Mobile Phone contract for teenager

Tony5101

jamespir wrote: »

i cant belive parents are dum enough to get their kids contract phones you have to be 18 to get one for a reason but i bet your the same kind of parents who buy their kids vodka

I'm not a dum(b) parent, in fact I'm very literate and believe that I'm reasonably intelligent. I don't buy my daughter vodka or any other substance that is illegal for her age.
I do however value her intelligence, honesty and integrity. She is aware of the priviledge that she has been given a contract phone, and all of the responsibility that goes with it.
In our case, the contract I was able to secure, was far more economic than PAYG would have been - and due to the fact that it's a 2nd line off my account, I have full control of it.

You probably didn't mean for your comment to be so abrasive, but I would recommend in future that you take a breath before hitting the submit reply button.

DrScotsman

jamespir wrote: »

i see it in tescos kids and i mean kids ( look between 9-11 ) with 400 pound phones and some of them you can only get on contract and its ridiculous

first of buying your kid a 400 pound phone
and second letting them take it to school

what does a 9 year old need an iphone for ?

Again, it's far easier to notice the bad parenting than the good parenting. Those kids are a minority. Most parents won't even have that kind of money to waste.

Which phones can you only get on contract?

jamespir

DrScotsman wrote: »

Again, it's far easier to notice the bad parenting than the good parenting. Those kids are a minority. Most parents won't even have that kind of money to waste.

Which phones can you only get on contract?

theres a few thats you can nly get on contracts some blackberry ones and others

i understand the "so called" need to let your child have a phone if thereis an emergency etc
but they dont need them at school
i survived 16 years of school before phones were even invented (they were but in the last two years or so but not main stream)


if a parent needs to let thier child know something they should ring the school

DrScotsman

jamespir wrote: »

theres a few thats you can nly get on contracts some blackberry ones and others

Kids never ask for Blackberries james

i understand the "so called" need to let your child have a phone if thereis an emergency etc
but they dont need them at school
i survived 16 years of school before phones were even invented (they were but in the last two years or so but not main stream)


if a parent needs to let thier child know something they should ring the school

James, no one's suggested any of what you've just said in your post. You can't dispute a reason no one's giving.

nigem

I used to do the cashback phones for my 2 teenagers. It was my responsibility to get the bill in on time etc, and theirs to pay any excess amounts. If you get a reasonabe (£35 pm) contract it does cover most of the usage.
Once they got to 18 they took over the contracts.
Of course this is only as secure as the cashback site!
I was lucky.

lucylucky

jamespir wrote: »

i cant belive parents are dum enough to get their kids contract phones you have to be 18 to get one for a reason but i bet your the same kind of parents who buy their kids vodka

What laugh you are with your lack of any sort of reasoning;)

robbies_gal

its a bit silly saying parents would give drink to their kids just because they let them have a phone

however as much as they might promise you they wont go over the minutes or data peer pressure or just over use can happen

and remember unlimited doesnt mean unlimited it always has a fair use policy

my sister had a contract aged 16 she run it up to about 200 pounds one month because her friends kept asking to borrow it to callpeople

she swore she would never do this but you know what mates are like they think youre out of order or whatever when you say no

7891368

I've had a contract phone since I was 13/14, what terrible parents I have;)

I never ran up a massive bill or taken the mick about it, all my friends had contract phones too so we all used our own.

But, when I was that age they used to do bog standard payg not like now where you get freebies; If I didn't have such high minutes usage (uni I have to ring everything off my own phone, whereas living at home if I had to ring a landline/0800 number I would use the landline; free on the package we have) I would happily switch to a payg system with bonus, giffgaff unlimited everything for £35 a month! Fantastic value for money.

3 have some contract phones for only £12 p/m with a phone but if the child is 14 1/2 now, by 16/17 they will probably have higher usage.

I would suggest try a 'bonus style' payg or 30 day sim only for now (beware some sim only are 12 month) then contract say when he's going to college/starting full time work at 16ish?

xbrenx

jamespir wrote: »

i cant belive parents are dum enough to get their kids contract phones you have to be 18 to get one for a reason but i bet your the same kind of parents who buy their kids vodka

How rude.

I encouraged both my sons to have a contract which I am ultimately responsible for simply because they got a decent phone and unlimited texts. Lets face it, the minutes allowance is not really what they're interested in lol. They were both told from the beginning, I pay the contract, they pay any excess. To date, there's been no excess :rotfl:

EDIT... ohhhhh and there's been no vodka either :eek:

Flummaxed

Hi there,

You do have to be careful with contracts for teenagers, as I have just found to my own horror. I thought I was paying £10 per month for a Virgin contract, but the first bill came to almost £50!!

I am new to this contracts malarky as I've always had PAYG with Virgin for my own usage (on £10 Liberty sim unlimited texts and 200 mins - plenty for me, but then I'm a sensible adult - or so I thought!).

I can only assume that these mobile phone companies realise just how much money they are able to make out of us, that's why they refuse to cap at the level of the contract you have taken out with them, so that they can bolster their enormous profits!
I just called Virgin to ask them whether they could cap the phone at the contract level ie £10, but they told me they could only cap it at a minimum of £50 (instead of the £150 they originally had it at which I didn't realise - aaaarrrgghhh!). I can't understand why they can't just cap it at the £10 and not allow any calls or texts once this limit has been reached. This means I could find myself paying up to £50 each month for a contract that I thought I'd be paying £10 for. Oh well, guess I'll just have to confiscate the phone from my 15 year old in that case!! Parents beware!