Deceased Malayan hit with $218 trillion mobile bill What otherworldly ectoplasms lurk in the oblivion of such an unholy place as accounts receivable? A Malaysian man who paid off a $23 wireless bill and disconnected his late father's cell phone back in January has been stiffed for subsequent charges on the closed account, MSNBC has reported. Telekom Malaysia sent Yahaya Wahab a …
Rather than comparing the number to GDPs, it's more fun to point out just how stupid this number is.
There are 223 x 24 x 60 = 321,120 minutes in the year so far (January 1, 2007 through August 11, 2007 inclusive, so I'm being generous).
At $5 per minute for ALL minutes, 24 hours per day, 7 days a week that's a $1,605,600 per phone phone bill. Even on a sliding scale where early minutes are cheap and later ones are sky-high, I think $5/minute is still almost certainly greater than the maximum.
So let's see, $218 trillion/$1.6 million = 135,774,887 phones.
So the poor dead man must have had almost 136 million people using his phone!
Look alive, people! The dead are calling us! And they're racking up roaming charges!
Joe
I'm just waiting for the ad campaign that says you can save trillions of dollars by using a different service and payment plan - no doubt via direct debit of course.
Of course being able to contact living and deceased relatives do come at a higher premium, especially as all those bead curtains and candles can be expensive.
I suppose this is what happens when you use a faulty non checked automated process.
This reminds me of a situation that arose after my Father's death. I started receiving collection notices from some firm on behalf of the (then and still) defunct and out-of-business Montgomery Ward's department store. After some initial consternation, I decided to let it go, and see if a company that didn't exist any more could meet with any success collecting money from a person that didn't either. I viewed it as an interesting experiment. After several increasingly threatening notices, the problem went away on its own.
right roll with me here
he's dead yeah..died of old age so we're gonna assume he was a good guy so he went to heaven
they say in heaven all you have to do is think of something and its done
...he thinks about cloning his phone for all his new ghostie buddies
clones it for nearly everyone in heaven, they all have a bash at calling each other, voila, 727 billion hours of call time used in a few hours =)
Burke Hansen, this applies to you. msnbc published this news on April 10, 2006. Why did it take exactly around close to somewhat of approximately one year to reach you, finally, in some place called SF; and then to show in ElReg ?
Is it slow news day today ?
... Maybe, He thought to himself when he sadly passed "what joke can i pull to get me in the news and have everyone talking about it now im dead"
"I know, clone my old cell phone make a few calls from the afterlife during peak times and watch the expression on my sons face when he gets the bill"
Bet he is rolling around the floor laughing at this one!
"msnbc published this news on April 10, 2006. Why did it take exactly around close to somewhat of approximately one year to reach you, finally, in some place called SF"
Burke's admitted to being a Verizon customer. Obviously, he gets his news via Verizon's service, as well.
(As a very angry Verizon customer, I can tell you that there are no two people in the entire corporation who speak to each other, nor a single one of them outside the Tech Support office who can pull his head out of his arse long enough to find out *why* the customer is enraged.)
Hi,
I had no complaints when People-PC bought out my ISP and took it over. But now I'm vvery dissapointed in them. Whether it was a glitch in the software or whatever, my two Free Dial Up Phone Numbers were Deleted and TWO Long Distance phone Numbers were inserted in the Dial Up Program inside my Computer. I first noticed it when a small message said, "You can no longer use this Number...I felt they had a problem with it, or the system did at their Server, and moved me to TWO Other Free Dial Up Phone Numbers, so I didn't complain, just trusted them. Buuutttttt....when my Verizon Phone Bill came i was floored! Istead of my usual $40 or $60 dollars...it stated that I owed $900+dollars for the month!! I would like some advice as to how I should handle this. Anyone ever heard of this particular problem before?
Sincerely,
Patrick
bluewindhm@hotmail.com
I can't speak for Patrick's situation, but the reason I still have dialup is because I DON'T HAVE ANY !&$%ING CHOICE!
So, Neal, much as I ache to join you in the 21st century, it's just not possible until those idiots at Verizon pull their act together, or HughesNet drop the price and increase the quality of their currently very expensive and crappy satellite service, or the FCC grow a set of balls and make broadband possible for everyone.
The US is a BIIIG place, and we don't all live in broadband-enabled areas, you condescending arse.
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