Amir Yass was visiting family in Iraq, secure in the knowledge that his cellphone — vital for his Wicker Park barber shop business — had a $10-a-day international travel plan.
So several days into the trip, when his and his wife’s phones suddenly stopped working, Yass was annoyed. His phone was how he booked clients, and no phone meant less income.
When Yass spoke with a representative from his carrier, Xfinity Mobile, to get the phones back on, his annoyance quickly turned into alarm.
The rep told Yass he’d racked up a whopping $23,686 in international calling charges.
“I thought it was a joke,” Yass says.
That was in April. It took eight months to unravel the mixup — and not before Xfinity hit his bank account for almost half the money.
His nightmare was an extreme case of what can go wrong when people take their U.S. phone plans abroad.
Other travelers have reported getting hit with multiple daily charges for international service even after they turned off their cellular data and used only Wi-Fi for calls and texts.
And some users have complained online about getting charged for international service just by traveling near the U.S.-Canada border and accidentally pinging cell towers in Canada.
Yass, owner of Hair Mechanic, at 2140 W. North Ave., and his wife, Shaymaa, have three sons and live in Harwood Heights. Yass said he tried to be proactive before leaving for Iraq, his home country until he moved to the U.S. after the Gulf War.
A couple days before their trip at the end of March, he stopped by an Xfinity store near his home, explained that he would be traveling to Iraq and asked for the best calling plan.
The employee told him the $10-a-day Global Travel Pass was the best option. Yass said he watched as the employee set it up on his phone.
“He said, ‘OK, you’re good to go,’” Yass recalled.
The family traveled through Qatar and on to Iraq and didn’t give it any thought until both parents’ phones stopped working several days into the trip. Their sons, whose phones are with AT&T, still had service.
And then they found out about the $23,686 phone bill.
When he got home to Illinois, Yass figured a call to Xfinity would fix it. But no one seemed to know what to do, including the employee at his local store, who remembered Yass and told him he should have never gotten the bill.
Meanwhile, he needed to keep his phone number working so customers could reach him.
“This is my livelihood, my number,” Yass said. “My whole business. I feed my kids from this number.”
After numerous calls and store visits, Yass said an Xfinity manager suggested he set up a payment plan to get the phone number functioning, then switch to another provider.
That had a downside: The phones he recently purchased from Xfinity were locked, so he had to get replacement phones from the new carrier, Verizon. It cost him $3,000.
Yass said he kept trying to resolve his Xfinity bill. At one point, he spoke with a manager who promised to take care of it.
When he didn’t hear back, he figured it was resolved. But then he got another shock.
When he checked his bank statement in November, he saw that Xfinity had taken several automatic payments, apparently toward that big bill, totaling more than $10,000.
When a reporter asked Xfinity’s parent company, Comcast, about Yass’ issue, several people immediately promised to investigate. The company ended up refunding Yass and waived the balance last month.
“Hallelujah!” Yass said.
A Comcast spokesman said they hadn’t determined how the error occurred.
The case was unusual because of the hefty price tag, a sum that apparently included international roaming charges.
