We held out for as long as we could. We really did.
Despite an intense and relentless lobbying effort from my son, the Honeybee and I stayed strong and denied his repeated requests for a cell phone.
And, boy, were there a lot of requests.
I can’t remember the exact day he first requested his own cell phone, but I am quite certain the first letters he learned in school weren’t A-B-C. They were A-T-(T).
When Matthew turned 12 last year, we decided it was finally time to grant his wish. The only condition was that he had to pay us $25 per month to maintain his account. Knowing that he could easily earn $40 per month by simply mowing the lawn and doing chores around the house, Matthew readily agreed – and so we got him his phone.
Three months and two missed payments later, Matthew’s coveted phone was “repossessed” by the First National Bank of Dad for failure to fulfill his end of our contract. I know.
Fast forward about a year later.
My son finally turned 13 a couple months ago, so we decided to give him another chance – even though he still has trouble managing his money. And since it was time for the Honeybee and I to replace our old cell phones anyway, we decided to “upgrade” our existing plan with T Mobile and get some new phones for us in the process.
Matthew was ecstatic; he loved getting his phone back.
As for the Honeybee and me, we were pleased too. In addition to getting new phones, it was actually nice being able to phone our son again when he was out playing in the nearby hills and it was time for him to come home for dinner.
Anyway, last week the Honeybee went out to the mailbox to get the mail. She told me she knew something wasn’t right when she pulled our phone bill out of the mailbox and saw that T Mobile didn’t bother to send it in a smallish envelope like they usually do. This time it was curiously packaged in one of those oversized 9-inch by 12-inch envelopes instead.
She grew even more concerned after she felt the monster package and knew it contained more than just a couple of sheets of paper in it.
Her hope was that our carrier was including more information on the new plan we signed up for a month earlier.
Unfortunately, what she found was a phone bill that would have been 141 pages long if it had been stuffed into their usual smaller-sized envelopes, but T Mobile decided to save a small forest by copying and condensing all of those pages onto 42 unfolded sheets of regular 8.5 x 11-inch paper. Front and back.
And buried somewhere within all those pages were the ugly details:
Monthly recurring charges: $136.99
Taxes & Other charges: $17.61
Usage charges: $900.60
Text messages sent: 2,276 (2,052 of them by Matthew, God love him.)
Text messages received: 2,131
For those of you who aren’t counting at home, let’s see that’s… fourteen, pi-r-squared, carry the one, ah yes: $1,055.
And twenty cents.
I know what you’re thinking: YGTBKM. Unfortunately, I’m not. Here’s the top half of the front page of the 141-page bill…
But surely there had to be a good explanation, right?
Well, before I go any further, let me say that T Mobile’s customer service department was absolutely phenomenal. They did a great job talking the Honeybee down from a narrow ledge outside our second floor bedroom, convincing her that jumping from there would result in little more than a broken ankle anyway – and then quickly assuring her that all of the text charges would be removed from our bill.
It turns out that when we signed up for our new plan T Mobile had failed to note that our account had unlimited texting. As a result, they had mistakenly billed us for all 4,407 messages.
That’s right. T Mobile was FUBAR.
PTL!
Still, I’m Left With A Few Questions…
1) The billing period was 30 days. That means my son averaged 68.4 text messages per day. I think I’ve sent six text messages in my entire life. All but one of them consisted of the same three little letters which, coincidentally, I am going to type again here because I find them appropriate: WTF?
2) On the first day Matthew got his phone he sent roughly 180 messages – even though I’m sure he couldn’t have had the phone that day for more than six hours or so. OMG. On average, that’s a text message every other minute – for six straight hours. I mean, come on. Really?
3) What information was my son conveying in those 2,052 texts aside from the frequent P911 warnings and occasional predictable admonitions to KPC – keep parents clueless? On second thought, never mind. I don’t think I really want to know.
4) Am I the only dummy in the room that had no idea kids with cell phones love to text so much? (Don’t rub it in. That’s a rhetorical question, folks.)
The Moral of the Story
If and when you finally do decide to give your child his own phone, short of blocking all text messages, you would probably be wise to make sure that you get a plan with unlimited texting. We pay $20 per month for the option and as far as I’m concerned it’s worth every penny.
CWYL.
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6200+ !! If that is sent texts only, that is absolutely incredible, Sewingirl! I’ll do the math for ya: That is roughly 206 text messages per day (assuming those 6200 were just the sent texts). You’re right, Matthew is a minor leaguer by comparison – so far. LOL
And Matthew still has to come up with his $25 per month too or his phone will be repossessed – again.
Thanks for such a great story!
My son is starting to push the cell phone issue lately (he just turned 10) so this was great info for me. His argument is that over half the kids at school have one. As a class assignment, he even wrote a paper about the benefits of owning a cell phone (trying to convince us the merits of such a purchase)… He paper was spot on. If I get time I’ll start to research the plans (what a pain)…
I’ll make sure I get unlimited texting too!!! Thanks for the words of wisedom around texting!
And No, I have no idea why texting is so popular! I tried it and hate it…
Someday, we’ll have a generation of kids with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!!!
You’re welcome! My 10-year old daughter, Nina, is still bucking for her own phone but I am going to wait until she gets into middle school. Two more years for her! I’ve talked to teachers at her elementary school, and all have told me that over half the kids there already have them, so Nina is in the minority there – and she will remain in the minority. Unlike my son, her school is a mere 10 minute walk from home and I see no other reason for her to have a cell phone just yet.
Not too bad for a 13 year old, my 17 year old racked up 10160 texts (sent/received) last billing cycle. I am amazed her fingers still work.
OMG!!!! That has to be a world record, I don’t know if you should be proud of that acheivement or what but your kid needs to get some kind of job organising or planning something major…. Maybe organising flight paths or something!
