Teen Runs Up Dad's Cell Bill to $22k

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Adding your kid to your cell plan? We recommend adding unlimited text / data to your plan so you don’t get a $22,000 bill. Verizon was cool about the whole deal saying they would toss out the entire bill.

Ted Estarija said he was expecting his bill to be higher this month after adding his son to his plan, but wasn't expecting a bill of $21,917 in data usage charges. The Hayward man said his Verizon Wireless bill soared after his son apparently downloaded about 1.4 million kilobytes of data last month. His plan didn't cover data usage, so he was charged by the megabyte.
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Dumb asses like this is the reason why I HAVE to pay a $30 a month data charge on my smartphone - even if I have access to wifi 24/7
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Dumb asses like this is the reason why I HAVE to pay a $30 a month data charge on my smartphone - even if I have access to wifi 24/7
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No cellular providers do that so they can make $27 profit off your $30 data plan to pay for subsidizing your expensive smartphone.
 
People have been lobbying for years to have gates applied to phones to prevent massive overages. However, the cell companies have much better people at this and thus these "features" are not in place.

One piece of legislation that was recently shot down would have required that the phone onwer can have on their main screen minutes/text/data left before overages w/ alarms set @ 25% left. This is a retardly simply thing to do, but it was shot down. Imagine driving a car with no gas gauge and the odometer underneath the engine.
 
VZW doesn't block data when there is no data plan which is the problem with this situation. Kids will be kids and access whatever the phones lets them, and not all parents are aware that data is accessible even if they don't add it. Wireless carriers leave these loopholes open intentionally so they can bill more.
 
With my Centro, all I had to do was call VZW and tell them to block data and it was done. :)
 
Yea you can block internet on phones, you just have to tell VZW to do it. You can even do it online.
 
450 said:
With my Centro, all I had to do was call VZW and tell them to block data and it was done. :)
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I assume you have tried to access the data since? I think he was just one tick mark short of a complete shutdown of the plan. VZW saw that he was going for an all out blockage and kudos (in this instance) for their follow up. Didn't hurt this specific story was all over the news...
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Dumb asses like this is the reason why I HAVE to pay a $30 a month data charge on my smartphone - even if I have access to wifi 24/7
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How is it that if he doesn't pay $30 for the data for the month suddenly the phone company has incurred a real '$22k' in costs that they have to pass along to you? The maximum real loss is what he'd have paid for the data in the first place with a data plan.
 
I have data blocked on my smartphone (don't need internet, just use it as a PDA), and the instant the operator disconnected it, the phone can't make a connection via 777, even if it tries to or I hit something accidentally.

-S
 
This is exactly what's wrong with the cell service in the USA (and probably other countries).

It should not even be possible to ring up a $22,000 phone bill in a month, under any circumstances.
 
You would think Verizon would have some sort of system to alert their customer of these type of irregularities.
 
Kenworth said:
I assume you have tried to access the data since? I think he was just one tick mark short of a complete shutdown of the plan. VZW saw that he was going for an all out blockage and kudos (in this instance) for their follow up. Didn't hurt this specific story was all over the news...
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Yeah, one of my programs checks for updates automatically, and now it can't.
 
This is really just a testament to the utter stupidity of having any kind of per/usage charges to begin with AND what they charge per/usage.

How the hell 1.4 gigbytes of data delivery comes out to $22k on ANY kind of plan is ludicrous. Did they ship all that data on the backs of mechanical golden camels? WTF?
 
Jutsu said:
You would think Verizon would have some sort of system to alert their customer of these type of irregularities.
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Yea, you'd think once you racked up over $100 of extra charges that the cell company would call you or something. But then again, why would they tell you stop spending money? Sometimes i think it is just greed. And I still don't get why it's $30 a month for a smartphone and only $15 for a regular phone. So what if the phone is "always connected". The regular phone can constantly connected to the networked anyway.
 
tomiboy59 said:
Yea, you'd think once you racked up over $100 of extra charges that the cell company would call you or something. But then again, why would they tell you stop spending money? Sometimes i think it is just greed. And I still don't get why it's $30 a month for a smartphone and only $15 for a regular phone. So what if the phone is "always connected". The regular phone can constantly connected to the networked anyway.
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They know the regular phone is too painful to browse with so they just offer a reduced price epeen service for owners of crap phones.
 
TechLarry said:
This is exactly what's wrong with the cell service in the USA (and probably other countries).

It should not even be possible to ring up a $22,000 phone bill in a month, under any circumstances.
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I agree, but if they feel they can get you, they will.

I have an associate that downloaded 3-4 GB (yes, thats all) in a remote European country and the charges are in excess of 25k. This is on verizon.

Hes currently taking the issue to court.

Best case scenario he wins or whatever and he still pays a few k to the sharks.
 
Uh huh, I'm not seeing how your comment is relevant. The article is about a bill that is too large, we've all therefore established that these "bill"s exists, and that there should be a warning given before the bill is due.

But you're right, they're already sending a monthly report, what more can they do. It's not like all the numbers are auto-generated by computers that could report the numbers at any time, but are just told to on a monthly basis. Or that you're constantly connected to their computer system. You're absolutely right, there's really nothing more that could be expected of them except for that "bill."
 
