On How I Prevented Verizon Wireless from charging me $31,047.68.

PETER SHANKMAN

POSTED ON March 6th, 2013

56 COMMENTS

My hatred of US mobile phone companies isn’t something new to anyone who follows me. In the past few weeks, I’ve had multiple opportunities to complain about Verizon Wireless, due to their consistent inability to get even the simplest request right. But this one truly takes the cake. Read on for a lesson about how when a door locks, you go through a window (and cost the door a heck of a lot of money.)

I’ve been traveling abroad a lot lately, giving speeches, consulting, skydiving in the desert. You know, the usual stuff. Knowing I had multiple trips abroad coming up, I called Verizon while I was still in NYC, asking to have their International Data Roaming package installed on my plan. Essentially, it’s $20 for 100 megabytes of data, or $200 per gig. It’s expensive, but in my opinion, being connected overseas and not being tethered to WiFi is worth it. After multiple assurances that it was on my plan and wouldn’t be coming off, I trusted Verizon and hung up after thanking the rep who helped me.

Not my car, but the sentiment probably applies.

My first trip took me to icy-cold Winnipeg, Canada. Upon landing, I pulled out my Samsung Galaxy S3, and turned it on. I got the X for “no signal” the second it booted up. Gave it a few minutes, figured I was in a different country, figured it was cold, etc. I waited. Nothing. By the time I’d gotten a cab, gotten to the hotel, and enabled Skype to call Verizon on my laptop, I was pissed to no end.

“Oh, yes sir. It says it’s on your account, but for some reason, no one ever actually turned it on. Let me go do that now.” I remember staring at the Skype window in disbelief. That’s equivalent to your going to a gas station, the attendant putting the pump in your car, but never actually pumping your gas, then charging you, and smiling and waving as you drive away with no gas.

The tech came back on the phone, told me to restart my phone, and within 30 seconds, I had the signal, and had global service. Hallelujah. So that was Winnipeg. Stupid me for thinking that Verizon’s “global service plan” would actually work “globally.”

The following week, I flew to Dubai. Landing for the first time in this new-to-me land, I turned on my phone, and was thrilled to see not the “X,” but the signal for both phone and data. Hallelujah. $20 for 100 megabytes, here we come. And with that, I checked into the Dubai airport on FourSquare while my email populated.

That’s when I got my first “warning” message via text from Verizon Wireless. “Warning: Your roaming charges have currently exceeded $50.” I’m not even joking when I tell you that by this point, I HADN’T EVEN GOTTEN OFF THE PLANE.

So after getting through Immigration, and while waiting for my driver, I did what I loathe to do the most, and called Verizon again. And sure enough, “Carl” was nice enough to tell me the following:

“Oh, yeah, sorry sir, but your plan only works in certain countries. Dubai isn’t one of them.”

I don’t know what angered me more – That Verizon assumes that Americans only travel to Mexico and Canada, or that THEY NEVER BOTHERED TO TELL ME THAT THEIR ROAMING PLAN WASN’T TRULY GLOBAL.

That’s it. Time to fight back. I got to my hotel about 8pm, and after dropping my bags, jumped in a cab to the Dubai Mall. Once there, I found an electronics store that carried every phone known to man. I picked up the Galaxy Grand for $350, (the Note II in America) and then walked down the escalator to the Du store (equivalent of Verizon in Dubai.) I there bought a pre-paid 25 Gigabyte SIM card that works all over the UAE, for $100.

So for $450, I now had an unlocked, global mobile phone I could take all over the world, and 25 Gigabytes of data. That’s it. No other charges, no hidden fees.

A week later, as I got on board my flight to go home, I looked at my new phone’s data usage. Over six days in Dubai, I’d used 1,516 megabytes, or about 1.3 gigabytes of data. I had no additional charges, I still have over 23.5 Gigabytes left for my next trip, and most importantly, Verizon didn’t get a PENNY of that.

Here’s the killer thing though. If I hadn’t checked my phone, and just taken Verizon at the word of the initial rep who put global on my phone and told me it was “all good,” (her words,) I would have come back to America to find a Verizon Wireless bill waiting for me to the tune of more than $31.047.68. Yup. That’s not a joke. Do the math yourself: $20.48 per MEGABYTE. And you know damn well they wouldn’t have listened to any argument I would have made on dropping the amount owed. “Sorry, it’s policy.”

