Tesco SIM only - any way to stop child going over limit?

OldGreyFox

smallbiznewbie wrote: »

<
If you're on a sim only why not migrate her to payt and let her have the responsibility of managing her own account?
>

If you mean payg (typo?)

(PAYG) Pay as you go and (PAYT) Pay as you talk same kettle of fish.

kjmrascal57

maxtweenie wrote: »

Isn't £35 a month far too much to be paying for a teenager's inability to control her tongue? Wouldn't it be better to teach her some responsibility or take the phone off her? We never had phones. If we wanted to talk to our friends we went round and knocked on their doors or arranged to meet at the park. Kids have it easy enough without soft parents making it worse by giving in to them all the time.

£35 might be too much, but as the op said the teenager is using 0800 reverse so op also has her own bill on top teenagers to pay.

I would say no matter how much restriction the op puts on her child , she would still call her from her own mobile, at her own expense once the minutes, texts had run out, so i a truly limitless deal would potentially save her cash over the month, from the teenagers own monthly mobile allowance and the extra onto the parents thru the 0800 reverse

masterlumps

i agree that she should be converted to pay as you go, and if she uses it up in a day or 2, tough.

as for using the 0800 reverse thing, you need to knock that on the head unless it is URGENT like an emergency, not 3/4 times a day that is rediculous

smallbiznewbie

Thanks, everyone!

A few salient points:

Have you seen ANY teenage girl (16 years old) without a mobile phone?

Do you know of ANY teenage girl that has credit on their mobile? :-)

My daughter has had endless behavioural difficulties in the past and it's not a question of 'tough' if she doesn't make contact - it's all about getting her in the habit of telling us where she is and what she's up to, and us keeping close tabs on her and making sure she's all right.

:-)
@ kmjrascal57 actually she rings my phone, leaves her name, I pick up the phone, hear her name, put the phone down. A minute later I ring her back, so there's no cost involved from the 0800 POV, just the standard cost of landline to mobile. It's a useful trick by the way if anyone's got teenagers of their own whose credit has run out. As it invariably does.

bubblesmoney

whats this 0800 reverse business. cant i refuse to accept 0800 reverse calls so one is not forced to pay for someone elses calls. do you get warned you are being billed for receiving the call. i hadnt heard of this 0800 reverse before.

masterlumps

tbh if you have had behavioural problems in the past i think you are not helping matters by essentially giving her what she wants

i know lots of 16 year olds with mobile phones, most of them DONT have credit in them

and as for keeping tabs on her, you already said she is calling you, or doing 0800 reverse. what you need to be doing here is making clear rule and boundries about where she goes what she does etc and the mobile phone not having unlimited credit at your expense could be the first of these boundries

sorry if this sounds harsh, but it is reality

Zazen999

smallbiznewbie wrote: »

A few salient points:

One salient point; you have been hit with [in your words] a massive bill.

quidsinquentin

Both myself and my neighbour have youngish kids and this happened to us too.

We stopped the contracts (took over them actually) and gave the kids payg. There was hell to pay at first but there's no other way.

First time you get a bill for £500, it's a sobering experience.

Don't give them a contract, they don't appreciate it.

smallbiznewbie

@ masterlumps

< tbh if you have had behavioural problems in the past i think you are not helping matters by essentially giving her what she wants>

I'm not giving her what she wants, I'm trying to give her what I want, which is a way to save money. If she gets lots of phonecalls and text out of it that's an added bonus for her.

< and as for keeping tabs on her, you already said she is calling you, or doing 0800 reverse. what you need to be doing here is making clear rule and boundries about where she goes what she does etc and the mobile phone not having unlimited credit at your expense could be the first of these boundries>

:-) The 0800 reverse is a little trick where she rings me up but I DON'T accept the call, I just put the phone down. Then I ring her back. So it's relatively cheap, just a landline to a mobile, but it's the volume of brief calls a day that's costing me. I'm more than happy to bear that cost as then I have a very clear idea of where she is and can guess what she's up to, but given the chance I would like to reduce the cost.

Once or twice in the past the phone companies have somehow barred her from doing this 0800 trick, but we just bought a new SIM card and they don't seem to bother trying to bar her any more. I don't give her money to put credit on her phone as she has no self-discipline when it comes to monitoring how many phone calls she makes.

Rules and boundaries are fine for 16 year olds in the house, but once they're out of the house they're quite capable of doing exactly what they want. As I'm sure most adults here will remember doing when they were themselves 16.

Therefore (as always with a 16 year old girl, perhaps equivalent to an 18 year old boy) it's compromise and advice and warnings in order that they can look after themselves safely when out of the house, and to be honest I'm just very glad that she rings me and that she doesn't have her phone off when I ring her (yes, we went through that phase a year or two ago - as soon as her phone was off when we tried to contact her we knew she was up to something that she shouldn't have been up to).

@quidsinquentin
<First time you get a bill for £500, it's a sobering experience.>

I bet. Our bill wasn't that large, thank goodness.

<Don't give them a contract, they don't appreciate it. >

That's why I want a capped contract, monthly only, SIM only, if such a thing yet exists.

@bubblesmoney
< whats this 0800 reverse business. cant i refuse to accept 0800 reverse calls so one is not forced to pay for someone elses calls. do you get warned you are being billed for receiving the call. i hadnt heard of this 0800 reverse before.>

Apparently you type in 0800 REVERSE on your mobile and then answer the question i.e. type in the number you want to contact, and then leave a recording of your name (you get about half a second, not enough time to leave a message). The person on the other end picks up their phone and hears an automated recorded message saying 'You have a reverse phone call from (name). Do you want to accept this call?' but by this time the person receiving the call has already put the phone down whilst the automated phone message chunters on. After twenty seconds or so you then pick up the phone, the message has stopped, the dial tone is normal and you ring back the person who contacted you. Not sure if 0800 REVERSE only works from mobiles to landlines, as opposed to mobile to mobile (just remembered, my daughter told me there is a way to go mobile to mobile).

@Zazen999 <One salient point; you have been hit with [in your words] a massive bill.>

:-) Yes indeed. Live and learn.

Lorian

From tesco mobile:

"Cap your tariff

Our new feature let’s you cap your tariff, meaning you get the great value of Pay monthly with the control of Pay as you go.



This feature is great:

• If you want to make sure you only spend what you want to each month.
• For managing your kids’ spending, whether they’re at school or college.
• If you like the idea of Pay monthly but don’t want to lose the control of Pay as you go. "

http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/paymonthly.aspx?page=96