[JamesB]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

G'day James. What part of Oz do you come from?

Actually originally from Brisbane ... raised in Nundah, then moved to North Chermside/Geebung while I was in high school, and finally bought a house in Brendale (between Albany Creek and Strathpine).

I sold up and immigrated to Newfoundland in 2008, and then relocated to Nova Scotia six months ago.

Spoke to the phone company today. Negotiated the bill down to $600 which I thought was not a bad outcome.

Next time they'll just buy a local pre paid sim card for the phone when they get to NZ. No more hassles.

eta: It's amazing the pitfalls you can fall into just because you don't know about them, and assume you're doing the right thing.

That's a better outcome than the original bill, but still not good.

When I bought a multi-band phone in 2000, specifically for use in Australia and North America, the Telstra sales rep assured me that the call allowance that was part of the high-dollar plan I took out would also be applied to cover international roaming charges. After 3 months in the US and Europe, I was not impressed to see that I had to pay for every single international roaming charge separately and was told that whatever I'd been told when I bought my phone was wrong.