So here’s my question – How is it possible that in this global data society – In a world of status updates and Instagrams, of Tweets and mobile videos, how is it possible that Verizon thinks it’s ok to charge $20.48 per megabyte? PER MEGABYTE? To put it into perspective, they’re charging, for data, the equivalent of $4.00 for every second of a download of “Gangnam Style.”

It’s not. And for me, there was a way around it, and it cost Verizon a LOT of my business.

The lesson here, though, is that there is ALWAYS a way around problems, whether they’re personal, professional, or with a wireless company who doesn’t realize their relevance has passed. Stuck because of a closed highway? Take a back road, and be richer for the experience. Flight canceled? Turn to the person to your left and share a rental car. You’ll make a new friend and get there anyway. Can’t get someone to come around to your way of thinking? Come around to theirs, and work backwards to a middle ground.

I’m writing this on a flight to London, where Verizon’s $20 for 100 megabyte rule actually does apply. But guess what? I’m not going to need it, thanks to the unlocked phone I bought in Dubai. I’m simply going to swap the SIM card out and replace it with a local one I’ll buy in the airport when I land. That’s probably easily, $200-$300 that Verizon won’t get from me while I’m here.

End result? The rules can be changed, and we can be the ones to change them. And Verizon Wireless? Sorry, guys. But I never need you internationally again. Long term? I don’t show any signs of quitting overseas speaking or consulting… So how much did your shortsightedness cost you over the next 20 years? $50k? $100k? Only time will tell.

PS: I picked up my London SIM card today: Unlimited data, 3,000 texts, 120 minutes of voice. Cost? $36.00.

PPS: Before you tell me “oh, all companies operate this way,” let me say this – About three months ago, I got a new AmEx card – It had a chip in it. (you know, like every other country’s credit cards do, except the US.) I called to ask why, they said “we monitored your spending, and notice that you charge a lot overseas. This should help you.” And it did – My AmEx now works in every card reader, not just magnetic stripe ones. No extra charge, no additional cost, no extra contract – Just a new card and a “this should help you.” So guess what – American Express, the big, massive, global credit card company – They get it. Why is it so hard for other companies?

Thoughts? As always, leave them in the comments, and I thank you for reading.

http://twitter.com/mattcraine Matt Craine

Great story and great read. I’ve run into the same thing with Verizon but I like your solution. That will be my next step. And yes AMEX gets it. As does Chase, fyi.
http://www.facebook.com/nystrom Wendy Nystrom

I’ve been with verizon for over 15 years now. Never really cared until I got an iPhone 2 years ago. I now loathe them. Any suggestions? I also loathe the iPhone
http://StuartTracte.com/ Stuart Tracte

Thank you for this, Peter.

I don’t know what needs to happen for the US to stop allowing corporations to rape American citizens, but your post surely gets the conversation going.
http://www.huntinglife.com Kevin Paulson

There is always more then one way to skin a cat. Great read and this should be required reading for customer service folks at all American cell phone companies.
http://twitter.com/dhrosen David Rosen

Cell phone roaming charges are beyond ridiculous. Last fall my parents went to South Africa on vacation. Dad owns his own company so being disconnected for two weeks wasn’t an option (I do the IT for him). Like most trips, I figured I’d call At&t, sign up for the expensive roaming plan ($120 for 800megs) and just deal with it. So I call At&t and they tell me that South Africa isn’t covered by “worldwide data” and that its $20/meg (YES PER MEG!) to use an iPhone in South Africa. He averages ~30 megs a day (email, 4sq, twitter, instagram, fb), so that’s $600/day!

I ended up finding iPhoneTrip.com, they rent SIM cards. Despite being named iPhone, the SIM cards work for any unlocked device. At&t unlocked the phones for free (had over a year) and I rented global SIM cards for $14/day, each with 100megs of data/day. They landed in London for a layover, full signal. All over South Africa, checking in on Foursquare and posting photos to Instagram and Facebook.

