This story has taken a long time to be written... So let me start at the beginning.
A long time ago, in a land of wood and water, Cable & Wireless brought mobile telephones to the masses, and it was good.
However, as all monopolies are eventually tempted to do, they began to take advantage of their power, and began to squeeze every dollar from their captive customers, whilst simultaneously allowing their service quality to plummet.
Then a saviour from Ireland arrived! Digicel entered the mobile market, and suddenly slow-moving Cable & Wireless didn't know what to do. Digicel eviscerated them with better pricing, options, and service and was rewarded in short time with the dominant market share.
After some years, Digicel began to get fat and lazy as well, while Cable & Worthless had re-branded itself as LIME and was trying very hard to regain their former position.
LIME was the only one offering Internet Data plans for mobiles not made by RIM (aka: BlackBerry), and this is where my story begins.
Digicel had for some reason decided to prop up the BlackBerry phone's status in Jamaica, by refusing to offer data plans for any other brand of phone. This shocking lack of judgment led to me jumping ship to LIME when I had acquired my Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone.
For a while, things were good!
Then on a fateful trip overseas, something very strange happened. The Galaxy S II refused to recognise that a LIME SIM card was actually in the phone upon reaching Miami. Not a really big deal I thought, as WiFi would be available where I'd be staying, and I didn't plan on calling anyone anyway.Imagine my shock when I returned to Jamaica and received a bill from LIME for JMD $332,898.00 (approximately USD $3,535) for using data while roaming!!!
Especially after checking the My Data Manager app on my phone, which showed that I hadn't used as much data as my bill claimed. Ha! Must be a typo that will be fixed when I get my next statement.
Nope!
After eventually speaking with a manager, they graciously allowed me to pay them only up to my credit limit plus GCT (taxes).
Great deal you would (normally) say... How is it then that my credit limit was now miraculously JMD $49,000 (USD $520)?! I have never experienced a credit limit higher than JMD $8,000 before!
To make a longer story short, I paid the devil his due, and have now vowed never ever ever EVER to do business with SLIME again. - QBF
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