With Sprint, you get capped at $75 in charges. $22K is ridiculous.

tomiboy59 said:
Yea, you'd think once you racked up over $100 of extra charges that the cell company would call you or something. But then again, why would they tell you stop spending money? Sometimes i think it is just greed. And I still don't get why it's $30 a month for a smartphone and only $15 for a regular phone. So what if the phone is "always connected". The regular phone can constantly connected to the networked anyway.
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$22k is bogus...they could have a cap in place and get paid, instead of $0 like this story.
 
TechLarry said:
This is exactly what's wrong with the cell service in the USA (and probably other countries).

It should not even be possible to ring up a $22,000 phone bill in a month, under any circumstances.
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exactly, its not even possible when you figure what their unlimited plans cost. i would guess, at very worst you get charged double what their unlimited plan costs. that way you get penalized for not sticking to the plan, but its also not obvious that the phone company is just trying to steal from you.
 
1.34GB costs 22K? I can download more than that watching a couple Hulu movies. How can mobile providers hope to provide streaming video with rates like that? Wireless technology is a little backwards.
 
PhantmShado said:
Uh huh, I'm not seeing how your comment is relevant. The article is about a bill that is too large, we've all therefore established that these "bill"s exists, and that there should be a warning given before the bill is due.

But you're right, they're already sending a monthly report, what more can they do. It's not like all the numbers are auto-generated by computers that could report the numbers at any time, but are just told to on a monthly basis. Or that you're constantly connected to their computer system. You're absolutely right, there's really nothing more that could be expected of them except for that "bill."
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Or, I may have been criticizing the company for relying on their regular process. With sarcasm so easily lost in forums, who can say?
 
Sprint has a cap of $150 (at least for my plan).

Honestly, I have NEVER gone over in texts or internet data usage. Voice calls? Yeah, once or twice, but dude, it's a smartphone, you KNOW you're gonna use the internet on it. Just get an unlimited plan.
 
srangara said:
Or, I may have been criticizing the company for relying on their regular process. With sarcasm so easily lost in forums, who can say?
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Ah, well, if that's the case my bad. Trouble perceiving tone and what not through these tubes you know.
 
An Adult should be smarter than that and set him him with Limits. Easy to do.

DM
 
This is why you give your kid a prepay phone, minutes are up for the month so is the phone until the next. If they have an emergence they can still call 911. If they need to call their parents when the minutes are up, give them some change to carry around for a pay phone or instruct they to ask a business. Also you don't give them a camera phone to deal with sexting. Common sense 101 parents.
 
Something's not adding up here. I checked Verizon's website and they only charge $1.99/MB. 1.4GB is ~1433MB. 1433 x 1.99 = $2851. Where the hell is the other ~$19,000 coming from?
 
Disclaimer : I'm a VZW employee in a department completely unrelated to billing, sales, or customer service, so the following comments are mine and mine only, and in no way constitute an "official" reply.

That said, as a VZW customer, I know of at least three ways to check usage ad hoc, and two of these are available on your phone. So yes, that information is easily available to anyone who actually wants to see it, and it's right there on your phone. I've never had a problem with overages, so I don't use them.

One: Dial these following numbers to have a txt sent to your phone detailing your usage.

#MIN - Check current month's unbilled airtime usage. *estimated*
#BAL - Check your current account balance. *this only shows a number after the billing is ran, not a running total, afaik*
#DATA - Check your current monthly usage of TXT, PIX and FLIX Messaging


Two: access those same features through your phone directly with "My Verizon". I suppose that could be found various places on various phones, but on mine it's available directly by pushing my directional pad left, OR by accessing it in the settings & tools menu.

Three: Go online and check your account.

So, to me, it's pretty easy to keep track of your account, but you do actually have to look for yourself, just like you have to check your water, electricity, or gas meter to know how much you're using with those utilities. I could speculate about why they don't do auto-notifications, but I won't for fear it might be mis-interpreted.

As far as the $22k itself, as the article says, that was only the bill. They ended up paying nothing, so it's just a bunch of hubbub about nothing really. Backdating bills with plan changes to cover overages isn't uncommon, nor is negotiating on large bills. AFAIK, you're allowed to upgrade your plan at any time prior to billing and it would cover any overages you might have, however you'd probably want to talk to a customer service rep to make sure of that.

My personal opinion is that there's no replacement for personal responsibility, and while of course no one should pay $22k for one phone line's usage (and alas, no one *did*), if the parent would have tried at all to monitor their child's usage, this wouldn't have happened. But that's just my take.

P.
 
maybe they left off a 0 in the story. Although I'd be impressed if the kid managed to download 14 Gb. Depending on the phone obviously.
 
vile1SoC said:
Sprint has a cap of $150 (at least for my plan).

Honestly, I have NEVER gone over in texts or internet data usage. Voice calls? Yeah, once or twice, but dude, it's a smartphone, you KNOW you're gonna use the internet on it. Just get an unlimited plan.
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thats because your credit sucks. once your credit rises, they will gladly inform you that they did you the favor of lifting the spending limit on your account! never be without service again! yay!:rolleyes:
 
OCgamer666 said:
VZW doesn't block data when there is no data plan which is the problem with this situation. Kids will be kids and access whatever the phones lets them, and not all parents are aware that data is accessible even if they don't add it. Wireless carriers leave these loopholes open intentionally so they can bill more.
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QFT

This would be like the cable company not blocking any premium/PPV channels, and charging you for them if you change to that channel, without any prompt whatsoever.

People generally don't expect things to work that way. It's even worse if they aren't completely tech savvy.
 
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