Latest fun: I was just in France for a week for a conference in Nice (yeah, pretty rough). Before I left, I called Cingular to get my phone approved for international roaming. It took three calls and the best they could say was "it looks like the request went in." Anyway, while I was in France, I was able to call out fine, but it appears that nobody could actually call me. (This was probably a feature, because otherwise I would have been getting calls at odd hours.)

On my bill, I discovered a weird $5.99 charge that, after much grunging through Cingular's web site, appeared to be their "Cingular World Basics plus Western Europe" package that says you pay a flat $0.99/minute rate (comparable to the standard T-Mobile plan, only T-Mobile doesn't charge the $5.99/month part). The Cingular rep apparently chose to put me on this plan without ever asking me, although in hindsight, it saved me a bundle on their "normal" international roaming rates ($1.29/minute for airtime plus long distance that could have been another $2/minute, the latter charge being completely undocumented on Cingular's web site).

The solution, for how rarely I travel out of the country, seems to be activating these things when necessary and promptly deactivating them afterward. (Or, buying prepaid cards if I'm going to be abroad for more than a few days.) Who knew it could be so complicated?