Right then. It appears that Vodafone the cheeky gits don't tell you when you are getting close to any of your limits. My 15 year old cousin has just ran up a £1400 bill by talking to a boy she's into. Anyone got any advice I can give to her mother?
Ring them up. Be polite, because 1) it isn't the fault of the person you are speaking to and 2) it is potentially genuine usage. Explain that [your cousin] was caught using the phone without permission. Explain that you didn't realise it was possible to go so ridiculously out of spend limits. Ask if there's a way to enable spend caps and complain if there isn't because other providers have this feature (I'm on BT Mobile and it's a simple thing to set in the control panel - mine is set to just £5 and you get a txt at £4 or so for example). Ground [your cousin]. Hope the person on the phone is having a good day and is willing to help. Anecdotally I believe they may be able to reduce the bill by half if you negotiate, or ask if there's a way to instead posthumously purchase the unlimited call tier or similar for the past month, and likely the remaining term of the contract.
Just as a side note, why does that make them "cheeky gits"? Edit: I know it's common for people to notify as standard, but it's also not outrageous to expect the customer to have an awareness of what they're using/doing etc.
1400 flippin' quid!!!!! Assuming a monthly bill one has to wonder if this boy is somehow on the ISS, or perhaps she dialed up the Mars rover by mistake..
... how? Based on being on the receving end of such calls at apple [sproglets running up stupid high itunes charges on IAPs or whatnot]... Explain what's happened, i.e. you've got a £1400 bill and are checking it's genuine and not some kind of scam. Get them to explain just how such a sky-high bill was racked up [was it calls, data, both? was it carrier billing for in-app/app store purchases]. Explain that no-one told you/them that such a sky high bill could be run up without your/their knowledge. Ask why they didn't contact the bill payer once they started accrueing >£100 overage... even if it was a 'you're way over your package for the month... would you like to buy an add-on?' Ask if there are ways of preventing it happeneing again [at apple the refunds were normally conditional on this bit - after explaingin how to stop it happeneing again, they'd refund you... once... and made it clear if it happened again you were on your own...] and finally...destroy the kid's life... don;t let them off the hook even if you get voda to waive/reduce the charges.
You would think on a plan that I believe is £30 a month they would notify you at some point before 1.4k I'm as baffled as you. Should be speaking to her mum directly tomorrow to find out how on earth it happened. Not a bloody clue Was calls apparently. I've had a contract phone for years and even when I was very social I never had a massive bill, the highest i had was £5 over when the internet in out house was out for a week. You would think they would contact the bill payer some time before it hit 1.4k on what I think is a £30 bill normally. Kids life will be ruined. I'm certain of that.
The reason i mentioned it was I dealt with one angry parent whose sprog had run up >£1k of credit card bill in IAPs [seriously, you'd be surprised and depressed just how commonly it happens, and how often it's over £1k]... Could hear the other parental unit explaining in great detail just how ruined the sprog's life was [including but not limited to selling of consoles], and much wailing from the sprog. Even though the parents got refuned in full [though they didn't tell the kid that] and were very thankful... you could that kid's life was going to be miserable for quite some time. EDIT: If anyone's curious... the record for largest unintended IAP/app store bill [that i had to deal with at least] was, iirc... Spoiler £6,500
Plenty of free apps that monitor data usage out there....tell her to get a paper round or saturday job to pay it off weekly. It's not Vodafone's fault.
This is why both of mine have restrictions turned on, sure they have a little moan that they haven't got access to things their friends have, but hey ho that's life! I'd quite like an Audi RS6 like a friend of mine has but I can't. It's been a while since I've looked at phone tariffs, but surely there can't be many at £30 that don't have 'unlimited' minutes or a limit so low (<1000mins) you could run up a bill of £1.4k?
Which is why i thought data, it's the only thing i can think of where you can run up a bill that high that quickly...
Pulling some numbers out of my bum here: if mobile-to-mobile calls are 55p a minute, then you could rack up a £1,400 monthly bill by talking for about 42.5 hours, or 1 hour 25 minutes a day. That assumes that you were always the one doing the calling. Now, that seems like quite a long time to be talking to someone every day, but to be fair I'm not 15 so who can say? Alternatively, data is £26 per GB so you could accrue £1,400 by using just under 54GB of data over and above your allowance. Again, that seems like a lot of usage!
Bear in mind that they had the Easter holiday over that period. I've spoke to friends on skype for 12 hours in a day before so I can sort of understand it.
Hence - check the bill is actually genuine and not someone trying to pull a fast one... and if it is, get them to explain *how* such a bill was run up, even if you have an itemised bill. If they can't make it add up either, then i'd argue cockup on their part and push to have it dropped. EDIT: Check if sprog made a call when/as the clocks went forward... the amount of systems that don;t take that into account or spaz out on account of it is unreal...
54GB is very easy to use in a short time, especially for kids who grew up in the age of broadband and due to that have next to no consciousness regarding file sizes (particularly when it comes to video).
I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say it was "very easy to use in a short time", but sure, you can rack up data by watching 1080p videos on YouTube all day. To bring it back to the OP, though, this bill was accrued because the user was "talking to a boy she's into" so I can't see that being responsible for racking up huge data consumption.
Hopefully with a bit of a charm talk it'll get sorted then she can just be told to use skype on the phone over wifi in the house to talk to him for free. The harsh reality is if you give your kid a phone, and you're responsible for the bill, you're responsible for setting it up and/or monitoring it. But yeah, back when I was that age I could be on the phone with lasses for ages. Luckily we didn't have mobiles and using the only phone in the house meant my dad could easily monitor how much I was using it and get on at me to stop gabbing.
Video call function in whatever skype alternative people use these days? Just saying it is a possibility.
1.Take away kids smart phone 2. Replace with actual phone from ~15 years ago which has a PAYG sim card ( I assume that's still a thing, must be.. ) 3. Grovel to Vodafone using aforementioned techniques to get bill reduced/cancelled. 4. Beat kid with leather belt ( optional ) 5. Explain that they can look at the internet on the home PC/laptop, but their phone is only for texts and phone calls & they have to earn money for additional credit. 6. Beat child again ( mandatory )
My GF either snatches my phone to make voicecalls on whatsapp or uses skype to videocall her family abroad. There are free over wifi options out there. I didn't want to sound like 'tough poo - parents should parent', hardly helpful afterthefact - yeah it's the bill payers responsibility but thinking about it it is surprising unusual activity isn't highlighted to the bill payer. I think CC companies, power firms and the like would certainly give you a heads up on a massive increase in their use.
