would be charged," she said, noting that text messages could be sent and received in the aftermath of the disaster when voice calls would not go through. "But I did not know."
A T-Mobile spokeswoman said customers in Haiti generally were made aware that the free plan only covered voice calls. The company has since forgiven some of Pierre's debt, but she says she still owes about $5,000.
Stories such as Pierre's are part of the reason the U.S. Federal Communications Commission this week plans to propose rules to prevent mobile phone "bill shock," a term that refers to bills that are higher than usual because of unanticipated fees and overage charges.
The rules will be discussed Thursday at an FCC meeting and then opened to public comment. After the comment period ends, the commissioners would have to vote on the proposed rules before they could become law.
The proposal will include requirements that mobile phone companies alert customers if they are about to rack up abnormal fees, such as those charged for sending too many text messages or downloading too much data. The alerts, which could be sent via text messages or voice mail, would allow consumers to stop sending texts or using the mobile internet before they incurred unexpected fees, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
Kerfye Pierre had recently returned from volunteering in the aftermath of January's Haiti earthquake when she got the most outrageous mobile phone bill of her life.
The tab? Nearly $35,000.
"I was like, 'That cannot be possible,' " the 27-year-old Washington woman said of the moment she saw that staggering monthly statement from T-Mobile. "And I called them and they were like, 'Yeah, that's your bill.' "
To make matters worse, Pierre said, T-Mobile had agreed to grant her and other people in Haiti a temporary free voice plan. As she understood it, the plan would let her use her mobile phone for free while she was working in the country, setting up day camps for kids and distributing water to victims of the quake.
As it turned out, she said, the break from T-Mobile only applied to voice calls from her mobile phone. The texts she sent to family members in the United States -- telling them she had lived through the earthquake, which killed 220,000 people -- and the Facebook messages she sent to friends for similar reasons were not covered.
"I would be OK to pay for it if everything was disclosed, and I knew upfront that, if I used this part of the service [data and texts], I would be charged," she said, noting that text messages could be sent and received in the aftermath of the disaster when voice calls would not go through. "But I did not know."
A T-Mobile spokeswoman said customers in Haiti generally were made aware that the free plan only covered voice calls. The company has since forgiven some of Pierre's debt, but she says she still owes about $5,000.
Stories such as Pierre's are part of the reason the U.S. Federal Communications Commission this week plans to propose rules to prevent mobile phone "bill shock," a term that refers to bills that are higher than usual because of unanticipated fees and overage charges.
The rules will be discussed Thursday at an FCC meeting and then opened to public comment. After the comment period ends, the commissioners would have to vote on the proposed rules before they could become law.
The proposal will include requirements that mobile phone companies alert customers if they are about to rack up abnormal fees, such as those charged for sending too many text messages or downloading too much data. The alerts, which could be sent via text messages or voice mail, would allow consumers to stop sending texts or using the mobile internet before they incurred unexpected fees, said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
