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Cidu Bill on Apr 19th 2010
Ever notice how just about every comic strip and television show containing teenagers works in at least one storyline about the kid running up a monstrous text messaging bill? Is there a single American family with teenagers and cell phones that doesn’t take the unlimited texting option (which every wireless company offers)?
Are the writers so divorced from reality that they aren’t aware of this? Or is this like the “look at all the snow; so much for global warming, ha ha ha” gag where they just assume their audience is ignorant?
(Just for the record, without unlimited texting, my 16-year-old son’s average monthly bill would be about $350)
Filed in Bill Bickel, cell phones, comics, comics strips, humor, television, texting | 45 responses so far
Jeff S. Apr 19th 2010 at 12:39 pm 1
We opted for limited minutes and unlimited texting/browsing. My wife and daughter both are BIGTIME texters.
yellojkt Apr 19th 2010 at 01:11 pm 2
Every time I’m at the cellphone store, some family comes in to upgrade their plan. It only takes one bad bill to see the light.
Carolyn Apr 19th 2010 at 01:25 pm 3
We got my 6th grader a few months ago and I bought a 250 test package. (I have no package on my phone and spend about $1.20 on texts monthly so I figured 250 was plenty.) I also have parental controls and for the first few months parceled out her texts weekly - she’d get about 60 a week and when they ran out she couldn’t text until Monday when I added more. Two months ago I figured she knew how to ration them out and set her limit at the full 250. She ran out two days before the bill cycled so she didn’t have a long wait to be able to text again.
Last month I didn’t even bother and D’oh! I totally forgot that if I didn’t set her text limit she could text as much as she wanted. For some reason I thought it would stop her at the 250. And I totally forgot that a friend got a phone for the first time so there was one more person to text. $28 in text messages may not be that much, but it’s a good wake up call and if she were a super texter like a lot of her friends it could have been a lot higher. I will never forget to set her limit again!
Carolyn Apr 19th 2010 at 01:25 pm 4
Aargh! “TEXT” package, of course!
Marshal Apr 19th 2010 at 02:01 pm 5
Carolyn,
You might want to reread that first sentence again.
Or did you adopt a 6th grader a few months ago.
.
Mark M Apr 19th 2010 at 02:42 pm 6
Yellojkt is right. To the average parent (including me), the 250 that Carolyn mentions seemed like plenty. I almost fell out of my chair the first bill after we initially added a limited plan. Maybe parents of new teenagers have learned from us guinea pigs and know that unlimited is a must.
Lindsey ^_^ Apr 19th 2010 at 03:17 pm 7
My family didn’t. Until my brother ran up a $600 text-message bill. And now they do.
Kamino Neko Apr 19th 2010 at 03:28 pm 8
It just occurred to me that I don’t read that many comics featuring teens - mostly adults and/or preteens…But neither Foxtrot nor Zits has done this, that I know of - neither Paige nor Peter is all that text-happy (I can remember Paige being shown texting once, and that was to do a text-speech math joke, Peter, not at all), and Jeremy…probably makes his provider regret the existence of their Unlimited plan - I certainly don’t remember any strips dealing with the cost of his constant texting.
Ted in Fort Lauderdale Apr 19th 2010 at 04:23 pm 9
We have an unlimited texting plan _now_ - it only took one $500 bill to convince me (Bell South was fortunately willing to back date the unlimited plan so the $500 went away). My younger one (probably was about to turn 16) knew we had unlimited mobile to mobile and assumed that it applied to texting, too. Checking on something like that wouldn’t occur to him…
(I don’t remember that issue with the older one - I think he already had an unlimited plan on his phone. However, he hit us (just the month previous) with a $600 phone bill - his girlfriend got into the habit of calling him just before night rate kicked in (for calls that went on hours - much of the time, I don’t think they talked, just left the phone on), and he didn’t realize that it was what time the call _started_ that mattered. On that one, Bell South let us get and backdate early nights…)
Rasheed Apr 19th 2010 at 05:05 pm 10
We FINALLY got an unlimited texting plan. Something I haven’t understood are kids supposedly running up huge text bills. We had all been paying by the text, and some of us paid a buck (or less) and some averaged $10-15 at the time (just before unlimited family text came out). It’s a concept called “being responsible.”
Andrew Apr 19th 2010 at 05:42 pm 11
I am 20, and I can say that when I got my phone at 16 I had 150 texts a month, and that was fine. Slowly, but growing exponentially were the number of people who found out that I texted and thus txted me, and I am certainly obliged to respond.
No one wants to be rude, right? Might as well go unlimited.
Carolyn Apr 19th 2010 at 06:22 pm 12
Marshal! That was funny, adopt a 6th grader! Two typos in my first sentence. Shameful.
