Bloody Kids!

oops_a_daisy

Hi Toto - well done on sorting this out and just be careful if you go out this weekend, your 2 may be having a BBQ to recover their costs I also think this Habbo thing is disgusting - ever thought of contacting GMTV with your story ? Or I wonder if Martin from this site may have any ideas on how to put a stop to this exploitation. I have never heard of Habbo before reading this but I will be asking my little darling later if she has ever been introduced to it. Mind you she never gets a chance on the computer because I am always on here

ZTD

melabarrie wrote:

how are you monitoring the access to these sites on the computer. have you put the sites you don't want them on on a restricted list on the computer itself...just saying, if they're addicted to the site, they might be sneaky....

Unfortunately, all software products can be got around. There're tips on the internet for almost all of them.

The best solution I've found is the dual hardware product of 'Eye of Adult' and 'Wrath of Mum'. It's available almost anywhere, but does take quite a bit of time to keep going.

Its advantage is that it prevents trouble as well as cures it.

princess_pink

Glad you sorted your punishment out Toto, its always hard to stick to it when the kids are whining but I am from the school of "Tough - you should have thought about that before you did XYZ"

My son gave up asking for his PS2 last time I banned it as he knew darn well he wasn't going to get it back. Its easy to see how kids can get sucked into things though isn't it? My son isn't quite yet 7 and I have had to disconnect my Sky box from the phone line as I found he was pressing the red button to play "paid for" games. He has asked to call up the competitions on TV but has never taken it upon himself to do so. He has though once phoned my mum to tell her I was being mean,:rotfl: her phone number is easier to remember than mine.

He also occasionally asks to use the internet to find cheats for his ps2 games or to look for pictures of things he was learning about in school - tonight he has asked if he can look for pictures of the great wall of China. Obviously at this age he needs a little (scarily not much though:eek: ) help when using the internet, but it just goes to show how we need to monitor our kids internet usage.

Just on another tangent my OH is always saying I am addicted to the internet and can always be found at my desk!:o

MrsTinks

ZTD wrote:

Unfortunately, all software products can be got around. There're tips on the internet for almost all of them.

The best solution I've found is the dual hardware product of 'Eye of Adult' and 'Wrath of Mum'. It's available almost anywhere, but does take quite a bit of time to keep going.

Its advantage is that it prevents trouble as well as cures it.

Usually only if they haven't been set up right Best way of setting filters up is by restricting everything apart from the few sites you wish to allow and not the otherway round

GreyPilgrim

jessicamb wrote:

surely its immoral for a company to be blatantly making money out of kids like that

Welcome to the world JL!! Morals don't really play a part in corporate decision making anymore I'm afraid...look at debt / finance companies targetting the hard up with messages of "look at all the nice shiny things you could hav e if you take a loan out!" or Macdonlads mercilessly targetting kids by packaging up their crap food with a cheap plastic toy based on the latest hollywood blockbuster manufactured by a kid chained to a sweatshop table a couple of thousand miles away.

It's the way of the world - if there's money to be made, they will make it no matter how morally bankrupt it may be.

Glitterari

OMG - this happened to my friend last year.

She got a phone bill back for around £150, she was expecting it to be minimum as they were saving to go on holiday and were using the phone bare minimum to save money. Then huge bill dropped through - premium rate phone numbers being called at 5 a.m. 6 a.m. Turned out it was her daughter who was about 7 calling up the ring tones cos she loves crazy frog and sweetie chick - but she didn't have a mobile. I think she must have thought if she called she could listen to the tune!

C xx

Toto

Glitterari wrote:

OMG - this happened to my friend last year.

She got a phone bill back for around £150, she was expecting it to be minimum as they were saving to go on holiday and were using the phone bare minimum to save money. Then huge bill dropped through - premium rate phone numbers being called at 5 a.m. 6 a.m. Turned out it was her daughter who was about 7 calling up the ring tones cos she loves crazy frog and sweetie chick - but she didn't have a mobile. I think she must have thought if she called she could listen to the tune!

C xx

That's just awful but kind of sweet at the same time. It goes to show how all of these things prey on innocent minds. Sometimes kids just don't have the concept of phone calls turning into real money, and the boys at the top know this and prey on it. It makes me sick.

I fear for the younger generation. They have known nothing other than the buy now pay later era and they are targeted almost from birth by the media. I don't want to sound like an old lady (I'm only 36) but it wasn't like that when I was a child. I remember everything being saved for and then carefully spent (how did it go so wrong for me?).

In some ways I am glad my kids are living through my struggles with debt. I am hoping they will see and feel first hand the effects of borrowing and that will give them a big life lesson so they avoid the same. I know they have really messed up with this phone bill but I do want to use it as a learning exercise for them.

My kids do go without a lot, they don't get holidays, they don't get tons of new clothes, they understand the words 'no, we can't afford it' they hear it all the time. I also make them a big part of my attempts to save money.

