Son Dialled premium rate numbers

minniemischief

Hi

I have just caught my 9 year old son ringing premium rate numbers to prank lines. He has managed to rack up £64 worth of charges in one evening. I am currently with sky and my phone bills are normally £15 a month.I only thank God I caught him before he managed to make more calls.:mad: I contacted sky and as I thought was told there was nothing they could do in terms of the charges which doesn't really surprise me, but I think it should have triggered some sort of security as £64 in the space of a few hours is quite a lot. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has any advice.

luci

The first thing you should do is contact Sky and ask them to bar calls to premium rate numbers if you are sure you won't need to call them yourself.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

If these lines are for over 18's only you can contact the company's and demand the money back from them. They have to give you it providing its classed as an adult line and he is under 18 years of age.

Heinz

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK wrote: »

If these lines are for over 18's only you can contact the company's and demand the money back from them. They have to give you it providing its classed as an adult line and he is under 18 years of age.

Really? I'd have thought it was parents' responsibility to prevent/protect.

KimYeovil

Surely he just wants to be like his mother? If she enjoys being a minx why won't he want to be a menace?

Jemma-T

minniemischief wrote:

Son Dialled premium rate numbers

Perhaps, but you are responsible for it and him.

Going_Digital

It is an unfortunate situation, I don't have any kids myself and even I can imagine how it is impossible to keep track of your children's actions all the time.

I feel that the phone providers should take the issue more seriously and by default bar premium rate numbers. It could easily be a case of issuing a pin number to the subscriber that needs to be dialled in order to use a premium rate number.

pinkmami

I think it'd be easier for everyone if phone providers barred all outgoing calls to premium rate numbers & if you want to dial one you have a PIN for it.

in_spired2

I second that ^^ (and make it include those automatic charges to the phone bill from internet sites :mad:)

Can't see it happening though - look at the easy profits they'd lose if that were the case. and if they did do it, they'd probably just raise prices elsewhere to compensate for the loss.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

Heinz wrote: »

Really? I'd have thought it was parents' responsibility to prevent/protect.

It's against regulations to charge money from an under 18 call.

I worked for a company years ago that hd to pay back over 2k to a lad's father when he complained that his son had rung up this bill chatting to his operators, because the lad was under 18 it was far wiser to pay all the cost of the calls back than risk being reported to ICSTIS as it was called then.

Not many people know this.

I_know_my_ABC_and_my_CMYK

Going_Digital wrote: »

It is an unfortunate situation, I don't have any kids myself and even I can imagine how it is impossible to keep track of your children's actions all the time.

I feel that the phone providers should take the issue more seriously and by default bar premium rate numbers. It could easily be a case of issuing a pin number to the subscriber that needs to be dialled in order to use a premium rate number.

Does the barring of premium rate numbers still also bar international calls? or have they now seperated the two?