Mobile bill is a little high Dad!

scocky

No credit cards I am pleased to say!!! Who would be daft enough to let an unemployed 19 year old run up £8.5 grands worth of credit?? Nobody surely!!

rchddap1

Of course its a worry....but if she gets it into her thick skull now that she has to be careful with these sorts of things she'll be much better off in the long run. If it does damage her credit history ..... as she's only young, if she sorts it out quick it should do any long-term damage.

Sometimes the best lessons are the hardest ones for parents...ie, the ones where you just have to let them sink or swim.

Imelda

OH MY GOD!!!!
That is unbelievable! Does she usually talk to this friend in Australia or is it a new thing? Here's hoping it was an error on the part of the phone company. If not does your daughter have anything to sell, a car?

spud30

scocky wrote:

No credit cards I am pleased to say!!! Who would be daft enough to let an unemployed 19 year old run up £8.5 grands worth of credit?? Nobody surely!!

I think you'd be amazed Scocky :eek:

climbgirl

I think you really need to speak to the phone company about this. It's an astounding jump in charges and I'm sure they're puzzled about it too - my phone company call me to check my phone hasn't been stolen if my usage differs by about £20 each month! It's possible (fingers crossed!) that there's an error of some kind, or the number has been tapped in some way (this happened to my friend and was quickly sorted).

Aside from that, if the calls are legit (and if she's been calling australia for hours the bill could very quickly get that high), there's not a lot she can do but pay it back on some kind of repayment plan (again speak to the phone company about this). This will incur some kind of mark on her credit rating, but frankly she's 19 and if she's old enough to incur such massive phone bills it's probably about time she learnt a few lessons the hard way!

I'd pack her off down the job centre asap!

Glitterari

Yes, this will probably damage her credit history - but this is one hell of a tough lesson that she will hopefully learn now and she won't ever want to get herself in anymore debt (except maybe buying a house). And any damage this does will be on her credit record for 6 years I believe - once that time is up she will still be young enough to then rebuild her credit record so that she gets herself in a good position.

And yes, I would imagine there are lenders out there that would lend ££££'s to an employed young person...are you 100% sure about her not having any other debts be it credit cards, overdrafts or whatever, that aren't hidden away somewhere??

Floss

I suggest you hang on for the recriminations/psychological assessments when you get the itemised bill......then you will be able to see where the calls have been made to and whether it is calls to Aussie mate / web use / chat lines / text messages / downloading music etc.

I agree it is difficult for her, but if she can't think "durr, who's going to pay for all these "free" calls to my Aussie mate" BEFORE she makes another, then I'm sorry, but its her pile of poo to clear up (same as the rest of us)

However, I do think you should investigate how she was allowed to reach such a bill - even with the delay on billing, surely the mobile co should have realised there was going to be a VERY big bill? If theyhad no limit on, then they should accept fault for that & at least apologise.

nives316

Wow.... thats am amazing bill ... you have to check it before you do anything. However, I used to work for a mobile company and bills are rarely wrong.. I think the calls to Oz will explain alot... hope she wasn't planning on going there in the near future ....

MrsTinks

Hmmmm I'd get the itemised bill if I were you as others have suggested... as someone has saved me the hassle of doing the maths then I just thought I'd point out with that amount on calls to aussie land should would not only have had to have been surgically attached to the phone butthe phone would need to have been plugged in to the mains or the battery would have run down within a couple of hours...
Have you out right asked her how much time she has spent calling her "friend" in Oz? And IF she has run up this bill then my advice would be for her to get a job and then discuss with mobile comp what settlement figure they would accept bearing in mind THEY should have spotted an abnormal figure like this. Make sure they understand that they will never get the full amount from her because she simply doesn't have that amount of money. Once you have a possible figure then see if she can get a loan in HER name - NOT yours!!!! and let her pay this off over the next many years. Less damage to her credit history, and if she can learn to pay it off she will have learnt the impact on her life of having debt, being silly and she'll actually show as having a responcible debt history as there are no defaults and she has borrowed money but has managed her debt responsibly.

Harsh lesson but tough love needed I feel

climbgirl

Floss wrote:

However, I do think you should investigate how she was allowed to reach such a bill - even with the delay on billing, surely the mobile co should have realised there was going to be a VERY big bill? If theyhad no limit on, then they should accept fault for that & at least apologise.

If it turns out that it's not a billing error and the calls are legitimate I think it's a bit rich to blame the phone company for not acting quicker. The calls have happened in one billing period, they've only had a chance to flag them now. It's not possible to monitor every single mobile users call activity on a daily basis.

And it's not up to them to place limits on people's calling (they're trying to encourage us to spend more so they make more!), they won't put limits on unless you ask them to.