And as far as being responsible - most parents don’t understand the text plan (or lack of) when they first buy their kid a phone so I wouldn’t expect a kid who just got a phone to know they can’t text as often as they want. I still don’t understand the data plan I had to buy for my daughter’s phone and the Verizon woman couldn’t really explain it either. Pretty sure she was clueless about it too, she just knew I had to buy it and it’s expensive if I go over it.
I have noticed that with my daughter and her friends that many of the texts are more like a conversation so they can easily use 20 texts in one sitting, just as if they were instant messaging. They usually do this on the bus ride home since as soon as they get home Mom starts in on them about doing homework or they’re jumping in the car to go to somebody’s practice.
Mark in Boston Apr 19th 2010 at 06:31 pm 13
Talking about history in the other thread: remember when a long-distance call was a luxury to be indulged in but rarely? It could cost several dollars to talk to Grandma for 15 minutes — as much as a carton of cigarettes or a meal at a good restaurant.
Text messages OUGHT to be nearly free: they take up very few system resources and don’t have to show up at the destination within one second of being sent. (Voice is many more bits per second and a delay of more than a few hundred milliseconds is noticeable and annoying.)
Craig Apr 19th 2010 at 07:44 pm 14
A couple of years ago one of my teenaged sons came to live with me after a major fight with his step dad. While my wife and I had cell phones we did not do a whole lot of texting (maybe $1.00 every other month or so).
We got him a phone since his other one was turned off. The 1st month we had a cell phone bill of over $750.00. Almost all of that text/IM.
We told him no texting and expected him to follow up responsibly. the next month’s bill was even higher (but to his credit it was mostly unanswered texts sent to him which Verizon credited back.
After that we just turned off the ability to send or receive texts.
Now he’s back home and and I have a Smartphone that includes unlimited texting.
mkilby Apr 19th 2010 at 08:26 pm 15
Never underestimate the ingenuity (and/or stupidity) of a teenager. Several years ago, a friend asked me to help investigate a gigantic phone bill (a 600 Euro charge showed up on his bank statement several days before the actual phone bill arrived). We both suspected a computer virus (or trojan) that was triggering a dialup connection, but the culprit turned out to be human: he had blocked access to long distance from the house phone, but his daughter discovered that she could still dial directory assistance, then press a touch-tone button to automatically connect to the requested number. The method used to tunnel through the parental restriction was quite clever, but not realizing that the subterfuge would be revealed by the next monthly statement was unbelievably dumb.
Kaitlyn Apr 19th 2010 at 08:53 pm 16
Craig - wow, I can’t believe you got charged for texts you received! It’s not like I asked my friend to text me. (Seriously, if we weren’t on an unlimited plan, I’d tell my friends to use IM or something.)
I mean, I understand if you sign up for one of those rip-off 99 cent text services (send a horoscope every day) but getting charged for getting a text just seems weird.
I’m 21, my mom’s um, last time I checked she said she was 21, my little sister is 19, and Beck is the main texter in the house. Beck and Mom also use the internet easily on their phones while I have NEVER gotten it to work. Another thing - Mom has a touch screen now and can text and use facebook on it but still hunts and pecks when using a computer keyboard. I’m typing this by the light of the laptop screen, making few typos (of course, there will be one I’ll miss once I hit “submit”).
Anyway, we have unlimited texting, and we’re trying to go paperless with the bill (mom pays it on her phone anyway) but it was fun to see how many texts each person had - Becky always had the most, but Mom and I always had plenty. Mom loves texting - you can text in places you can’t call, like school… though I’m a good student who always always pays attention in class.
My mom and sister mastered t9, but I hated texting until I got a qwerty keyboard and then I started texting more often.
Sari Everna Apr 19th 2010 at 09:31 pm 17
I first got a cell phone when I was a teenager. I’ve never texted. I’ve honestly never seen the point to it, and it’s not like I ever had anyone to text, anyway, being such an introvert. So I guess what I’m saying is that this type of storyline makes even less sense to me. I do realize I’m kind of the odd one out here, but there you go.
I have received texts, though. Mostly in tagalog and clearly a case of a wrong number. I was never charged for those, though, and you should never be charged for texts received.
Chuck Apr 19th 2010 at 10:11 pm 18
I hate texting. Even as a teenager, I thought it was stupid. I think the only reason anyone should ever text is if they are deaf/ communicating with a deaf person, or if they need to make sure someone gets an important message first thing in the morning. Unless they have a loud text ring tone, it should just be a couple beeps that the person will sleep through, so you don’t bother them.
We get charged for incoming texts. I tell people not to text me, and that if they do, I probably will just call back.
