difficult child *could have* spent thousands on *this* month's TMobile

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
But husband pd $9.95/mo to block him. However, some of the charges may still go through. Those that came through on this mo's bill are in dispute and awaiting a response. Then we wait for next mo's bill.
How did he do it with-all the blocks we put on?
He went to K's house (He's only allowed there once a wk) and spent the night for his birthday. The ONE time I make an exception for an overnight.
K taught him how to plug his phone into the computer and bypass the first sets of blocks. Then when it asks for a password, he says he has forgotten it, and TMobile sends him a temp password.
He bought several games, tons of music and I don't know what else.
Bottom line: 1) He swore he would never do it again, with-or with-o blocks, and 2) it is Internet access that TMobile wants the customer to have because it makes them more money, so for ea set of blocks you put on it, there is a way to get around it.
Hmm. This is what, the 4th, 5th time difficult child has done this? And husband has called TMobile and bitten their heads off?
He HAD to sign a contract with-them for 2 yrs in order to have them waive the other charges, which were in the hundreds of dollars.
I told him to keep the contract, but take away difficult child's TMobile phone. The basic plan is about $65/mo, which is cheap compared to what difficult child has been doing.
I will sign him up on my Verizon acct and limit everything. It would be about $10.
He insists that Verizon is as shady as TMobile. I'm going to check it out anyway. Why couldn't I let a friend borrow it or pay me or something? Anything is cheaper than letting difficult child have it.

Meanwhile, difficult child is in his room, sobbing, sans phone.
We have to give it to him to take to school so we know whether he is staying after, etc. It's one of the few ways he will communicate willingly.

I've been wanting to take it away from him at night forever, and did for awhile, but husband always caves.
I'll just make a copy of the bill and wave it in front of his face the next time he forgets. :)
 

JJJ

Active Member
I LOVE VERIZON!!! Their parental usage controls (an extra $5/month) are top notch and I have not found a way to "hack" them yet. More importantly, neither have the kids! (Just remember NOT to save the password to myverizon on your computer).

If you want to be able to micromanage his web access and read his texts, add www.mymobilewatchdog.com I have had a few problems with them over-blocking but nothing seems to have slipped through.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Terry, why on earth are you even letting him have a cell phone? We got by without them as kids? We lived. We grew up and survived to become adults. Yes I know all the supposed excuses...no payphones anymore, other parents dont have house phones, he could get lost and not be able to call...baloney. We didnt even have a house phone until my kids were in their teens. Wouldnt have had one then if I didnt have to have it for work.

If you absolutely have to let him have a phone, get him a simple phone that he cant charge you for anything. A pay as you go that he is responsible for. Virgin Mobile is down to 35 bucks a month now and if you want to limit him they have one called Kajeet that you can limit at anytime and even see exactly where he is and put which numbers you want him to call on there. Its great for kids you have to monitor. Its the next one Im getting Keyana.
 

buddy

New Member
With the no contract (and maybe no texting?) would he still be able to call and order though? How does that work? This is why I keep refusing to get a phone for q but actually I know I.should some day so I can teach him and he can have conseqiences with me....but so much risk.

If difficult child is willing to talk by phone, cant he use the school phones? Or is it.that he texts? If he won't do that, maybe he needs to plan a schedule and stick to it. No communication because he can't use a phone appropriately then no flexibility? ???? With all the other issues with friends did you say before that you think he is not ready to be unsupervised with friends anyway? My sister is having to make that decision too with her son (adhd ) for similar reasons. It makes it so much harder to coordinate and punishes us to not let them go be with friends ....really frustrating. So sorry he is so compelled to keep doing this.

What is he staying after for (lol besides rendezvous with friends to buy pot )...are they school events? Maybe a summer with a phone that has 100 minutes for the whole summer is good enough for an emergency call if needed would be ok for a while. That watchdog looked great and I think it saves all texts even if they delete them???? Not positive if that was the company. What are Verizon controls like?

