Cellphone user shocked by charges of $85K

A Calgary man is disputing a cellphone bill of nearly $85,000, claiming the phone companyfailed totellhim using his phone to surf the internetwould costso much.

The Motorola Krzr model Piotr Staniaszek bought from Bell Mobilityallows him to usethe phoneto connect with his computer;downloading data to the computer resulted inthe shocking charges.

"I didn't know what to think. I thought there was probably a mistake," the 22-year-old oil-field worker said of the extraordinary total.

A spokesman for Bell said the company will adjust Staniaszek's bill in "a measure of goodwill." But hewill still oweBellmore than $5,000.

Abill that large is extremely rare, spokesman Jacques Bouchard said.

"What happened is that the client used the cellphone as a modem linking it directly to the computer and downloading huge files, ... high-res movies for instance."

Staniaszeksaid he pays $10 a month for unlimited mobile browsing on his cellphone."So I figured that was the same thing, but I guess not."

After speaking to Bell about November charges of $65,000, Staniaszek said he was informed his bill had increased to nearly$85,000after more downloading inDecember.

Staniaszeksaid the company should have alerted him to the soaring tally. He normally pays about $150 a month for his phone.

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over. Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on.

"I told them I wasn't aware thatI would be charged for hooking up my phone to the computer. I'm going to try and fight it, because I didn't know about the extra charges. Nobody explained any of this to me."

BouchardsaidBell cannot monitor the activities of every one of its customers.