Visitor
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4 Messages
$7k bill in 33 minutes even with global travel pass! Never advised of exclusions!!!
I am a current Comcast and xfinity customer. What is happening with my account amounts to extortion as far as I can see and this whole incident has been financially devastating and incredibly and personally stressful to myself and my family. I have reached out to the company on numerous occasions, presented all the facts and all the mistakes made by the company and have finally hit a wall where our phones were turned off and our credit score in jeopardy.
The details are:
- Our daughter earned a scholarship to study abroad in Barcelona, Spain. In preparation for her four-month opportunity and before she left, we called xfinity in early January of 2025 and agreed, over the phone, to do xfinity's Global Travel Pass for the entire time while she was out there. During the call, we advised the agent that our daughter would be in Barcelona, Spain and most likely traveling throughout Europe during her time there. We were told the best option is to get the Global Travel Pass. This is roughly $300 per month to have this service. We received our first invoice in February, which billed for this service. And her phone was working with no issues.
- At no time during the January conversation to sign up for the Global Travel Pass were we informed that there are coverage exclusions! Had we been advised, we absolutely would have made other arrangements to avoid such astronomical charges.
- On February 20, our daughter took a trip to Andora. This is a country that is in between Spain and France. And a very reasonable distance for a student to travel.
- From 12:15 p.m. PST to 12:47 p.m. PST (33 minutes) we started getting notifications that we were incurring roaming charges. Within 33 minutes, roaming charges totaled $7000!!!
- It happened so fast that even xfinity had no time to suspend service until they figured out what happened!
- Our daughter didn't see the charges while on the train (maybe because of delays), but immediately reached out to us to find out what was happening and what to do as her phone is her way to keep in touch with us for safety, directions, and keeping in touch with those she was traveling with. We had a matter of minutes to shut her phone off to avoid additional charges. So, here she was in a foreign country with no phone and fearing for the charges and, more importantly, her own safety.
- We have made multiple attempts to reach out to xfinity and have been told that our issue is being escalated and that someone would be reaching out to us. But this has yet to happen.
- When the next invoice came in showing the excessive charges, we again tried calling. This time, the agent told us our phone would be shut off if we didn't pay. Our daughter is in another country and in need of a phone yet nobody will call us back to fix this issue. We requested an escalation again and nobody called back.
- Out of fear for our daughter's safety, we paid $800 to keep the phone on until we could get resolution. Our logic was that we were still paying the monthly $300 for the Global Travel Pass and they would simply credit the account.
- Nobody from xfinity escalation/customer service ever called. We became delinquent on our account, which is also attached to other family phones. And xfinity shut them off too and threatened sending us to collections!!!
- Again, we were never advised of Global Travel Pass exclusions!!! I am seeing there are other similar situations for the Global Travel Pass and that country. Why wouldn't they advise us at the time of these exclusions?
- We tried calling the corporate headquarters and spoke with their customer service and ticket number (ESL0509XXXX). The representative assured us that she was escalating, because our daughter is still in Spain with zero phone coverage again.
- Not notifying us of plan exclusions at the time of the transaction in January, not calling us back when we've requested escalations, not giving us an avenue to discuss, threatening and then turning off our phones two times is impacting the safety of our daughter, impacting our credit score when we've been good customers and haven't had any issues and is simply leaving us with no other options as to see that this extortion.
- We are now in the process of calling our state representative, filing a regulatory complaint with the FCC, contacting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, contacting our state attorney general for consumer protection violations.
- We just want to keep our daughter safe and have these charges dropped to maintain our credit score. Our message will be that "Our daughter is stranded in Spain without a phone service due to a $7,000 charge in Andora, which xfinity never disclosed as excluded from the Global Travel Pass. Despite paying $300/month, all phones are disconnected, and no one at xfinity has the urgency nor authority to resolve this."
- Additionally, we will now be forced to reach out to a lawyer. We've been given a number of suggestions for law firms that are willing to take this on.
- All we want is for somebody to have the proper authority to get the charges dropped, our phones reactivated and know that she is safe!!
XfinityChelseaB
Official Employee
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1.7K Messages
21 days ago
Hello @user_802k24, Thanks so much for taking a moment out of your day to leave a post on our community forum and we would be happy to help. If you could send our team a direct message with your full name, the name listed on the account (if different), and the service address associated with your account, I'd be more than happy to look into this for you. To send a Direct Message, please click on the chat icon in the top-right corner of the screen, next to the bell icon, and then type or select "Xfinity Support" to initiate a direct message.
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DaveO3
Problem Solver
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773 Messages
20 days ago
Ok, I am going to try to help you, even though you apparently didn’t take any effort in understanding XM’s Global Travel Pass which only covers about 170 countries. You are not the first to wander into Andorra and get charged the exorbitant rate of $20/MB for data as disclosed on their website as Andorra is not included as a GTP country. This translates to roughly $20,000/GB.
My guess is that XM may have negotiated a data roaming rate with Andorra Telcom at an amount per GB that accidentally got translated or entered per MB, or was the mistake dollars instead of cents, by XM? Maybe, just Maybe?
Your next step is to deal with executive level support, and to get there enter a complaint at fcc.gov. Keep your complaint short and simple, as they will not resolve the issue but they will require that XM executive level support contact you, and hopefully they will determine that the data rate as shown and billed is a mistake? Even Afghanistan has a lower data rate of only $2/MB.
Good Luck!
(edited)
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