Sons £818 Bill for 1 month !!!

andru

I had my 2 sons a mobile last november on contract for Xmas as a 12 month deal with redemption.Up untill last month he had never excedded his 200minutes/25 TXT's.Then he found a girl friend and thought that the phone was like the house phone eg free for the first 60 mins then put it down and redial.Anyway to cut a very long story short his bill to the 15th last month was £371 i had the bill on the 19th and spoke to orange to stop all outgoing calls.In the folllowing few days between the 15th and the 19th he used another 1400 odd minutes.So the total bill now is £818!!.I spoke to Orange this morning and told them that i hold them partly responsible for this bill,as it was totally out of the spending habits for the contract and that they should have contacted me to make sure that everything was ok with the account.
They just said "NO IT WAS NOT THERE POLICY". When i bought my car on my visa card last month it was immediatly stopped due to unusuall account uasage.

Is ther anyway i can get this addressed and get Orange to admit some type of liability for this and to get some type of reduction in the bill.

Hopefully someone can help with this as it is the last thing i need before christmas.

Thanks

custardy

nope i very much doubt you will get any leeway on this. i know of someone who got a bill that dwarfs that bill!! and had to pay it all.

peterstannard

Maybe he could get his gf to ring him for the next few months.

andru

Ex girlfriend now I put my foot down !!!!

espresso

Agreed, the fact that your son has now discovered females is not Oranges problem. Your line "told them that i hold them partly responsible for this bill" is ridiculous as you should have known better yourself! Why should other Orange customers pay for your lack of mobile call charging knowledge? They are very unlikely to back down for these connected calls.

peterstannard

andru wrote: »

Ex girlfriend now I put my foot down !!!!

:rotfl:

Out of curiosity how old is your lad?

darwin-rover

Probably no help to you now , but Orange have some unlimited offers on some of their more expensive packages , ie. unlimited weekend minutes etc.

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/yourplan/online

custardy

darwin-rover wrote: »

Probably no help to you now , but Orange have some unlimited offers on some of their more expensive packages , ie. unlimited weekend minutes etc.

http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/yourplan/online

yeah but usually a fair usage T&C which mkes it dodgy again

steviet78

You will have to pay for the calls as they have been made, I used to work for O2 and I remember a customer who had there phone stolen whilst on holiday and because they didn't tell O2 until they got back they had to pay a bill of over £1800 of calls they didn't make. I know this isn't the same situation but I know how these companies work.

Another option is to speak to Orange and ask if you can pay in installments but I am not sure if this will have an effect on you credit rating.

andru

He is only 15.

My point is that surely they could see a adverse usage on the phone and then contacted me,as per visa cards,to check that i knew that the account was being used correctly

espresso

andru wrote: »

He is only 15.

My point is that surely they could see a adverse usage on the phone and then contacted me,as per visa cards,to check that i knew that the account was being used correctly

I see where you are coming from but when a CC company detects irregular usage, they are protecting themselves from fraud, whereas mobile operators want to maximise profits from customers to satisfy shareholders and pay for those very expensive 3G licences.