Financial perils of texting (watch your children, or at least your online bill!!)

[Tab]

I just read an online story about some parents who got a $4000+ bill for their daughter's cell usage - in text messages. They thought texting was disabled, but it wasn't, and they were paying full price for every message (now the phone itself is disabled, unsurprisingly). To their credit, Verizon reduced the bill to something more reasonable.

Myself, I pay full price, but I'm lucky if I send one text message a month. My son, however, has a cell (he's 12) and unlimited text messaging. The first month his message bill was only $1.75 for international messages (he has a brother who lives in Norway, and I don't mind if he sends the occasional message to him). International messages are not covered under the unlimited plan (there may be a separate plan for that, I don't know).

The next month, though, the bill was some $280. He apparently had, in addition to his local messages, sent some 800 text messages to his brother. Granted, he didn't know they cost 0.20 or 0.25 a pop (or whatever it is), but we had a huge bill - not just for our regular phones, but for all those text messages. He was contrite and stopped it immediately (not that I was giving him a choice), and didn't know they were costing money, but pay attention - your first or second bill can be a surprise. Keep an eye on it.

All together, he sent some 1,900 messages during that billing period. That's like a message every two waking minutes when he's not in school, and assume he's getting a response every two minutes as well.

Like I said, I might send one a month. I was just amazed, and I'm in the technology field. Holy shit.

Anyway, check your bill online, particularly for a new phone. Don't wait for the end of the billing cycle - it might be too late.

[NV Whino]

1. I was getting wrong number text messages

Just one or two a month, but a couple of bucks here or there adds up so I disabled incoming texting. Which means I don't get the annoying AT&T ads either. And I refuse to pay another $5 a month for unlimited texting. Cripes, I use my cell phone so seldom anyway way that I always have 5000 roll-over minutes, why would I want to add texting?

[Extend a Hand]

2. My son is in Germany for the year

and skype and IM have been great for communicating free.