Moral of the story, I will NEVER pay my local carrier for roaming, its insane. Rent a SIM for your phone, its WAY cheaper!
http://twitter.com/jonased Jonas Eddy

My understanding is that Verizon “rents” time on networks in other countries and those networks charge crazy prices for the privilege. Can Verizon shop around? No idea. Can they inform you ( and I mean in a way that makes it understandable and useful) of this price gouging? Heck yes. Shame on Verizon.
heatherkrug

Great article. I have Verizon and did same global plan. Was in NZ for work and Africa for Kilimanjaro but did work while there. Kept getting the warnings. Yep. They didn’t tell me NZ and Africa don’t apply. And London was still expensive. .50 cents per text. I’m with you. Brilliant job.
Regina

Just checking Peter, did you mean 31,047.68? I retweeted this, and used a comma instead of a period…
Devon Clement

We should have road-tripped home from Asheville! :)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502322520 Tommy Lane

Great story. Great solution. These phone companies need to come down to earth.
Devon Clement

P.s. I have an unlocked, old school Nokia I use when I travel – I buy a Sim card for a few bucks/Euros whatever, wherever I go, and it works perfectly for calls and texts. That’s more money Verizon’s not getting because I don’t feel like getting a global plan and I don’t know that my iPhone would work in a different country anyway.
http://twitter.com/JGfromOC Jason Gerdon

Verizon sucks just as hard as ATT. I had a similar problem with ATT when I went to Italy last June and had their global service. Took 4 complaints to the BBB and FTC Dept of Consumer Affairs for ATT to get my bill figured out – after 7 months of mis-billings and erroneous charges.

And I hear you about AMEX. Best customer service ever. At any rate, good customer service shouldn’t be the exception, it should be the rule. I think the great problem is that too many large U.S. corporations realize that there is little choice for consumers, so we’re stuck with their crap. If we want things to change, then we need to vote with our wallets and make things change. And while we’re at it, flood these crappy businesses with BBB and FTC Dept of Consumer Affairs complaints.
http://twitter.com/KalynnAmadio Kalynn Amadio

Love this article. Great lesson for Verizon. Let’s hope they’re listening now.
Jeev Sen

Thanks for this Peter. Now I know, the next time I am in Singapore or Malaysia, I’m getting a local SIM card.
http://twitter.com/SheridanInk Sheridan Ink

I loath American mobile companies. I bought a simple unlocked phone for when I travel overseas and change SIM cards for whatever country. When I bought it, they let me know I am not charged roaming or anything else for incoming texts as I can’t control when other people text me. Common sense, right? The US companies ding you for incoming texts, spam and data no matter what then you have to fight to get things reversed. (Yes, I have unlimited texting, but that is not the point. If you don’t sign up for this ridiculous $20 a month plan, you get charged for it.) I wanted to get a SIM card for my friend who was visiting me from overseas… not so much here. It is RIDICULOUS and yet we don’t particularly have a choice as they are all like this.
http://www.digitalminimalism.com/ Adam Boettiger

I feel your pain. Wondering why you had to buy a new phone though. Couldn’t you have just popped out the SIM card from the S3′s port and popped in a prepaid SIM for that country? Or is the S3 not yet a “global” phone and that’s why you went with the Grand? The S4 is being announced March 14 in NYC. The Note 2 is also a really good option, albeit a much larger phone, it has an uber fast processor that is best of breed. Kind of a pain in the a** to pop in a new SIM card for each country you go to, but as you say, being unlocked is a good feeling. I’m with Verizon Wireless and have had no problems at all, having been through the other three carriers and choosing “no dropped calls” over “dropped calls”. When you do a lot of voice it matters. I’ll probably go unlocked in the Fall. We dumped Comcast cable and cut the cable cord two months ago using a combination of Roku 2 HD XS, Netflix and Hulu+. More than we can possibly make time to watch and only paying for the FiOS internet connection. It’s a satisfying feeling, particularly given what I discovered Comcast has been doing. Congrats on the fam. /AB
http://www.rickycadden.com/ Ricky Cadden

The lesson here is actually never EVER pay your domestic company a penny while you’re outside of their area. I’ve travelled quite a bit internationally. It’s *always* cheaper to use an unlocked phone and slap a prepaid SIM card in there when you’re travelling. I had unlimited (yes UNLIMITED) 3G data in Germany for 3 days for $60USD. Similar in Spain.

U.S. carriers have no business getting a penny of my money outside of the U.S., period.
BIGfrontier

There are always exceptions to the coverage – it’s spelled out on all the carrier programs – cell phone 101. Ask more – assume less up front. Of course that might cut down on kvetchy blog content like this! How about a rant on airplane seats — haven’t seen one of those from anybody for at least a week now!
shankman

Are you that bugged by my post that you felt like commenting the way you did, or is it something bigger? Are you having a shitty day because of something else, and if so, can I help?
datachick

I travel a bit, too. I only use an unlocked phone and pick up a sim locally when I arrive. It’s not just about cost, either. It’s about having the freedom to use my device the way it was supposed to be used. And in other countries, that includes hotspotting my phone on those cheap data plans.