Love the idea of waving the bill in front of husband. Maybe put the total page in a frame in the bathroom where he can look at it daily!
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Well if he has no access to credit or debit card numbers or no check numbers with routing numbers, he will be SOL if he has no way to pay for any items. No one will bill to a prepaid phone. Especially kajeet. Its a kids phone. You can cut off internet. If Terry's name wasnt something that could possibly be a male name I would say I cant believe they are allowing him to use the cards at all. One time Cory tried this to book a hotel room. He wasnt going to use my card, he just wanted it to hold the room. He was going to pay cash when he got there but they realized there was no way he was Janet...lol.
 

buddy

New Member
I have a prepaid smartphone that holds the accounts so you mean the no internet phones right? Now how to keep him from stealing the numbers? ??
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
He shouldn't need a cell phone to let you know if he is staying after or not --- they let students use the office phones to call their parents. The phone would be gone were he my difficult child. He's had too many chances. You mess up, you pay for it. Natural consequences.....

Sharon
 
S

sjexpress

Guest
T-mobile, verizon,and att&t all have these pay as you go phones where you can put on a certain amt. of money for a certain amt. of minutes. You get 3 mths or until you use the time you bought up. Then you can refill... you can refill anytime you want. It is easy to refill with a refill card you buy, online, or over the phone.
My difficult child has one of them for emergency so he can reach me if he is staying after school or I need to reach him when he is out or what ever and it works great. He knows that if he wastes his minutes by texting or calling friends and he uses up his time, he has to wait till we decide to refill it ( when the 3 mths would have been up). He also knows that if he has no minutes, he is not allowed off the block because then I can't reach him. He's had it about 2 yrs now and he is very responsible with it. He only gives his number out to maybe 2 or 3 friends and asks me first if it is OK.
We are very pleased with it and believe me, it is alot cheaper than even some of the family plans offered with other phones that charge a monthly fee.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
HMMMM.

I have had nothing but problems with Verizon's parental controls - and nothing but great experiences with T-Mobile's.

Perhaps it is because Onyxx didn't know how to hack T-Mobile's. And even when she managed to get something charged, they took off the charge on my first request.

Verizon - if you set up, for instance, Yahoo IM... It bypasses internet blocks and text restrictions. Also you can text to the Yahoo/facebook/etc. 6-digit number and it will go through. We got hundreds of dollars of charges this way. Including for daily

How about a basic, do-nothing phone like I had 10 years ago? Just a thought...
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
Terry, I would get him a Trac Phone with prepaid minutes on it - or get him one of those "Senior" phones that have no texting-its just a phone. Only recently did I put Danny back on my Verizon account - he pays in advance and knows I will shut him down and he needs that phone for work and has been very good about paying for it. I thought what a deal thru Verizon for 10.00 per month, but by the time you are done with fees, internet access, not to mention if you go over in minutes, or dial 411, get a ring tone or two, pay for insurance on the phone, texting, extra minutes, we are looking at 65 to 75 per month for his line.

Kids today are way too savvy and can figure out ways to bypass controls, I don't care what company it is. He has lost his phone three times already this year and he is lucky that last week someone found it and called me (When I heard are you Danny's mom - thought I was going to have a heart attack) or else he would have been up the creek - there is a limit on the amount of phones they will replace. I have gotten a little smarter as when he didn't have a phone, he used mine. He doesn't do that anymore because I have a pink rinestone case that is glued on LOL

I am out of my element when it comes to having my phone do "stuff" -I was sitting here one day on the computer typing and my screen kept changing - turns out Jamie was behind me and was operating my computer from his phone-he can work the TV from his phone as well, and Danny has set up his Direct TV on HIS phone so he can watch sports. And me, I can barely answer mine - I have to unlock it and by the time I am done fiddling with it to get to the phone part, the person has hung up.


Marcie
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Ohh, I was all excited to switch to Verizon until I read Stepto2's note.
husband and I have to give this some more thought.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Honestly, if Sonic were doing this, and I could see him trying to do it because he LOVES his games, his phone would be gone. He'd get a simple phone with no texting just so I could call him if I didn't know where he was or needed to get him at home (we dumped our landlines). Sonic has no understanding of money. I am his payee or he would empty his bank account every time he got a payment to buy games. It could be an Aspie thing...certainly Aspies tend to have compromised impulse control. Sonic actually asked me to "help" him with this problem by keeping my money locked up and my car keys locked up (remember, Sonic also took a few road trips with no license).

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is a developmental disorder...and, like me, maybe you sometimes forget. These kids are mentally and emotionally YEARS behind their age and having Sonic around is like having a middle schooler at home. We don't give him the normal privleges most 19 year olds have (he will be 19 in a few months). We can't. I wouldn't let him sleep over at anyone's house if he got into trouble doing it. Age is just a number when you have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)!

