Teen's phone meets dad's hammer after mega-bill

[Roon]

CHEYENNE - In one month, a Cheyenne teenager sent 10,000 text messages and received about the same - all while her family's plan did not include texting.


That means the family's provider - Verizon - charged them for each incoming and outgoing text.

The girl's parents, Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen, thought texting had been disabled, so one can imagine their surprise when they got the monthly phone bill and it asked for $4,756.25
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=113345&provider=top

[Initech]

1. Holy crap!!!!

You'd have to send messages 24/7 to like 300 people in order to rack up those numbers! :wow:

[no name no slogan]

2. unavailable for comment

[TZ]

3. I'm sending this to a coworker...

whose teenage daughter racked up $400 in text charges in one month...this is WAAAY worse than that..:wow:

[Kali]

4. uh he ought to hammer himself

teen + phone = you damn well better get the unlimited texting option

[Boudica the Lyoness]

5. Not really

The girl was texting (300 of them everyday) at school and her grades had gone from A's & B's to F's. So she shouldn't have the unlimited text option.
Being a good parent means you can't let them do what ever they want, when they want.

[Kali]

7. he still ought to hammer himself if he didn't impress the rules

for grades/paying attention in school - clearly he didn't not let her do what she wanted, when.

Hey we all go through this one - I have a strong silent type youngest son - figured getting him a cell would be safe. The kid finally found his voice - by texting. He had something like 700 the first day. It was a shock - this kid never speaks to anyone. We had to make some billing adjustments right away. Now he has upgraded to a camera phone and it is quite interesting to see the pix he sends.

[MrPerson]

6. HAMMER TIME!!!! You can't touch this....

[Eyerish]

8. This was posted in GD and it turned into a total flamefest...

but I guess it wouldn't be GD if it didn't...

[Spike89]

10. Yeah, I'm way interested, but GD can be rough

The 1st book I published in my current position was an advocacy book for using cellphones with kids IN school. The book of course has drawn some criticism, some of it from people within our organization, yet when you read the book, it isn't that controversial and makes a strong case. However, in GD it is just a bunch of shouting and no real discussion sometimes.

Strangely, I'm not really a cell phone fan myself.

[pinniped]

9. The father idiot could have donated that phone instead of smashing it....

to bits, which serves no one.

[Fleshdancer]

11. If I end up getting my kid a cell phone, it'll be a pay as you go thing

The odds of me actually giving my kid a cell phone some day is slim to none though so I'm not too worried about it.

[Orrex]

12. That was listed as a top news story on Comcast.net

:wtf:

An idiotic family squabble makes the front page?

[astral]

13. It's criminal that cell phone companies allow this

My mom was paying her granddaughter's phone bill to the tune of $400 EVERY MONTH. How in the hell can she do that? Something about not being able to say no to your grandkid? I dunno! She sure didn't know the bill COULD get that high in advance, and the 'kid' was 20 at the time, so how can people pretend not to know (or really not know) what kinds of charges can come up with a stupid portable telephone?

I don't think families should be liable for those kinds of bills without something in writing from the phone company in advance that proves they disclosed the extent of the excessive charge possibilities to whoever was paying the bill.

These kinds of stories are waaaay too common these days.

[Mutley]

14. I'm pretty sure my parents would have taken that hammer to my head.

:o