I think Apple got it right with the iPads. All unlocked. No BS.

I don’t use much voice at all. So on some trips I just grab a sim for my iPad.

Those roaming plans have so little data that they are pretty much crack: here’ have a tiny bit of data for when you arrive. Then you’ll be buying tons more before you leave.
Stephanie

Too bad Verizon is one of the few providers that actually works consistently on the west coast. If it weren’t that I would ditch them in a heartbeat.
http://twitter.com/PAULANEALMOONEY PAULA NEAL MOONEY

Same thing I was wondering…
shankman

I did mean Thirty One Thousand Dollars.
Matt Hodson

Not sure if you have it set up but if you use Google Voice on your phone you can then get free texts, though the Google Voice number where ever you are. Also getting the Google Voice number should allow you to use those minutes with your stateside number but I will double check on that before you take my word for it. As for me I use an unlocked phone on Straight Talk here stateside. No contract and unlimited talk, text, web for $45 a month. Only downside is the data is not that fast. I do run off of AT&T’s towers though.

P.S. My unlocked phone is a Galaxy Nexus, bought through the Google Play Store. $350 for the phone and I am set. :)
Master Geographer.

Also: Dubai is not a country.
http://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/ Liz Karschner

I have Sprint and an International phone. I definitely plan on getting a local SIM card when I land in Germany in a couple months to visit family versus using Sprint’s global plan. Thanks for the post though…really nailed that decision in for my upcoming trip and all trips following that.Hell I’ll probably leave my current phone there so it will be available when I travel back again.
http://www.facebook.com/lrfletch Lindsay Fletcher

Great blog! My husband and I have encountered how “well” Verizon communicates. Thought they were helping us out by suspending his contract while he was in Afghanistan. Turns out, they didn’t mention they were extending it in return. Verizon doesn’t treat their employees any better than customers. My brother worked for them for several years and the stories I’ve heard like holding pay checks are just horrible.
LYTiger84

AMEN!! I love your blogs, and especially the paragraph “…The lesson here though…” You are such an inspiration to me, and I applaud your mentality and attitude – I can only hope I respond to situations half as well as you! :)
http://twitter.com/ericpicard Eric Picard

SmallFrontier, your point seems to be that you’re so smart that you feel that anyone ‘dumb’ enough to not already know this deserves to get screwed over by their carrier. That’s kind of a sad thing to take away from a post that is actually pretty helpful. I’ve traveled to the UK and France extensively, but haven’t been to Dubai. I’d have made the same mistake as Peter.
http://twitter.com/ericpicard Eric Picard

He probably didn’t buy an unlocked phone.
carri Levy

Peter Shankman,you are my hero. Although I dont have Verizon, I have T-Mobile, which turns my hair gray everyday.
http://www.facebook.com/mike.conover.39 Mike Conover

i have a Verizon Motorola droid 4 and heading to Ireland. would anyone know where i i can get the resource to unlock my phone and where to get the sim card? thank you
David Blumenstein

Peter, you have known me for years. I have always made it a point to own GSM phones anywhere in the world, for the sole purpose of being able to swap out chips wherever I travel. Have been doing this since the mid 90s’ when I was Omnipoint/Voicestream/T-Mobile’s 5th customer at the 23rd st store on 5th avenue.

I moved to London and travel all over Europe and for that purpose have a collection of pre-paid chips that I swap in and out when necessary. Roaming is a four letter word. :)
LeeUK

I live in London and work in IT for a global firm and had a similar issue when I spent Christmas in New York last December, with my mobile provider O2. I chose to use my work O2 BlackBerry instead of my own Vodafone iPhone for data as the BlackBerry has far better data compression, and I was having signal issues on the iPhone.

I checked Vodafone before I left the UK and it’s so confusing – £5 for 25MB, per day. Once you’ve done 25MB, it is £3 a MB up to 5MB, then £15 for every 5MB after that. Who’s good at math?!

So I went down the O2 BlackBerry route, admittedly expecting a similar, but possibly cheaper corporate charge. I spent 5 days in NYC and generally done a bit of Twitter, an Instagram here and there, some email and not a lot more. The outcome? About 160MB….at a cost of over £1,500 (approx. $2,200). No warning, no “you’ve spent a lot of money”, nothing. Just a bill for over $2000. That’s almost £10 ($15) per megabyte!

