I was surprised today when I got dinged $16 in "Data Roaming" charges. The issue is that I have an Android smartphone and the Data Roaming option is explicity turned off! So how could this happen?
The ironic thing here is that I was never actually in Canada! I was staying at a friend's house on Harsen's Island, which is in Michigan, but just across the river from Canada. The AT&T signal there is very weak and I did notice occasionally looking at my phone that it had switched to a Canadian Bell tower across the way; a little later it would be back on AT&T.
I also remember getting a warning text message from AT&T about the roaming charges, but I never enabled that feature. I've also gone through Canada previously with this phone, received the same warning, and never encountered any charges.
The amount of data transferred (about 1Mb) seems to indicate that a lot of my data was coming through that way -- possibly background activity from various apps synchronizing, etc. Considering that I get 3Gb for $30/mo. really makes $16 for 1Mb feel like a ripoff!
Any ideas on how this could happen? Should I take it up with AT&T?