I just wouldn't take a chance giving your son an internet phone. It wouldn't even be a punishment. It would be to keep him from getting into trouble. I think ASDers, much like ADHDers, get something into their heads and can't let it go. "I HAVE to order that *************** so I will." And since they live in the moment, they don't really stop to think about the consequences until they happen.

Huggles!!!!
 

susiestar

Roll With It
VErizon is not hard to hack. Not at ALL. Wiz learned how to do his friend's verizon phone in under ten min. he is NOt a super hacker either. This pohne had every parental conrol that was available. I heard about this from the parent, not from Wiz bragging. The parent told Wiz and his buddy that there was no way to hack the verizon parental controls, then was gobsmacked ten mn later when Wiz was able to buy games and music (wiz did offer to pay for them even though the parent challenged him with what was meant as a dare/brag )

Get the boy a net10 phone. I recently priced ALL of the pay as you go plans and they are the cheapest. Texts are .25 min to make or receive, internet is billed in minutes so if you do a lot on the internet you have fewer minutes to talk/text. We have several of the phones and the call quality is much better than AT&T or Sprint or Verzon. Not sure about tmobile, but have tried all the others. You can get 200 min for $20 with 30 service days and anythng you don't use will roll over to the next card if you don't let the service days expire. You can also get 750 min for $25 with 30 service days but they don't roll over. You can get unlimited minutes/internet for 30 days for $50 if you need/want it.

Check the cheapest phone they make, usually about $10-$15 and it may not have internet access. I do know that tracfone has one that is super cheap and cannot go online at all. Texting is awful on it, so it realy slows that down too. Tracfone offers double and triple min for life with some phones and/or on cards with a number that you enter that gives you this. It is STILL not as good a deal as net10, costwise anyway.

The ONE thing you never want to do with a pay as you go phoen is to buy ANYTHING through the phone using a credit or debit card. Once you do that, it can be done again with-o entering the number. So it is better to buy the cards at the store to give him minutes than to go and buy them through his phone. Or else go online to their website and you can buy minute for his phone that way and the credit card # won't get logged on hs phone. Be sure to use a long, complex password on the account.

I also think that kajeet would be the next best thing. They have some very simple phones and award winning control - and have had these for a number of years and gotten many awards for best parental controls.

I do think that not having a phone is problem the best option. the other kids always have them so he can use a friend' phone to call you. Or the school office, coach or teacher will have one and let hm call you. Trust me. He does not need a phone to call home. I know a TON of kids who do just fine borrowing a phone or makng plans the day before intead of always at the last minute. in my opinion it is a good thing for kids to do this because they learn how to function with-o some gadget telling them what to do and letting them not learn to plan ahead. If gfgwon't tell you his plans ahead of time, then he isn't allowed to do them. It is a simple, easy concept and will need time and consistency to make it happen, but it IS possible.
 

keista

New Member
If you really want to send him a message as well as limit his ability to get in trouble, there's Firefly, which may cost more, but very effective in it's limitations.

http://www.fireflymobile.com/

One of their phone models doesn't even have a keypad, so unless the # is pre-programmed, it can't be called.
 
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greenrene

Member
I'm dealing with phone BS with my difficult child as well - it morphed from a FB issue into a huge cluster****. I feel your pain.
 

buddy

New Member
Susie, is net10 one of the phones too where you can get deals like on HSN or cards in stores where you get double or triple minutes for life? You pay once for that card (unless an hsn or qvc special...check those!, sometimes just a perk of buying thru them)....every time you buy minutes it is doubled or tripled....??? May be TRAC phones too???
 

Marcie Mac

Just Plain Ole Tired
Greenrene, you had me laughing so hard I spit coffee everywhere. That was so well said - everything involving difficult child's turn into one of those :)

Terry, wait till yours discovers the joys of porn - Danny had run up my cable bill to over 600.00 watching three days running.

Marcie

Marcie
 
L

Liahona

Guest
Why can't the school call Terry? Maybe put it into his IEP if they don't normally let kids call. Have one or two people that difficult child can go to and tell them and then that person calls Terry and leaves a message. If difficult child doesn't want to do this (and he won't because he'll want to insist that he NEEDS a phone) he can walk home. What is it a few miles? Would he have to go through dangerous parts of town or would it just be uncomfortable for him?
 
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