Blackberry 8520 T Mobile - Help please

Maisie11

Just brought my son a Blackberry as he is at boarding school. He has 300 mins and unlimited text's per month, also some internet useage and of course the teenage must have BBM! Cost is just over £20 per month and the phone was included.


He is confident he wont go over the allowance but could anyone suggest some things to protect my bank account in case he does something by mistake.

1. what about asking for T Mobile to just allow him to use the allowance under the contract?

2. What about taking abroad? Can he still use text messages and BBM, are they stupidly expensive?

3. Can I turn off roaming whilst abroad but just allow him to send text messages.

Please be gentle. I am not technical!

Guys_Dad

Maisie11 wrote: »

Just brought my son a Blackberry as he is at boarding school. He has 300 mins and unlimited text's per month, also some internet useage and of course the teenage must have BBM! Cost is just over £20 per month and the phone was included.


He is confident he wont go over the allowance but could anyone suggest some things to protect my bank account in case he does something by mistake.

1. what about asking for T Mobile to just allow him to use the allowance under the contract?

2. What about taking abroad? Can he still use text messages and BBM, are they stupidly expensive?

3. Can I turn off roaming whilst abroad but just allow him to send text messages.

Please be gentle. I am not technical!

1. Don't let him take it abroad. Period. Just search through here for horror stories and bills over well over £1000

2. Others can say definitely whether or not T-mobile can apply the nanny controls you ask for - but, forgive me, the time to check that out was before you gave him the phone and contract !!

3. When you have to pay bills for others, particularly if it is children away from home, you are really asking for trouble if you give them anything except PAYG.

she73

Why dont you do what i did for my daughter, take it into a tmobile shop,this offer is only on till 31 jan,its payg with 6 months internet and the almighty bbm.If you top up 10 pounds a month you get unlimited texts plus if you go over your usage they inform you without charging you,just to warn you that your using internet to much.When your 6months is up its £5per month for your bb services bbm etc

maisie1234

Thanks for the replies. No, we will not let him take it abroad. However we do have an old mobile, can we just swap the sim around to avoid the data roming charges. Last time we were abroad he had this old mobile and he sent a couple of text messages and made a couple of calls, and we hardly noticed the charges.

in_the_Cotswolds

How about something like this http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/13016?lang=en It's free from Blackberry App World. May help him keep an eye on his mobile use.

Smorg

Maisie11 wrote: »

Just brought my son a Blackberry as he is at boarding school. He has 300 mins and unlimited text's per month, also some internet useage and of course the teenage must have BBM! Cost is just over £20 per month and the phone was included.


He is confident he wont go over the allowance but could anyone suggest some things to protect my bank account in case he does something by mistake.

1. what about asking for T Mobile to just allow him to use the allowance under the contract?

2. What about taking abroad? Can he still use text messages and BBM, are they stupidly expensive?

3. Can I turn off roaming whilst abroad but just allow him to send text messages.

Please be gentle. I am not technical!

I'm with the others on this!! - Buy a cheap £15 nokia to take abroad with no internet on it and use a PAYG sim, be safe not sorry.

Cash-Strapped.T32

maisie1234 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. No, we will not let him take it abroad. However we do have an old mobile, can we just swap the sim around to avoid the data roming charges. Last time we were abroad he had this old mobile and he sent a couple of text messages and made a couple of calls, and we hardly noticed the charges.

Yes, you'll have no problem at all if the older handset is either Orange branded, or the handset is unlocked such that it can take any operator's SIM cards.

It might have been cheap to send texts, but most smartphones (and the more expensive the phone, the more this is a problem) are configured to download data, and often to upload data at any & all times of day.

Different programs (apps - shudder) will be doing different things; Searching for & downloading weather updates, monitoring for changes to Facebook pages, checking for new emails, often downloading those emails when they appear (attachments & all), and generally doing all those show-offy features that tend to look so appealing in adverts.

However, even experienced people, technically savvy folk often get stung *after* having made sure to the best of their knowledge that they had covered all their bases so to speak.

This is why so many people above are so vehement about just not taking the damned thing at all, it's far too much of a liability.


I think it's very sensible what you're doing, I would agree with you and only point out further, that an older (and it even worries me that I'm using the word "older" for a phone under 10yrs old), non smartphone which is cheaper & more rugged is more practical when travelling with mates than the poshest of smartphones, which is hobbled, barred from being any use to him anyway, cut off as it would be from it's all important data-connection.