My Eleven Year Old Charged $192 to My Cell Phone
Remember when Jane turned eleven and got a cell phone? My brother called me and was like, “you should get her an unlimited text plan because our girls ran up huge texting bills, and Mom loves me best.” (that is EXACTLY what he said).
In keeping with my general rule of never listening to my brother, I bought Jane the cell phone with no additional text plan. I figured it would run me a few dollars a month when she texted her friends. The first cell phone bill included $123 in texting. That is not a typo.
Well, thank goodness for AT&T, I called and explained the situation. They assured me that my brother was still a dummy and that Mom still loves me best, and then they switched me to an unlimited text plan and backdated it. I recovered from my shock, both at the cost of texting, and at the speed of Jane’s fingers, and went on my merry way.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday I opened up the cell phone bill and there were $192 in extra fees that made NO SENSE to me whatsoever.
After a 45 minute phone call to AT&T we were able to unwind the charges, and figure out the source of the charges. Twilight. Twilight apps, games and something called the “News Prediction Game” came together $9.99 at a time to reach almost two hundred dollars.
For the record, I did not punish Jane. I did not so much as take her phone away for a day. I did teach her a little bit about how companies try to trick you into entering your phone number on their sites. I’m pretty sure she’ll be savvier next time, but I know a good vampire app is hard for a tween to resist.