I’m so glad they took the charges off for all those texts!
I don’t think I’ve sent more than 50 text message my entire life – much less 2276 of them. Wow. I guess I’m too old to be one of those of the “texter” generation.
Prepaid is the way to go for kids. I don’t know why you would give your child the control of how many texts they can use. The way the phone companies are set up begs for children to use to their hearts content because they have no idea how many texts they have sent until the bill comes.
Prepaid on the other hand (Tracfone in particular) tells you how many minutes you have on the phone, at all times and the texts come right out of your minute allotment. If they want to send 8billion texts, they are stopped when the minutes are gone and they have to recharge the phone. It’s the perfect solution and First National Bank of Dad doesn’t have to collect a bill monthly or monitor usage. If the kid wants to get more texts or minutes, he can pick up a prepaid phone card at just about any shop around and recharge the phone himself pending he saved up enough to do so.
I actually can’t wait till my kids are old enough for a phone, because I’m excited to use Tracfone to teach them money management.
@Greg: That is absolutely incredible. It’s got to be hard to stay aware of what’s going on all around you when one has constantly got their head looking down to read/send texts. Don’t you think?
@Forest: Well, judging from the number Greg’s daughter posted last month, it ain’t even close. Scary huh?
@Money: I know what you mean. Welcome to the old farts club.
@Jesse: Thanks for the info on the Tracfone. It really does sound like a great idea for those who want an alternative to unlimited texting, among other things.
WOW…I’m 27 and HATE sending texts, but I have a 300 text message plan because everybody seems to like texting me…
I think the deal you have with your son is great. I was holding my breath while I was reading your post because I didn’t know they had screwed up the bill. If I was your wife, they would have had to talk me down from a ledge too.
I guess this is just the newest thing. When I was a teenager, my mom would get pissed because I’d talk on the cordless phone for so long every night that it would either overheat or run out of batteries…then it would still be dead in the morning and mom would have to use the regular phone. I’m surprised she didn’t kill me by the time I moved out…although if I do ever have kids, she has told me that she “hopes they are just like me”, so I’m screwed, hahaha.
I remember my sister used to love to talk on the phone when we were teenagers. She ties up the phone so often my folks finally got her a phone (and number) of her very own.
Hi there.
First time reading you blog… I’m here through Canadian Finance Blog.
THAT is a crazy bill!! This is what I dread about moving back to North America (I live in Japan now): your cell phone companies are ripping you off left right and centre!!!! I pay the equivalent of about $3.50 for unlimited text messages, and all incoming texts are always free, no matter if you have unlimited or not.
I don’t know if it has been mentioned or not (I didn’t read all the comments) but your son might have a virus on his phone that is sending messages without his knowledge.
Are all of those messages confirmed as real?
Welcome, Myke! Konnichiwa! You sound like you have a great unlimited text plan. I pay $20/mo. for the family. And I am positive Matthew sent all of those texts himself. Hard to believe, I know – but based on comments from some of the other folks here, he is a rank amateur in terms of pumping out text messages. LOL
Konnichiwa, Len!!
That is amazing.
I would guess the majority of those texts would only involve a few words… like the conversation:
-meet after school?
-sure
-time?
-3:30
-where?
-my place
-cool
-later
I mean something like that would be 4 in, 4 out in the span of about 30 seconds or so.
$20 per month isn’t AS bad as I thought. I thought you meant per person.
I still can’t get my hear around it, though…
Glad to have found your site.
Um wow. We’re still on a 10 cents per text plan. I am really bad at it with my old school phone and lack of enabling software. My younger sister texts like the wind. I’m such an old fogie. Heck, I confiscate cellphones when college students are texting in class.
When my SIL was in college she racked up a few thousand dollars calling her boyfriend in Canada. The cellphone company forgave a lot of that though. Man were her parents angry with her… and they NEVER get angry. They switched to a plan with unlimited north american calling after that, which they would have done if she’d let them know in the first place.
I feel like an old fogie too, Nicole. At least I’m not at the point where I’m opening up my front door and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off my front lawn. Yet.
Wonderfully entertaining post. With so many companies prone to all kinds of errors these days, policing all our bills and charges is getting to be a full-time proposition. It’s gotten so any company that does things right straight down the line is a pleasant surprise.
Teenagers are running up cell phone bills like money grows on trees. My daughter runs up our cell phone bill on everything so I had do something about it. I switched her to a Tracfone where for $20 she gets 60 mins airtime. She picked out a cute camera phone for a great low price. She can now have the freedom to talk as much as she wants but she realizes she has limited mins to work with.
@Savvy: That error was hard to miss, but there are instances when the errors are so small you’ll never catch them if you get careless.
@Patty: You are probably the two-hundredth person to tell me I should get a Tracfone. I’ve really got to look into that because it sounds like a terrific option.
I just recently purchased Straighttalk @ $45 a month I get unlimited text, talk and web. It’s available through Walmart via Tracfone. For me it’s perfect, no contracts!! They also have a $30/mth plan. Another option to look into too for those battling excessive cell bills.
Thanks for the tip, Beth!
Great article! I have to say I’m happy we found an unlimited text plan prior to purchasing a phone for our daughter – I hate to think of the damage she could have done! We went with kajeet and pay $14.99 a month for 60 anytime minutes and unlimited texts. I was so impressed with the company I joined the sales team and can offer anyone a 15% off discount by going to my landing page at http://www.kajeet.com/michele There is a great back to school deal going on right now for any QWERTY keyboard phone – enter promo30 at checkout and receive $30 bucks off!
Thanks for the tip, Michele.
You make a good point. You can burst a bunch of messages in a relatively short amount of time. Still… 2000+ messages per month? I still don’t get it.
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