$21,000 Cell Phone Bill? Let's blame the company!

[BrenDAnn]

Hey all found this article and immediately thought of this site. This guy's kid racked up a $21,000 cell phone bill, and the dad wants to blame the company! Great lesson to teach your (supposedly despondent) kid, there, buddy: rack up a huge bill, blame the company, and don't pay. Wonderful.

http://www.kcci.com/money/21933125/d...medium=twitter

[Broomjockey]

The kid downloaded almost 1.5 GB of data, when the dad had asked it be blocked. Sounds like he needed to discuss with his kid what he could and couldn't do with his phone. Company should have blocked it when he asked, but still, Dad, talk with your kid. Woulda saved you a lot of trouble. Or get him a dumb phone that doesn't do internet.

[prb]

In Canada it would have been $75,000 on Bellus or $45,000 on Figers (bet you didn't know that Bell and Telus share networks, one has one in Eastern Canada only the other in Western only, AND Fido is owned by Rogers)...

Still a lot of money $21k for a phone bill..

[Anthony K. S.]

. . . the bill shows his son downloaded about 1.5 million kilobytes of data with his phone.

"This is not completely his fault," said Estarija. "I put more blame on Verizon than anybody. They shouldn't allow this to happen."

I actually agree with the statement, "This is not completely his fault" . . . but not in the way that Mr. Estarija intended.

When I read that statement, I thought about a scene I once saw on a television drama. The relevant portion of the dialogue went something like this :


"I'm not saying my daughter wasn't wrong. But she wasn't the only person at fault here. You can't blame her for everything."

"I don't."

"Well, then, let my daughter testify against [the company]. Maybe she can -"

"I wasn't talking about [the company]."

[Long Pause] " . . . Now, wait just a minute. There was nothing that I could have done."

"Paid a little more attention to your daughter? Kept closer track of what she was doing online? In your own home? It seems to me that there was a lot that you could have done."


Do you see where I'm going with this?

Mr. Estarija is right. It wasn't completely his son's fault. More than anything, it was his.

[Mnemjian]

I can't even believe that's possible! I wonder if I could even blow that much money in Vegas in such a short amount of time... I wonder if Verizon will waive any of it?

[BrenDAnn]

Anthony, I totally agree with you! It just bothers me to no end the approach this guy is taking. If he had taken the time to tell his son that 'hey this might cost money don't do this' in the first place, they wouldn't have this problem. The kid is 13 years old. What did his father expect, when he gave him that shiny new phone? This is why I say kids that young shouldn't have phones, or if they do, they should be the "dumb" phones without all those programs and add-ons. That way the parent could still get ahold of Junior in an emergency, but Junior can't rack up an obscene phone bill for them!

[BookstoreEscapee]

Okay...
a) if he asked that certain services be blocked (assuming it is possible to block them), they should have been

b) if he only wanted the kid to be able to call and text, why get him a phone that has all the extra features? I know bare-bones phones aren't cool and all, but they are still out there.

c) if you insist on letting the kid have a fancy-cool phone, you need to lay down the law on what he is and is not allowed to do with it, and if he is using data or whatnot when he isn't supposed to, he should know what it costs and that he will have to pay for it

d) I agree with one of the posters on the article - it would probably be a good idea if the phone company had some way to set an upper limit on data charges as part of parental controls on their kids' phones (if that's possible). I would think it wouldn't be too complicated to program a flag in the system if the charges go above a certain amount so the customer can receive a notification. Credit cards do it (I got a voice mail message from Discover and had to call in and authorize all three of the charges I made on the day I bought my computer), why not the phone company?

e) ultimately, it comes down to parents teaching their kids that priveledges come with responsibilities

[PepperElf]

when i was in japan one of the military members racked up a $40,000 phone bill with Softbank, a japanese phone company

she couldn't get out of paying it either, because the contract clearly stated (in English too!) that web-usage was charged per packet and not per minute.

I had softbank too, and remember seeing that paragraph on my contract

[tropicsgoddess]

Way to teach your kid to own up to their own mistakes and be responsible for them, Mr.Father of the Year...NOT! He could've either: a) get a simple phone that doesn't have all the fancy features and internet on it b)have a talk with the kid on the bill and his restricted usage on the cell phone c)block the internet capabilities of the cell phone d) both b and c.

