After a man added his 13-year old son to his Verizon plan, his cellphone bill rocketed to nearly $22,000.
In a month’s time, the boy downloaded almost 1.4 million kilobytes of data. The family didn’t have a data plan, so Verizon charged them by the megabyte. After initial reports about the story broke, Verizon agreed to refund the entire bill, which is pretty nice because usually they’ll just split the difference. The father said he would be removing his son from his cellphone plan.
Like credit card fraud, there should be some kind of fail-safes for this kind of incident. For instance, if the bill is over 500% more than last months, they call you up and say, “are you sure you wanna do that?”
Teen runs up cell phone bill of nearly $22,000 [AP] (Thanks to GitEmSteveDave!)
More From Consumerist
-
Verizon Charges Customer $299 For Refurbished iPhone That Never Worked
-
HTC Incredible Gets Stuck In 2 AM Reboot Loop, Wakes Me Up
-
Perhaps The Only Good Thing About Expensive Gas Is The Decrease In Teens Driving Drunk
-
I Think Verizon Wants Us To Stop Getting Usage Alerts
-
Not Even Verizon Knows Exactly Why It Charges $5/Month To Keep Your Number Unpublished
While there are no safeguards in place to prevent someone from running amuck with their data usage, data access can easily be blocked on a phone. I can’t imagine what this kid was downloading, considering his phone didn’t require a data plan in the first place, but he’s the last one I’d blame here. The parent is responsible for the bill, and therefore the parent is responsible for making sure the child understands what is and is not acceptable use. I’m not saying that every parent can be expected to know everything about potential cell phone abuse, but there have been enough stories on this type of thing over the past several years, that parents should at least be aware of the problem and ask what their options are for curbing abuse.
I also think that the media, when reporting such stories, should do a little digging and provide readers/viewers/listeners with the information they need to keep the same thing from happening to them and/or their children. Neither the original article, nor this Consumerist article did so.
Simple solution, sign up for AT&T. You’ll never have a connection long enough to use that much data.
After the bill is run up it’s a little late for “are you sure about that”
I actually can’t really blame the kid this time. I can see how he would’ve just assumed he had a data plan when he found he could access the web on the phone. Just going by my parents’ thought process- most people think that if you don’t have a plan, you can’t get online at all, which is how it SHOULD be, but sadly isn’t. Most people don’t even consider per-kb charges, especially not your average dumb teenager.
It is perfectly appropriate to give kids their own phone. In this day & age, I would never think of letting my kid out of the house without a way to contact me or call 911.
Parents- either block data & text altogether, or get unlimited plans for both. Or else stuff like this will continue to happen.
There is a fail-safe that Verizon offers. Mid-way through your billing cycle, if it looks as if you’re going to go over your allotment of voice, messaging or data, you receive a text message or phone call from VZW notifying you of the overage.
I gave my grandchildren Verizon Straight Talk cellphones for christmas and at $45 per month for unlimited usage they can talk until the cows come home!! The ONLY proviso is they Have to phone ME once a week!! It works like a charm.
The best fail safe is to go the prepaid route. I gave my grandson a Verizon Straight talk phone for Xmas and for $45pm he had unlimited usage. In return he helps me with chores and I get to see him more often!!