Yuck... this hurts to talk about!
I changed my plan on Verizon away from the family plan. I thought I knew the limits pretty well. A month later I get the bill for over $800!
Apparently, under my new plan I was charged for every incoming text message, incoming call, and I had gone over my allotted amount of out-going text messages. I talked to the people and got them to lower the amount a bit, but I still had to pay a ridiculous amount.
I learned my lesson, but I still think its ridiculous that they could charge me for incoming text messages. It's not like I can choose to not accept them.

i heard about that guy!! haha.. but thats his own fault and they reduced it to $5000!! soo really its not THAT bad.. the most mine has ever been is $300.. which i dont think is toooo tooo bad.. cuz it was built up, i was bad and forgot to pay it one month.. OOPS!! haha

$150 is probably THE most. My usual cell phone bill is like $55...MY5 is a wonderful wonderful thing

my fiance was in training in DC for 3 weeks right after college. He was all by himself and didn't know anyone. So he constantly was calling me, his friends, and his family. For 3 weeks. I had asked him " are you SURE your not roaming". He thought he wasn't because his phone never indicated so, and his plan covered the area. Well yeah he was. $1200 later. Thats AT&T for ya!

i got a family plan for 2 of my brothers, they never used any of the minutes, at the end of it all they had like 1000000000000 roll over minutes lol but they did text ALOT!!

i had to pay 2 bills of $800 each

i learned my lesson!

SkinnyMarie - I had a similar problem with them!

When I signed up with AT&T, I was a college student in Massachusetts. I thought I was signing up with the country-wide plan because I knew I was going to be interning in DC and my homebase is South Florida. So WHY would I want anything else?

One night, I drove home to Florida. from Massachusetts and my friends were kind of enough to call me and help keep me awake throughout the night during my drive. The phone never said I was roaming or anything. The cost of that one night's drive? Over $800. AT&T was not at all willing to work with me and they were downright nasty about it.

The horror doesn't end there. Of course, I was a poor college student and couldn't pay that. It went to collections. And despite the fact I had immediately set up a payment plan with the collections company, they were SO inefficient that they called me up every.single.day ready to verbily harrass me and my family. Every.single.time, I had to explain to them that I ALREADY had a payment plan with them and to get organized and look at their records. Morons.

NEVER going with AT&T EVER AGAIN. Worst customer experience ever. When AT&T took over Bellsouth (our former landline provider), I immediately cancelled my landline service too.

Freegrace, that is the same thing we did. We were both in college when we signed up for AT&T. They wouldn't budge on the bill either. Needless to say we went to verizon the next day and got better service, better customer service, and a better plan for less.

I can wait for the Iphone..I hate AT&T, or the new Cingular, Or the new AT&T. Which ever they are today.

It was about $700 mostly was international calls.

This reminds of something I blogged about a couple of months ago.

I love the Poles.

Warsaw, Poland--A Polish bus driver has been fired for sending 38,000 text messages on his company cell phone in a losing effort to win contest jackpot, a spokesman said Thursday.

Leszek Wojcik, a bus driver in the northwestern Polish city of Slupsk, ran up a tab of some 94,000 zlotys ($34,000) with his text messages while trying to win a 100,000-zloty ($36,000) SMS contest that ended June 30, Slupsk city transport spokesman Hubert Boba told The Associated Press.
Boba said a city bus drivers' monthly company phone bill is supposed to be limited to 15 zlotys ($5).

Wojcik sent an average of 1,200 SMS text messages a day, each costing 2.40 zlotys ($0.86), on his work cell phone.

Wojcik told TVN24 television he wanted to buy a second car with his possible winnings.

"Now I'm without work," he said.

Yeah he is.

I paid over $100 at one point, because my boyfriend (at the time) and I would talk for hours. We lived about 2 hours apart, so we talked a LOT over the phone. After I got that bill, I was more cautious over my minutes.

I had one over $300 once, I quickly upgraded my minutes after I received it!

$400, last year. I was out on medical leave and friends & family were calling all the time, plus my husband was covering at work for his brother and had to make tons of calls. We ended up switching from 1000 minutes to 1500, and the new plan included no roaming and nights starting at 7:00. Haven't gone over our minutes again since.