But I am also aware that mine is one voice in their world, they get hundreds of messages daily from the big corporate money making machines, buy this great thing... you will be the coolest kid in school. If you don't have this you will be the odd one out. Eat this crap processed junk... it's good for you, I mean even Mc Ds is healthy because you have the faint option of having a 3 week old bag of carrot sticks instead of chips... Mc ds do care about your health honest!

I do feel like a one woman crusade in their lives, educating and showing them an alternative. Of course it remains to be seen how successful I have been, sometimes I fear, not very. Especially when they get sucked into calling premium lines because if they don't they will be less than their friends in the habbo world.

Well, how was that for a rant!

ZTD

Toto wrote:

I fear for the younger generation. They have known nothing other than the buy now pay later era and they are targeted almost from birth by the media.

Don't fear for them for that. They'll learn. It is said, that generations come around in cycles. Apparently, we are in the same stage of "The Circle of Life" as the Roaring Twenties. Of course you know what happened after that.

Toto wrote:

I don't want to sound like an old lady (I'm only 36) but it wasn't like that when I was a child. I remember everything being saved for and then carefully spent (how did it go so wrong for me?).

The trite answer is "times change" and people do react to the times. The fuller explanation involves credit cycles, time preferences, inflation, rational expectations and population growth. But believe me, you don't want to go there unless you're really interested. :eek:

Or you need the motivation in order to slash your wrists...

Toto wrote:

In some ways I am glad my kids are living through my struggles with debt. I am hoping they will see and feel first hand the effects of borrowing and that will give them a big life lesson so they avoid the same. I know they have really messed up with this phone bill but I do want to use it as a learning exercise for them.

It has to be a learning exercise for them. You wouldn't be being fair to them if it wasn't.

Toto wrote:

My kids do go without a lot, they don't get holidays, they don't get tons of new clothes, they understand the words 'no, we can't afford it' they hear it all the time. I also make them a big part of my attempts to save money.

But that happens to a greater or lesser extent to most normal people. Paris Hilton, perhaps not, but everyone else. Of all the things that you would like to have given them, did you receive them all as a child?

Toto wrote:

But I am also aware that mine is one voice in their world, they get hundreds of messages daily from the big corporate money making machines, buy this great thing... you will be the coolest kid in school. If you don't have this you will be the odd one out. Eat this crap processed junk... it's good for you, I mean even Mc Ds is healthy because you have the faint option of having a 3 week old bag of carrot sticks instead of chips... Mc ds do care about your health honest!

It's not just the corporate money machine. The Government pumps out a lot of propaganda/spin/lies - call it what you will. I've got a big thing on health at the mo, and that gets my blood boiling.

Used to drink lots (and I mean lots) of Coke. Found out phosphoric acid drains away calcium from the teeth and bones. Could explan why a few of my teeth have snapped at the roots. You don't hear that from the DoH though. Or from the fizzy drink manufacturers. Needless to say, I've stopped drinking coke.

According to the Gov, issues surrounding the environment, AIDS, healthy diet, the economy and hypertension are all settled. That is until you've done your own research (been looking at hypertension recently - but I won't start on that). There's raging debates in all of them, and many times the Gov's position has so little to back it up, that WMDs in Iraq look a dead cert in comparison. However, the position has money behind it. In today's world that means campaign loans. Well hush my cynicism. :mad:

Oh dear, I've started ranting as well.

Toto wrote:

I do feel like a one woman crusade in their lives, educating and showing them an alternative. Of course it remains to be seen how successful I have been, sometimes I fear, not very. Especially when they get sucked into calling premium lines because if they don't they will be less than their friends in the habbo world.

I'm also a bit of a crusader in the lives of people close to me, but I tend not to say anything to other people unless I'm asked. People want to believe that what they see and hear is real and safe, everyone else has their best interests at heart (even over their own) and everything will be nice and fluffy forever.

The times I've volunteered warnings, people have looked at me as though I'm a two-headed alien from the planet Zarg. Which is why I tend not to.

People round me are going BTL mad, but I've kept my mouth shut and my smile on.

Having said that, the OH's sister used me to perform a hatchet job on a financial advisor's recommendation to buy property abroad. So I do have my uses...

Toto wrote:

Well, how was that for a rant!

And you started me off... Bad Toto!

kickingkay

thankyou for bringing this site to my attention!
what ever happend to neo pets well yes my children have been playing on this ridiculous site needs banning! but when thye relised that they had to ring up and pay for furniture the attraction soon ended heaves a sigh of relief, thankfully my daughter for the first time in her life thought before following everyone else perhaps she is learning something
so i say a big thakyou for warning us about this awfull site
klare

Toto

I am glad your kids had a bit of sense Kay, it shows you have educated them well, well done. I am going to try to contact Martin about this site, hopefully he might be able to warn more parents before they end up with huge bills too.

The whole thing is just wrong.

Give your daughter a big pat on the back from me, she's a star!