Nowadays, paperless billing is the standard, but a couple of decades ago, paper-based bills that landed through your mailbox were the standard. We’ve all received the shock of an itemised bill ending in an eye-watering total at least once in our lives, but YouTuber Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, went viral back in 2007 when she became the recipient of a 300-page cellular bill. There’s something to be said for being thorough, but this sprawling breakdown of charges took things to a whole new level.
iJustine and the 300-Page iPhone Bill
Already an established YouTuber, iJustine hit new levels of online fame in August 2007 when she uploaded a video revealing an iPhone bill of epic proportions. The itemised bill, outlining every last text message, email, and data transfer handled by her device, spanned a whopping 300 pages. Within days, the video had gone viral, amassing more than 3.8 million views.
So what was behind this extreme example of wasted paper? AT&T, at the time the only cellular carrier for Apple’s inaugural iPhone, was ultimately the one to blame for the billing fiasco, which also saw countless other customers receiving near-endless bills in the mail. After these first iPhone users activated their carrier service contracts, they were given the option to select their go-to billing preference. Those customers who failed to make a selection automatically defaulted to the detailed billing option.
As it turned out, AT&T’s take on ‘detailed’ was exactly that. A full itemised breakdown of every single data transfer processed found its way onto the final bills. Sent and received texts? All present and accounted for. Web browsing activity? Each session was made available for review. Outgoing emails? Every last thing to leave an outbox made the cut. Scheduled in some downtime to play exciting slots at Ruby Fortune? Data usage for every gaming session was also included in final billing documents. Unsurprisingly, this quickly stacked up, resulting in reams of pages that landed unlucky customers with bills bounding beyond the 100-page mark.
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iJustine Goes Viral
However, nothing came close to iJustine’s eye-watering 300-pager. The social media star took to her YouTube channel to draw attention to the absurdity of the bill in question, underlining the dizzying level of detail at work. Every internet data session could be accounted for, while tens of thousands of sent and received text messages were individually itemised. Despite rivaling a short manuscript in length, the YouTuber’s total charges amounted to little more than $274.
iJustine’s YouTube video spotlighting the bill triggered a dialogue between equally frustrated AT&T customers, with many bemoaning their provider for saddling them with so many sheets of needless A4. Some queried the need for so much unnecessary detail, while others called out the eco-friendly credentials of the carrier.
Not long after iJustine went viral with her initial video, AT&T reached out to the content creator with an offer to make the switch to electronic billing. In response to customer backlash against the bothersome bills, AT&T was quick to address the situation, defending the exhaustive approach to their paper-based format, while promoting electronic billing as a more user-friendly alternative. By late 2007, e-billing selection became mandatory during the activation of new iPhones, helping steer new customers clear of beefed-up paper bills for good.
