Grandfather Racks Up $11,000 Roaming Bill After Letting Family Watch Netflix Movies On Vacation

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Mr. Vicious

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Most of us have been surprised at least once by our phone or internet bill after spending more time on our devices than usual or using them abroad. (Daily Mail by MARK DUELL and ELLEN CONNOLLY)

But spare a thought for John Gibson, who picked up a bill for $11,000 after his two grandchildren watched five films via Netflix on his laptop on holiday.

But spare a thought for John Gibson, who picked up a bill for $11,000 after his two grandchildren watched five films via Netflix on his laptop on holiday.

Mr Gibson, of Saskatchewan, Canada, took his son and grandchildren to Phoenix, Arizona, where they incurred huge data roaming charges.

‘Small children like to watch movies,’ Mr Gibson told CBC News. ‘They’d watch a movie in the afternoon and I saw them doing it.

‘The kids were getting bored,’ his son Jason Gibson added. ‘So we decided to watch Netflix on my air-card on my laptop.’

The children watched films including Shrek, Spider-Man and Curious George, but had no idea they were racking up astonishing roaming bills.

Communications provider SaskTel has U.S. roaming charges of $6/MB and the films took up about 400MB each, reported the Estevan Mercury.

The grandchildren, Jayden and Sawyer, watched the films on a laptop with a mobile stick. But Jason Gibson did not know about the roaming charges.

John Gibson first received the bill for $10,668.38 and called SaskTel to sort it out.

They agreed to knock off $9,600, reported CBC News.

‘Old guys like me just aren’t up to speed on technology and what these things are capable of doing (without) you even realising,’ John Gibson told CBC News.

John Gibson said he will pay the remaining $1,000 balance from January and will take the whole experience as a ‘lesson learned’.

‘It’s an excellent little trap,’ John Gibson told the Estevan Mercury. (But) they were pretty good about it. I told her what happened.’

He said the average person in his hometown of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, would need a big loan to pay off the original bill from SaskTel.

On-demand service Netflix has more than 23 million members who stream films worldwide and charges around $7.99 per month.