I've never paid a cell phone bill. I do believe we ran up some text messages for .25 a pop a few months ago, though.

thank god for alltel i say. i'm always changing my phone plan. i've only had 3 bad bills. two were around 105$ consecutively because i just had to text people instead of talking to them now i have more text messages that never get used up.

and one time i had a 90$ bill but it wasnt my fault so they credited me for the next month and then i had a 12$ bill

AWESOME!!!!!! I really love alltel though.

i haven't ever gone over my minutes, but my sister did go over her text messaging by like 60 dollars once.

The biggest bill is $58. I do not text, and I rarely use my phone to begin with.

The highest that I paid was over $600 for one month usage, 8 years ago. I used to have a bf overseas and that pretty much explained it.

my bill this month is $120, and i normally pay $70. my husband went way over on his text messages.

I interned in LA for a month in college (before I moved here for good) and was basically camping out in an unrenovated house (there's a good story behind that, but I won't get into it here ) with no cable, internet, heat, etc. Since I knew absolutely no one I would spend my time when I wasn't at the job on my cell phone keeping in touch with all my friends back east. The time difference + insufficient minutes + whatever else gave me a $700 phone bill. I was seriously pissed, but it was sort of worth it to keep my sanity those 4 weeks.

i must not have figured out that if you make cell to cell calls internationally - that it would cost a lot of money. i think it was upwards of $1000

watch the picture sending haha

I normally pay around $80, but this month it was $160....boo.

I have my mom and my brother on my bill. It's usually around $115 (I get a discount through my company also) but this month my brother sent way to many texts and the bill is $186. I'm pissed. He's gonna pay.

More than 401$

My cell phone ruins my bank account... BUT apparently Canadians are gettin lower prices next year whoooo hoooo

oh let me tell you i have my own horror cell phone story:

so I just ended my contract with telus and decided to try Rogers services. So I go with my new phone and sign up for a plan that roughly costs $27 and got a new number. It's a great plan since i'm a university student and it's affordable. Now a week later a suddenly start getting these weird txt messages, at least 10 a day. I think nothing of it but then I get my bill and let me tell you it wasn't $27 but $400 (sometimes even more). I immediately call Rogers to ask them what they're charging me for and they tell me that i've been getting SMS text messages and they cost so and so per msg. Here I am totally confused and clueless, I ask them how do i stop this since I never signed up for this. Hell I didn't even know what sms was. They tell me how to get rid of the service and will give me credit for the charges.

A couple weeks later I start getting them again, I phone them again, go through the same jazz. This process continues about a total of 8 times. Finally Rogers tells me to contact the SMS service itself and get this straightened out. I call them and it took them a couple of seconds to tell me that Rogers gave me a recycled number and i'm paying for the services the previous owner of my current number. Can you imagine how pissed I am by now! Thankfully the SMS center offered to give me full refund provided i give them a copy of my bills.

I continued to pay my rogers bill off credit for a year. That tells you how much I was chraged.

I moved to a new city back in September, and since I have no cable, homephone or internet, I was on my cell constantly. I spent nearly 3 hours on the phone with bell (my provider) one day and 2 weeks later I get my bill from them and it is 450.00!!! I was expecting it to be a bit high, but come on!!! And the worst part is 80.00 of it was for the 3 hours I spent on hold with bell trying to rework my plan!!! i was pissed!!!!

I hate my cell phone and have pretty much given up using it (although I do carry it for emergencies). I use Vonage, and it is so much better - you can actually hear the other person when you talk (unlike every cell phone I've ever owned) and carry on conversations, and if you are calling other Vonage customers it is totally free! My husband and I lived in different states for work for a while, and this was great - we talked several times a day and it cost us nothing.

I have a capped spending limit of $125 on my plan, for whatever reason. This is a good thing, but if the overages are enough to get to a bill of $125, they shut off the phone without warning! That's happened to me when I've been traveling and use the phone more often.

It sound like that guy tried to skirt the system and got caught...

i used prepaid for my cellphone..

I have prepaid service, as well, and I love it!!