[wolfie]

Way to teach your kid to own up to their own mistakes and be responsible for them, Mr.Father of the Year...NOT! He could've either: a) get a simple phone that doesn't have all the fancy features and internet on it b)have a talk with the kid on the bill and his restricted usage on the cell phone c)block the internet capabilities of the cell phone d) both b and c.

Don't forget e) get a prepaid phone for the kid, so there's no way he can run up a bill bigger than the amount of service that was already paid for.

[draggar]

Sadly, I used to see this all the time. Parents get thier kid a cell phone and then blame the company when the kids racks up a bill in the hundreds to thousands of dollars.

They demand a full refund, they demand to be let out of the contract, and threaten with a class action lawsuit (funny how one person can't file a class action lawsuit).

Hey, teach your kid responsibility and make THEM pay the bill. Just because you didn't opt for the free data, free test messages, free unlimited calls doesn't mean it's the company's fauly when the kid uses them and you get billed.

As for cut-off points, unless one is put on the account (spending limits (but see below) - there is no way to know that this isn't what the person intends to do (plus why would they stop you from spending money?). It's better to put up with some angry customers than it is to cut off a 911 call or else something important.

Don't forget e) get a prepaid phone for the kid, so there's no way he can run up a bill bigger than the amount of service that was already paid for.

Actually, you can - but not by much lucky. If you're on a call and you reach your balance, they'll bill you for it. So if you put $25 on the account and then make a 2 hour call to Jamaica guess what? (OK, that may not be the best example but you know what I mean- and this is assuming the call to Jamaica doesn't require a credit card). I used to see people do this often too, especially when they were over their minutes and within a few dollars of their balance, then make a long call (even domestic).

[Anthony K. S.]

Something else occurs to me :

Estarija said he asked Verizon to restrict his son's usage to phone calls and texts

That would NOT have prevented his son from racking up a huge phone bill.

Just ask Gregg and Jaylene Christofferson and their daughter, Dena :

NY Times - "Taking a Hammer to the Cell Phone"

The Christoffersons received a phone bill for $4,756.25 after their 13-year-old daughter sent and received about 20,000 text messages.

They grounded their daughter, and then Mr. Christofferson smashed his daughter's cell phone with a hammer. That was probably a good idea.

It's not nearly as bad as receiving a phone bill for $21,000 . . . but a person can still rack up a huge bill from texting alone.

Not too long ago, the comic strip Curtis did a very insightful storyline in which Curtis was desperately trying to prevent his parents from finding out that he had drastically increased their phone bill by over-texting.


In the case of the Christoffersons, they thought that they had blocked their daughter's ability to text, so their situation is a little more understandable.

But in the case of the Estarijas . . .

Simply put, this man was a fool to allow his son the ability to both make phone calls and send and receive text messages and not bother to ever check on how much he was adding to the phone bill.

Just one occasional phone call to Verizon to check on their bill would have been enough to alert Mr. Estarija to what was going on.

And even if his son's phone had been restricted to phone calls and texts, it would have still been wise to check the account occasionally.

If Mr. Estarija had received a $4,000 phone bill because of his son over-texting . . . It wouldn't have been as bad as $21,000, certainly, but I'm guessing that the guy would still have been pretty pissed.

[BookstoreEscapee]

As for cut-off points, unless one is put on the account (spending limits (but see below) - there is no way to know that this isn't what the person intends to do (plus why would they stop you from spending money?). It's better to put up with some angry customers than it is to cut off a 911 call or else something important.

That's why I said the customer should be able to choose the limit.
But can't you still call 911 from a cell phone that doesn't have service? So that wouldn't be an issue...

[PepperElf]

as long as you have a signal yes.

but hey for that all you need is a cheap tracfone =)

[draggar]

That's why I said the customer should be able to choose the limit.
But can't you still call 911 from a cell phone that doesn't have service? So that wouldn't be an issue...

as long as you have a signal yes.

but hey for that all you need is a cheap tracfone =)

Yep there are two numbers that any working cell phone will be able to call when it is receiving a signal - regardless of the account's status:

911 (FCC regulations)
The respective company's customer service (Hello, would you like to sign up with us?).

My sister has a VERY old car phone in her car (the type that pumps out the full 6 watts of power - she can get a signal anywhere) that is about 15+ years old JUST for the 911 dialing ability. When she gets a new car, she pays to have it transferred.