My mom, however, does plenty of texting. She even got herself a keyboard phone. I got a music phone, because it was the only flip left in the store. I hate bulky phones. Bing back slim flips!
george Apr 19th 2010 at 11:13 pm 19
Guilty to the tune of almost $800. Once my daughter discovered the “power” of texting, her $10 cell line suddenly got very expensive.
Fortunately the phone company gave me a break, but I still don’t understand how a pre-teen can possibly generate/receive thousands of messages a month without being obvious. (She doesn’t live with me, so I can’t see her behavior first-hand)
You also have to watch out for those stupid quizzes (IQ, Love, etc) on the internet that will sign you up for monthly “services” to the tune of about $10 each. She wasn’t old enough to enter a contract, so it was pretty easy to get those charges reversed (a few hundred bucks), but still….
src666 Apr 19th 2010 at 11:20 pm 20
A friend of mine provides his son a cell-phone, but makes the son pay for the texts. The son tried to cheap out buy buying one of the low-limit plans, but it only took a month and a $150 bill to get him to realize that wouldn’t work.
George P Apr 19th 2010 at 11:21 pm 21
My grandmother never fully understood that long distance calls were no longer expensive, or her habits were too ingrained to break. Until the day she died she was always in a hurry to pass the phone to everyone and get off as quickly as possible.
She did eventually drop the requirement that, if I was calling just to let her know I had gotten home, I call operator-assisted person-to-person. That was a free way to get the message across, since she could reject the call.
furrykef Apr 19th 2010 at 11:32 pm 22
Reminds me of this story.
george Apr 19th 2010 at 11:34 pm 23
#21 George P
Having worked for the phone company, I know several managers on “strike duty” (i.e. normal operators were picketing, so management had to run the phones) who had a lot of fun with this consumer trick….If “Mother” didn’t accept the charges, the manager/operator would ask the “child” what they had done to make their “mother” not want to talk to them. Often it would result in a guilt drama followed by a completed call with a “GOTCHA!” comment by the manager.
Other Nicole Apr 19th 2010 at 11:37 pm 24
We turned texting off on our phones. I don’t foresee us turning them on when our boys become teenagers. Somehow we’ve still survived without texts. Maybe if I’m hiding in a closet from robbers someday, then I’ll regret that decision. Until then, I’m glad to not pay a dime every time someone wants to say, “Look @ my new dog” or “It’s hot outside!” I’m only 27, but I still recall when we’d have our moms pick us up by calling collect and stating our names were: I’m-at-the-mall-pick-me-up, so I’m confident my kids will make it through high school without texting.
Cidu Bill Apr 19th 2010 at 11:58 pm 25
furrykef, that wasn’t supposed to be a true story, was it?
Frosted Donut Apr 20th 2010 at 12:20 am 26
Texting doesn’t actually use ANY extra resources on the phone network. Your phone needs to check in with the closest tower regularly to let the tower know where the phone is. To do that, it sends a short data packet. Most times it’s just filled with zeroes. When you send a text, the data packet is filled with your text.
This is why phone companies are so easily persuaded to waive a texting fee. It doesn’t cost them anything (other that the costs of billing). It’s also why they love texting so much.
Powers Apr 20th 2010 at 07:02 am 27
I’m on a pay-as-you-go plan. Every text costs me 25 cents.
But then, I don’t have kids. We struggle to use $25 every 3 months, and that’s on a phone my wife and I share.
George P Apr 20th 2010 at 07:29 am 28
The stories posted on notalwaysright.com are often clearly made up, but there are enough real ones to keep it interesting.
englerp Apr 20th 2010 at 07:40 am 29
While i also never understood how one could hold a conversation entirely by text which seems rather inefficient, not to mention expensive (Especially of the provider charges you for texts you receive, to which my reaction would be changing the provider rather than desactivating the textservice), text messages are real useful to transmit specific information like the current location or changes in plans to the people it concerns. Also for this purpose, they are generally faster and (at least imho) much more hassle free than voice calls.
Fishman Apr 20th 2010 at 08:28 am 30
I have three teenagers and we do not have unlimited texting on their phone, nor unlimited minutes, nor any browsing at all, so we must be that one family in America that you were referring to.
After getting a few inane texts and then informing their friends they could not receive texts, their friends call them if they need them. Our highest text bill ever was $1.60 after which I suggested to my kids that we get the 200 text per month for $5 and they informed me they didn’t want it as it would only encourage people to text them, which they found annoying.
Side note: We attended a middle school theater performance and the director had to make an announcement to turn all cell phones to off,rather than mute or text only as the signals interfered with the wireless microphones. A loud cheer went up!
Hunt Apr 20th 2010 at 08:59 am 31
Sorry folks, it’s a losing battle. If you have kids who are thirteen or younger, you’re going to have to get unlimited texting (at least until it’s replaced by something else). Unless you’re Amish, in which case you’re not reading this.