When questioned, the usual response of “yes sir, that’s how much it costs” and that was it. In this day in age, with the amount of time people spend online via a mobile device, how can the mobile operators across the world continue to charge the extortionate fees and continue to get away with it?

Lesson learnt for next time – I’ll get an AT&T SIM card and steer well clear of Verizon!
http://twitter.com/ginamae ginamae

I work for AT&T but have only Verizon products. Thanks for the heads up Peter. As always, you’ve been teaching me since that night, long ago in Nashville when you, Brooks and I had dinner!
Matthew Blackwell

The S3 is global, but was probably locked to Verizon. Probably could have gotten the unlock code, however, as long as the technician he got knew what was being asked. (Most people have to try anywhere from 1-4 reps to get a code).

However, I think he mentioned earlier, that the Grand is a dual-SIM phone which is even better if you’re travelling because you can just switch out the secondary slot and not worry about losing your main SIM.

US Carriers don’t sell dual-SIM phones because they make so much money off of roaming charges and “international/global packages”.
Gavin Nouwens

In a lot of Asian countries dual sim phones are becoming quite popular for a similar reason. To be able to call friends who are with a different provider they use the second line in their phone. I’ve since bought one and it’s awesome for international travel, only need to carry and charge one phone using the second sim slot from a local seller.
Daz

I once got screwed like that from Telstra in Australia when using my phone overseas,to the tune of about $5000. Although they were good enough to cancel the charges I definately learned my lesson and get a pre paid sim and rely on Wifi nowadays. Works for me.
Peter Cain

Hey Peter, surprisingly common experience getting stung by Bill Shock there…Hope you haven’t paid that bill yet?!? most times they will at least halve it (they normally split the profit with the local Telco)- but in this case I think you have a pretty good argument to have it completely wiped.

I have actually just started a business ( dataGO.co ) to combat the world of global roaming rip-off. Lonely Planet here in Melbourne liked it so much they have given me some free office space while I get going!

Basically I sell prepaid local SIM cards for destinations all over the world. I have local SIM coverage for US, Canada, UK, NZ, Aust, China and Thailand so far. Your blog post is right though, its all about data costs when trying to stay connected, and I also have a global ‘roamingSIM’ for coverage in 230 other countries- but mainly because it has a handy data bundle for Europe (when buying a local SIM for each might be too hard).
The main thing for anyone travelling is make sure your phone is unlocked (a point of contention in the US political arena at the moment).

I suppose my value proposition is to stay connected with cheap local data, and take the hassel out of it by buying before you go (some places/settings/languages can be a real pain)..anyway, give me a shout for your next trip and I’ll be more than happy to sort you out- I ship worldwide for free too!
..hey if its not too much hassel I would love you to enter a facebook comp I’ll be running in about a week for the $1million dollar bill?? (basically trying to get pictures on my fb page dataGO of a thousand or so “Bill Shocks” to add to $1M and raise a bit of awareness of the whole situation. I’ll supply your next couple of SIMs free if you could!?! A $30+k picture would be a nice one to have up there! :-)
Cheers
Sandra

I live in El Paso, Texas which borders Mexico. Verizon charge me for global roaming even though I hadn’t crossed into Mexico and I had never signed up for global roaming. After hours of disputing the charges, they reduced the invoice but warned me that if this happens again, they wouldn’t reduce it. They said that since I do live on the border that it could be that I am using the service and lying about it.
http://occamsrazr.com Ike Pigott

I was in London last year, and caught both sides of the lesson.

My phone, with AT&T’s International Roaming turned on, was supposed to carry me across the island at better rates.

While I was on business, I didn’t want my wife disconnected. We brought her off-contract HTC Aria, bought a local SIM, and she had more than enough minutes to talk and such to feel secure.

