Teen's Cell Phone Bill Tops $20,000

[techs]

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/tech/Teens-Cell-Phone-Bill-Tops-20000-79218622.html

Ted Estarija of Hayward says his Verizon wireless bill soared after his 13-year-old son downloaded about 1.4 million kilobytes of data last month. Estarija's plan didn't cover data usage so he was charged by the megabyte.

Estarija says that after his story made the news Verizon credited his account for the entire amount.

Dad said he was expecting an increase in his data usage charges but not such a whopper of a bill. He has suspended the teen's account.

Some may say the real lesson of this story is: Check your data plan. But whatever happened to kids spending quality time in the real world?


Wow. I'm just as shocked that Verizon let him slide for the 22k.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Dang! I have heard of mobile bills topping $700+, but this takes the cake.

 

[DanDaManJC]

jeez... what in the world was he downloading? that's about 1.3 gigabytes. maybe tons and tons of games? probly pr0n too.. but if they were just images then 1.3 gbs is a lot xD

 

[IronWing]

Kids don't need cell phones.

 

[TecHNooB]

Girl in the pic (left) is hawt

 

[SunSamurai]

Nothing wrong with a company allowing this to even happen. Nope none at all.

1.4 MILLION KILO- BYTES!!!

22,000$ for fucking 1.3 GB.

 

[lxskllr]

Nothing wrong with a company allowing this to even happen. Nope none at all.

1.4 MILLION KILO- BYTES!!!

22,000$ for fucking 1.3 GB.

How would you like buying a hard drive priced like that? :^D

 

[SunSamurai]

How would you like buying a hard drive priced like that? :^D

I was a order of magnitude or two off even in the 90s. 200$ 20GB at costco! =D

 

[Ksyder]

the sad part is that if it didn't make the press, verizon would say "too bad" and the dad would be on the hook for at least some of that money

 

[ahenkel]

I can't afford the extra cost for data on my phone so I called Verizon and I had them disable data service in my account. Now when I try to connect I get an error and that's it. Here's to hoping Verizon offered the same thing to these people.

 

[TridenT]

Dang! I have heard of mobile bills topping $700+, but this takes the cake.

Hah, yeah, I've had that $700+ bill before(They didn't put the data plan on my phone due to a mistake and after 60megabytes+ of data it kinda racks up the bill!). Luckily we didn't have to pay because we went in with guns a blazzin' say we'd kill them.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ouch. I've always been afriad of services that just overcharge you for service instead of stopping the service. That's a mistake anyone could make, really. It's like ISPs that overcharge for bandwidth overuse. Not cool at all.

I'm sure the kid is going to get an ass kicking though.

 

[jlee]

Yeesh.

 

[scott916]

A friend works for verizon and said a guy called in yesterday with a bill over $19,000. He said it was likely caused by a virus and wasn't sure if they were going to be able to credit the bill because it was difficult to prove.

 

[coldmeat]

1.4 million kilobytes? that's like 1.4 billion bytes!

 

[badkarma1399]

1.4 million kilobytes? that's like 1.4 billion bytes!

Or 11.2 billion bits!

 

[shortylickens]

Kids do not need cell phones, and its easy to completely disable data.
Dad needs to be slapped. And he's lucky they didnt make him pay.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Or 11.2 billion bits!

Not a bit of wonder they got charged $20k, they got off lightly!

 

[PlasmaBomb]

$85,000 bill

 

[shortylickens]

$85,000 bill

Yeah, but thats 85000 canadian, which is like 500 american.

 

[boomhower]

jeez... what in the world was he downloading? that's about 1.3 gigabytes. maybe tons and tons of games? probly pr0n too.. but if they were just images then 1.3 gbs is a lot xD

Not that hard really, I average about 4.5GB-5GB.

 

[Sea Moose]

Or 11.2 billion tits!

Now thats a lot of boobs

 

[BoomerD]

If that was my kid, I'd probably be in jail for beating him nearly to a pulp...or in the hospital waiting for the doctors to surgically remove that phone from his ass...:twisted:

At the very minimum, he'd have the pleasure of watching me destroy the cell phone with a 12 lb. sledge hammer...or watch me sell it to someone on Craigslist...(might as well recoup SOME of the money.)
It's for dammed sure he wouldn't ever get another cell phone until he could get the service in his own name, buy his own phone, and pay his cell phone bill himself.

 

[Red Squirrel]

$85,000 bill

Holy crap!

I still think cell phone companies and other service companies should have a bill cap of some sort. Like when you used up too much of the service, it would cut you off instead of just continuing to overcharge. This would have to be a law though as no company would voluntarily do this. Guess responsibility is key. Is it even possible to see your bill "as of now" so you get an idea where you're sitting at as far as usage? Some ISPs are even starting to do this with internet. That is quite scary, as someone can just continuously ping your router or send data to you and cause you to pay some retarded fee.