Sarah Apr 20th 2010 at 09:45 am 32
For my phone, top up by €20 a month and get unlimited free texts to any other network, even if the person is abroad and then I usually use the €20 top up for a week or two after the free texts expire. I don’t phone people from my mobile.
My sister is a big texter! She uses €20 every 10 days! (she is not with my network, so she can’t avail of the same deal I have.)
elizabeth Apr 20th 2010 at 10:59 am 33
one of my friends didn’t think she needed the unlimited plan a few years back. somehow her daughter ran up a text bill of $850 & after that was straightened out (by turning off the phone until the bill was paid off), her son didn’t learn the lesson & ran up a $600 bill (and evidently my friend didn’t learn the lesson either!). Needless to say, she has unlimited now… lol
Rasheed Apr 20th 2010 at 11:48 am 34
hmm, speak of the devil (or send a text)…
http://www.dailytech.com/Study+Teen+Girls+Average+80+Texts+Per+Day/article18172.htm
furrykef Apr 20th 2010 at 12:22 pm 35
Bill #25 — well, it’s supposed to be a true story. Whether it actually is is anyone’s guess, since pretty much anybody can just make something up and submit it to that website.
Cidu Bill Apr 20th 2010 at 01:22 pm 36
furrykef, I could just about buy the story until they overplayed it with the sitcom punchline.
That being said, I’m sure most of us have had experiences that, even with no embellishments, sound more believable as sitcom gags than as reality — but I have to call bs on this one.
Jeff S. Apr 20th 2010 at 01:53 pm 37
Over spring break, my wife, daughter, and I drove from Oklahoma to Washington, DC and back, over a 9 day span. While I drove and my wife read or scrapbooked, my daughter used my wife’s phone to text her friends (one, in particular). She started as early as 7:00 AM and almost always ended after midnight. I never looked, but I’m sure it was a WAY higher average than just 80/day.
Ted in Fort Lauderdale Apr 20th 2010 at 04:28 pm 38
The peak I’ve noticed for one of mine (a couple of years ago, he was probably 17 or 18 at the time) was 6500 in a month. That was probably a bit extreme, but I assume he averaged well over 150 per day for months. I just checked last month - he was at just about 5000, and the younger one was about 4000…
Ted in Fort Lauderdale Apr 20th 2010 at 04:34 pm 39
BTW: for those that wonder how you end up running huge text bills - it wasn’t a thing that gradually grew over months. The younger one had had a phone for months and never texted (while the older one did, but had an unlimited plan). He was aware he had “free” mobile to mobile on ATT, decided (on his own) that this must mean texting was free if he only texted people on ATT, and boom - $600, first month. He didn’t ask first (teenagers seem not to) and was apologetic after, and by the second month, he had unlimited texting too (well, the whole family did since that was cheaper) - backdated a month…
Tocsnai Apr 20th 2010 at 08:30 pm 40
Two sixteen-year-olds, a boy and a girl, in my family. I’m a single dad, and pay $5 for a 200-text package for my son. Otherwise we pay $.20 a text for my daughter and myself, and never approach $5 worth of texts in a month.
They know it costs something, and therefore don’t abuse it.
Chuck Apr 21st 2010 at 05:47 pm 41
Fishman, can I be in your family?
Hunt, why anyone would give a 13-year-old a cell phone is beyond me. Unless you’ve replaced your land line with cell phones for everyone, but if the purpose of the 13-year-old’s phone is to be a mock land line, then why have texting on it at all?
ted in fort lauderdale Apr 21st 2010 at 10:56 pm 42
Chuck@41: Don’t know about 13-year-olds, but my 2 started high school as 14-year-olds, and both were involved with afternoon, evening, and weekend extracurriculars (school sports, rec sports, debate, band, etc.). We gave each phones as they started these so they could reach us if necessary after practices (of course there are no pay phones anymore). There _probably_ would have been other people around with phones, but we decided not to depend on that. Mind you, neither of them texted or used any significant number of minutes at that age (that came a couple of years later :-)) as the phones weren’t quite for “emergencies only” but were pretty close…
labradog Apr 21st 2010 at 11:48 pm 43
Take away the punk’s phone, and the texting bill is zero…..
Chuck Apr 22nd 2010 at 01:27 am 44
We still have payphones, but then I don’t live in an area where everyone can afford cell phones. Still, it may only be a matter of time.
Elyrest Apr 22nd 2010 at 12:47 pm 45
Chuck - A few years ago when I was living in Humboldt County, California I had to serve on jury duty. We got out much earlier than I thought we would and I wanted to call my husband to let him know. I had no cell phone so I looked for one in the building. I finally had to ask a guard and he (giving me a strange look) directed me to the only one left that they had in the building. The phone was old and not in very good condition, but luckily still worked. I have a cell phone now.