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General Parenting
So, now difficult child's phone and computer charges are up to $1,000
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<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 490037" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>Terry, this situation has gone past nuts. The child has over a thousand dollars of calls/texts that he isn't supposed to have. I strongly fail to believe that he did not know that there is a toll for a 900 number OR an 866 number. They must BY LAW tell you the charges per minute each time you dial the number. He HAD to know, esp as he went to other people's homes to do this after you told him he couldn't do it any more.</p><p></p><p>If you feel a cell phone is a must, get him a prepaid. Even if you have to pay out his contract or a termination fee, it can't be more expensive than what you are paying for his abuse of the phone. The MOST he needs is a prepaid phone. With a prepaid he will only get charged for the texts that he reads. His friends can send a thousand texts an hour and if he reads them then they cost him. If he does not read the texts he is out nothing. Prepaid phones will tell him how much he has left and hwo long each call is. We use net10 and mins are not more than 10 cents and can be cheaper. Rather than giving him unlimited, give him the $25 a month card - 750 mins. Those minds can be used as internet, text or talk. Internet and text is billed as minutes or half minutes. Half a min to read a text, etc... You can go through the phone to buy mins with a credit card - and you should NEVER do this with his phone. You can go to the store and buy a card with the pin number for the minutes on it instead. If you pay for more minutes through the phone then the card # will be there to use anytime after that. If you go and buy a card at the store (usually sold back by the phones) then there is NO WAY that difficult child can pay for these 900 tpe numbers or buy anything else over the phone because there is no acct to charge the purchases too. </p><p></p><p>If you truly feel that he cannot learn to stay within a limit, you can get unlimited use for $50 per month. in my opinion that would be a real disservice to difficult child because it will mean that you don't think he is capable of learning this and he won't ever really learn about limits with phones. Given his atrocious abuse of phones, esp other people's phones, it seems important to make him learn those limits. prepaid will probably be the only way to get through to him. He likely could not care less about the Verizon charges because he is aware that your husband fights to get them removed. So it isn't REAL to him or if it is, it isn't a big deal because "no one" really has to pay for it. With prepaid minutes those limits are not debatable.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>With a prepaid, when he has used up his minutes he is just done. He cannot run up a bill because he cannot use it if he has spent all his minutes. They have a ten dollar phone that will not go online and isn't the easiest to text on. it isn't "cool" looking but it works and that is the most that he needs. </p><p></p><p>I don't think that he will EVER care if he runs up big bills on the phone b//c he KNOWS that you are going to get the company to waive the charges so he can just pretend to not know they were going to charge him. I could see someone making that mistake ONE time, but not over and over. It just isn't believable. Esp to make that same mistake so often in such a short period of time. He will continue to do this until he either loses something he truly values, not just loses use of it while you lock it up, but actually has you sell it to pay the bill, AND until his access is taken away.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 490037, member: 1233"] Terry, this situation has gone past nuts. The child has over a thousand dollars of calls/texts that he isn't supposed to have. I strongly fail to believe that he did not know that there is a toll for a 900 number OR an 866 number. They must BY LAW tell you the charges per minute each time you dial the number. He HAD to know, esp as he went to other people's homes to do this after you told him he couldn't do it any more. If you feel a cell phone is a must, get him a prepaid. Even if you have to pay out his contract or a termination fee, it can't be more expensive than what you are paying for his abuse of the phone. The MOST he needs is a prepaid phone. With a prepaid he will only get charged for the texts that he reads. His friends can send a thousand texts an hour and if he reads them then they cost him. If he does not read the texts he is out nothing. Prepaid phones will tell him how much he has left and hwo long each call is. We use net10 and mins are not more than 10 cents and can be cheaper. Rather than giving him unlimited, give him the $25 a month card - 750 mins. Those minds can be used as internet, text or talk. Internet and text is billed as minutes or half minutes. Half a min to read a text, etc... You can go through the phone to buy mins with a credit card - and you should NEVER do this with his phone. You can go to the store and buy a card with the pin number for the minutes on it instead. If you pay for more minutes through the phone then the card # will be there to use anytime after that. If you go and buy a card at the store (usually sold back by the phones) then there is NO WAY that difficult child can pay for these 900 tpe numbers or buy anything else over the phone because there is no acct to charge the purchases too. If you truly feel that he cannot learn to stay within a limit, you can get unlimited use for $50 per month. in my opinion that would be a real disservice to difficult child because it will mean that you don't think he is capable of learning this and he won't ever really learn about limits with phones. Given his atrocious abuse of phones, esp other people's phones, it seems important to make him learn those limits. prepaid will probably be the only way to get through to him. He likely could not care less about the Verizon charges because he is aware that your husband fights to get them removed. So it isn't REAL to him or if it is, it isn't a big deal because "no one" really has to pay for it. With prepaid minutes those limits are not debatable. With a prepaid, when he has used up his minutes he is just done. He cannot run up a bill because he cannot use it if he has spent all his minutes. They have a ten dollar phone that will not go online and isn't the easiest to text on. it isn't "cool" looking but it works and that is the most that he needs. I don't think that he will EVER care if he runs up big bills on the phone b//c he KNOWS that you are going to get the company to waive the charges so he can just pretend to not know they were going to charge him. I could see someone making that mistake ONE time, but not over and over. It just isn't believable. Esp to make that same mistake so often in such a short period of time. He will continue to do this until he either loses something he truly values, not just loses use of it while you lock it up, but actually has you sell it to pay the bill, AND until his access is taken away. [/QUOTE]
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So, now difficult child's phone and computer charges are up to $1,000
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