Buyer Beware: My "Free" iPad and "Unlimited" North America plan just cost me $544 in roaming charges

I need to vent and warn others about a ridiculously deceptive sales tactic I recently fell for.

A while back, I got a "free" iPad as part of a cable deal.

The sales rep explicitly sold me on an "Unlimited" plan and assured me that this meant I could use it all throughout North America (USA, Canada, and Mexico) without any issues.

Fast forward to a recent trip to BC Canada. After just two days, we received a text notice that we were roaming. We immediately stopped using the device to be safe. We only used 1816 MB of data during that short window—which is less than 1.8 GB.

I just got my bill, and I was hit with $544.68 in roaming charges for that tiny amount of data.

I contacted customer service today, and the billing rep essentially told me that the "unlimited" plan the store sold me wasn't actually unlimited when it came to roaming. That the unlimited (US / CA / MX) was only applicable to phones and that an cell enabled iPad is not a phone to them.

Their solution? A $40 courtesy credit.

They want me to pay over $500 for less than 2 GB of data because their sales rep lied to me.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Is there a specific department I should escalate this to, or should I just go straight to an FCC/CRTC complaint? Any advice is appreciated!