Mobile bill is a little high Dad!

modger

You may or may not know i used to work for Voda?

Which company is she with

climbgirl

skintchick wrote:

The first is the phone company. AS others have said, it is entirely unaccpetable for them to allow such a high bill to be racked up without notice. (Assuming they didn;t notify your daughter of course). YOu need to take this up with them and find out what happened.

How is it "unacceptable" for the phone company to allow such a high bill to be racked up?! As others have repeatedly stated in the thread, international calling on mobiles is rather complicated and the overseas networks often charge back the calls to the original network. Which doesn't happen immediately and certainly allows time for a bill to build up rapidly without any flags being made on the account.

The company in question (whoever they are) is not a "nanny", it's a business. It's not their job to control someone's spending/calling habits.

I don't mean to be harsh to the original poster at all. I just get rather exasperated with hearing 'oh the banks should cut her off, the mobile phone company is at fault here'. People need to take a bit more responsibility for their own lending/spending.

GreyPilgrim

climbgirl wrote:

I don't mean to be harsh to the original poster at all. I just get rather exasperated with hearing 'oh the banks should cut her off, the mobile phone company is at fault here'. People need to take a bit more responsibility for their own lending/spending.

I'm as eager as anyone to find out some of the facts behind this and to wait for any mitigating circumstances to come to light...but I tend to agree with Climbgirl about the "responsibility" issue

Mrs_Arkwright

climbgirl wrote:

I don't mean to be harsh to the original poster at all. I just get rather exasperated with hearing 'oh the banks should cut her off, the mobile phone company is at fault here'. People need to take a bit more responsibility for their own lending/spending.

Hear hear.

climbgirl

GreyPilgrim wrote:

I'm as eager as anyone to find out some of the facts behind this and to wait for any mitigating circumstances to come to light...but I tend to agree with Climbgirl about the "responsibility" issue

Yes, I want to hear if there are any mitigating circumstances as well! Sorry, should say that it is of course entirely possible (and certainly hopeful!) that there's been some kind of charging error here. I'm very curious to hear the outcome of this thread...I hope the OP will keep us updated!

Josie64

climbgirl wrote:

How is it "unacceptable" for the phone company to allow such a high bill to be racked up?! , the mobile phone company is at fault here'. People need to take a bit more responsibility for their own lending/spending.[/QUOTE]

I disagree with this , my son thought he had web'n'walk access as part of
(ie included) within his monthly flext tariff , then he was charged extra for it and now has had the phone cut off , so in effect he was charged twice , as part of the con-tract then again as an 'extra' , we have argued over T&C's but talking to them was a total waste of time ,

phone companies cannot be allowed to advertise something that is part of what you already pay for then have the nerve to charge you extra for it :mad: , surely that is misleading advertising?

all companies especially banks etc are the same ,just in it for profit , people can apply for loan/credit cards and already thousands in debt but banks etc do not always bother to check to see if people are in a position to pay the payments every month , so no it is not always people being irresponsible.....

superjaggybunnet

Has she signed up to any ringtone clubs or things like that? They charge you for every text they send you and at their prices it will soon mount up.

I don't even think the phone has to be switc hed on for them to keep sending/charging for texts.

My son went on holiday to the US this summer and was under strict instructions to only use his phone to text us that he had arrived ok and then take the battery out and not use it again until he got home. Doh! Teenagers! He came home with a bill of over £200 and is still paying it back.

If you have an itemised bill can you see where the expensive calls were made to? Is this a number in her phone? Could it have been hijacked by someone else or cloned? I have heard that this can be done if bluetooth is kept switched on.

skintchick

climbgirl wrote:

How is it "unacceptable" for the phone company to allow such a high bill to be racked up?! As others have repeatedly stated in the thread, international calling on mobiles is rather complicated and the overseas networks often charge back the calls to the original network. Which doesn't happen immediately and certainly allows time for a bill to build up rapidly without any flags being made on the account.

The company in question (whoever they are) is not a "nanny", it's a business. It's not their job to control someone's spending/calling habits.

I don't mean to be harsh to the original poster at all. I just get rather exasperated with hearing 'oh the banks should cut her off, the mobile phone company is at fault here'. People need to take a bit more responsibility for their own lending/spending.

Well that's the first time I;ve been accused of being soft! I'm all for responsibility, and if you read any of my many thousdands of posts on this site you'll soon see i am probably the harshest person on here at times.

However, I still feel it should not be possible to run up that level of bill without it triggering alarms somewhere.

Yes, I hear that it's complicated.

I still don't think that excuses the company. How can it be possible to run up such a bill without anyone noticing ? In this day and age? That was my point.

happyformonths

I feel slightly voyeuristic reading this thread as I don't have anything to say which can help, and yet it's SO extreme that I can't wait to find out the real story behind it!

Do keep us updated... if nothing else we can learn for our own delightful young-uns.

HFM

MinnieSpender

What a dreadful story! Sympathy to you OP.

Good advice, as usual, from the gang.

However, may I suggest that this is an excellent chance to teach your DD about money? At 19, you can be really tough on her. Make her get a job and pay it off. Then make her get a part-time job as well. Help her to choose which of her possessions she sells on ebay. Don't give her an inch. In a year or two she'll have learned a valuable lesson and hopefully not end up like the rest of us on here.

The very best of luck to you - both of you. x