First off, my regular mobile phone is an iPhone, service provided by 3, and I keep the international data roaming set to “off.”

Second, at the end of October, I got the Huawei WiFi modem from PCCW. They have an international data roaming plan, tiered at various levels, and I called before my trip to have them activate the plan for US roaming for 20 meg per month at HK$488. The plan says that if you go over that amount in a month, they’ll charge you HK$0.1 per kilobyte.

I’ve been in the US for ten days and have used the modem every day, but it is not my prime method of connecting to the Internet. I suppose it’s possible that I’ve come close to 20 megs but doubtful. I’m mostly downloading email and using iPhone apps that access the net (like Yelp and Facebook and Tweetdeck). I’m not doing much browsing via Safari, though there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve used the Google Maps app.

Tonight the phone rings just as I’m trying to sleep, so I don’t take the call. A minute later, a beep to let me know I have a voicemail message. Curious, so I check my voicemail. (And since my data roaming has supposedly been cut off, I can’t use Skype to make the call.)

“Hello Mr. Spike, this is calling from PCCW. We are letting you know that you are approaching your GPRS limit of 20 meg and we are barring your service so that you don’t go over the limit. If you would like to continue using the service, we require a payment of HK$3,500. Please call this number.”

WTF? A payment of $3,500? How did I manage to go from $488 to $3,500?

So now of course I’m fully awake. I call PCCW. The girl who answers knows nothing. She checks the record. It tells her nothing. Why do I suddenly owe $3,500? She doesn’t know. She claims that because I am outside of Hong Kong, they will not know my data usage until the end of the month. Well, if they won’t know it until the end of the month, how come this guy knows it now and has cut me off? She doesn’t know. She needs to investigate and will call me back.

If they wanna tell me I’ve hit 20 megs, I’m fine with that. I’m leaving in 12 hours anyway and will manage without using the modem. But where does the $3,500 charge come in?

So now I’m wide awake. Waiting for a call ….

The result of a week long shopping frenzy, interrupted only by a Springsteen concert (during which I shopped for Springsteen merch) is that my bags are going to be about 20 pounds overweight for the return flight – and that’s with putting a lot of stuff into my carry-on bag. I was 20 pounds underweight for the LA to NYC flight – that means I got somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds of stuff while here? Doesn’t seem possible.

Yet, as an example, bought 4 pairs of Levi’s today. Yes, Levi’s are available in every shopping mall in HK – but they’re about 50% cheaper here. Anyway, those four pairs of pants alone are ten pounds. So add on a few books, a few magazines, a few DVDs, half a dozen t-shirts, eventually it all adds up.

Well, anyway, I leave here early afternoon Wednesday NY time, arrive back in HK Thursday night HK time. Looking forward to getting home.