Talkmobile and the £216 bill

Dishydiner

We have a cheap talkmobile contract for my 12 year old son. He doesn't use the phone a nokia lumia 520 often.
Well, it now can't be used at all because he has gone over his data allowance. I rang up TM and he has apparently used 2793MB data from 27th to 29th December! Connecting 1015 times to download information. My son has never gone anywhere near his usage allowance before. He has 500MB month and has used an average of 100MB a month since he had the phone.
He had a new laptop for Christmas and only has Facebook, YTube and Instagram on the phone. The phone is set on Wifi and we haven't been anywhere over Christmas for him to use the mobile network, and therefore I doubt very much that it's him at fault. TM said to bring the phone to CPW and they will analyse why it has used so much data. Fair enough I suppose.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has encounter a similar problem or can shed any light on this? Thanks.

pepdavies

If you feel he's old enough to manage a phone contract responsibly, I think he'd better get a paper round to pay the bill. Get him a payg sim tomorrow.

Nebulous2

There is another thread on this here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4822184

Letting them check the phone is a good idea - I don't know how the data counter works on a windows phone, but it should be recorded. My experience of talkmobile is that the online billing has detailed records of times and dates when the data is used.

Techhead_2

Windows Phone has a data counter built in, so it would be straightforward to check what has used the data.

Buzby

There are many apps that will default to a mobile connection when wifi is available, it is rarely an either/or choice. There will be no doubt the apps were calling home, more specifically to update the adverts to serve on all those free games.

To prevent this happening, turn mobile data OFF.

The only way to stay in control is to switch to PAYG. A 12yo on an adult contract is a recipe for a disaster - especially as no inappropriate content is restricted (they believe the user is 18+).

DUTR

Dishydiner wrote: »

We have a cheap talkmobile contract for my 12 year old son. He doesn't use the phone a nokia lumia 520 often.
Well, it now can't be used at all because he has gone over his data allowance. I rang up TM and he has apparently used 2793MB data from 27th to 29th December! Connecting 1015 times to download information. My son has never gone anywhere near his usage allowance before. He has 500MB month and has used an average of 100MB a month since he had the phone.
He had a new laptop for Christmas and only has Facebook, YTube and Instagram on the phone. The phone is set on Wifi and we haven't been anywhere over Christmas for him to use the mobile network, and therefore I doubt very much that it's him at fault. TM said to bring the phone to CPW and they will analyse why it has used so much data. Fair enough I suppose.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has encounter a similar problem or can shed any light on this? Thanks.

The past is no garuantee of the present of future, of course you will defend your son even if he maybe wrong, as for apps, facebook! Some apps do seem to hog the phone and take it over, I had the facebook app running one time, all the phone was doing was blipping all day and night informing of the many poitnless updates, draining the battery and consuming data :eek:
Yes do take up the offer to get the phone checked.

Herongull

By all means get the data checked but it is very easy for children to run up huge bills on contract phones

£216 is relatively cheap compared with the other bills seen on this forum when children are "given" a contract phone.

I'm amazed that people are so incredibly wealthy that they even think of allowing a child to have unsupervised access to a contract phone. Would they give the child the parent's credit card and pin as well? Perhaps they do.

Contract phones can be used to buy all sorts of things these days.

If the phone is lost or stolen, the thief can run up bills of £hundreds or £thousands within hours by phoning premium numbers and the parent is liable. Are you confident that the child would report a lost or stolen phone immediately?

Unless you really are a millionnaire, put the kid on PAYG.

bob_bobson

i thought you had to be 13 to sign up for facebook?

DUTR

bob_bobson wrote: »

i thought you had to be 13 to sign up for facebook?

Technically you do, practically they don't give a hoot, I have seen plenty of people I know underage on there.

19lottie82

If he is using YouTube on mobile internet, then this will eat through data quicker than you can say shazam!

Earthworm

Update the phone to GDR2 if it hasn't been done already which has Data Sense built in. This allows you to input the data limit and keeps your son alert to his usage.

You say your son has just got a laptop. Could he have been trying out the Wi-Fi Hotspot feature and just not turned it off? This would quickly wipe out his data limit.