A South Florida woman facing a $200,000 cell phone bill got a little help from Miami Fox-affiliate WSVN.
Celina Aarons reached out to the station’s “Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser” segment after receiving a bill from T-mobile totaling $201,005.44. The cell phone on the account belongs to Aarons’ brother, Shamir, a deaf college student who Celina supports. On a trip to Canada, Shamir Aarons did not turn off the data roaming on his plan, racking up the bill downloading videos and texting over 2,000 times.
“I was freaking out,” Aarons said in an interview with WSVN (the station’s video player doesn’t allow embedding; watch it here). “I was shaking, crying, I couldn’t even talk that much on the phone. I was like, my life is over!”
Aarons, as it turns out, had turned to the right place for help. When contacted by WSVN, T-Mobile — who said they sent Shamir Aarons several texts warning him of the skyrocketing charges — lowered the bill from $201,005.44 to $2,500, even though the company was under no legal obligation to do so. They also gave her six months to pay it.