Knowing what I know after that trip, it’s cheap phones and cheap overseas SIMs all the way.
http://www.mycarlady.com/ MYCARLADY-Sarah Lee

I agree the Verizons of the world are sticking it to the unsuspecting. I love the way you worked a horrible experience into a lesson. Now, could you find a way to make me “smile” about health insurance carriers ;-)
M

You wasted $350 bucks on that unlocked phone in Dubai. Your Galaxy S3 comes unlocked from the manufacturer.
shankman

Except mine wasn’t from the manufacturer, it was from Verizon. So that doesn’t work.
http://levynewsnetwork.wordpress.com TheDanLevy

Peter,

If you’ve never had a listen to this or read this story (from 6 years ago already) you’ll appreciate the heck out of it!
The basic story of the call linked in the blog below:
1) Guy roams in Canada after being told by Verizon it would cost him 0.002¢/kb
2) He gets home and receives a large bill based on them charging $0.002/kb
3) He calls Verizon, speaks to numerous managers all who do not understand this basic math and is unable to explain to them the difference in those numbers.

http://verizonmath.blogspot.ca.....tomer.html
http://RogerEllman.com/ Roger Ellman

No comfort, no apology and still inexcusable – but a vast number of UK companies have adopted this desparation-opertion system. People who “never lie” often do when they are desperate. Companies that have not yet created a new way to earn revenue they no longer receive the old way, act that way too!
http://RogerEllman.com/ Roger Ellman

I’ll go for Amex!

Sad thing is not all mega-corps-bad-situations have an alternative for the consumer. There are many ersthwile monopolies and dated hangers-on of companies, providing essential services in a non-service way. Everyone reading this must have examples aplenty.

Maybe it’s in the blood, I could only imagine running a company thinking first of my customers, my fans, my partners, my enthusiasts.

I am pleased Peter, that you congratulate Amex, we should all take that extra moment to show approval of the “good ones”, so that they thrive on the positive feedback.
http://libertyviewmagazine.net/ Tod Westlake

It’s the rentier class erecting barriers so they can charge as many fees as they can get away with charging. We live in a laissez-faire capitalist country. I’m not even slightly surprised by this story. There is no organized push-back against corporate dominance of American life, so we get what we get.
http://www.facebook.com/dave.todak Dave Todak

Traveling to Tokyo and Taipei next week, not for long enough to justify a new phone, but I contacted Verizon last week to confirm my SGS3 would work there. Voice price was tolerable, but they quoted me the same data pricing as you, which prompted me to disable international data roaming on my phone. I can just imagine sitting in an airport downloading a movie from Google Play to watch during the flight, only to later get a charge for several thousand dollars. No, I’d rather be tethered to wifi.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=669490959 Greg Bulmash

When I saw the headline, I assumed you’d let a 4 year old play a game with in-app purchases and were able to get the charges reversed.

Try being on a carrier with even shittier “global” coverage than Verizon (*cough* T-Mobile). Or try being on a cruise ship where they charge by the minute to share one constricted satellite pipe with all the other passengers, so you’re not only paying per minute, but it takes minutes for pages to load. And this is not per minute of data I/O, but per minute connected to the ship’s wi-fi, so even when you’re not using data, you’re getting charged.
beton amprentat

great
beton amprentat

http://www.timisoara.pavaje-beton-amprentat.info
http://twitter.com/superior_promos SuperiorPromos.com

I think I read this story in the news. Good read.
Rocketism

I am very happy to see someone with a voice speaking about this issue. I hope you don’t stop here however (although I am not really looking to you to start the revolution – so to speak.)

This is an example of how many American business institutions operate. They have a monopoly (or a duopoly/ tripoly) in their industry here in the US and they act as if the rest of the world (read: other price points and business models) doesn’t exist. Cell companies and cable companies are by far the easiest examples to point out, but I think this is a pattern you will see anytime you have a state enforced “opoly” and a service that small business can not easily break in to.

Pardon me, but this is the type of crony protectionist bullshit that really pisses me off. We tout ourselves as capitalists but as soon as our business model shows weakness to innovation (business or tech), new competitors or the thinning collective good will of the masses, our corporate betters go running to the government to secure the jobs they provide by locking down the business environment, instead of evolving. And due to the difficulty and expense of breaking in to the big content, and connection services the consumer is not allowed to vote with his wallet in a meaningful way. That is, unless he wants to do without, and we Americans do not do well without.
http://www.theincslingers.com/blog Simon Salt

This is something that bugs the crap out of me. When organizations claim to be “Global” when what they mean is they have offices overseas. Not the same thing at all! Love that you posted a solution that not only works but saves the rest of us money too.
Mari

Wow. Hopefully ticketing agencies are thinking about where their model evolves, but as long as they have a stronghold on the large venues, it will take awhile for the disruption to become mainstream. But I’d love to see it!!!!

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