• This topic has 148 replies, 74 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by tron.
Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 149 total)
  • £2000 mobile phone bill – any options?
  • Junkyard
    Free Member

    She is an adult and is treated as such,

    Just rang my Mum [reversed charges of course] and she refused to pay my bill …cant believe how selfish she is and apparently I have to tax and insure my car as well WTF
    Do you want to adopt?
    Your loving son
    Junkyard

    large418
    Free Member

    Junkyard, would love to adopt, but can't afford any more kids (see my OP). You probably wouldn't appreciate being part of my family anyway……

    Does anyone with student kids fund them? I suspect many many people do (and it is what the government force, as they only loan a certain amount of required funding). I can't see anything wrong with that.

    steve_b77
    Free Member

    So shes, 19 off to uni and not got much cash – how does a job sound?

    I know it might not fit with teenagers now-a-days, but hey thats life.

    How about she defers for a year, gets a job, saves some money for uni and pays you back the £2k.

    While she was out in SA she would've had update texts as to the current level of her bill, I know I did in Argentina the other month, so I very much doubt she knew nothing about it.

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    tron
    Free Member

    Does anyone with student kids fund them?

    As someone who was fairly recently an undergrad student, I can tell you that it really, really varies.

    As a rule, I'd say most people get their accommodation paid for by parents, and get some sort of an allowance as well. Others pay their way via student loans and part time jobs. Some can study, get good marks and work full time. But they must have less need to sleep / more will power than me. And it really varies by course – someone taking engineering has far less free time than someone doing cultural studies.

    I suspect some of the people on here saying "Oooh, I had to scrape the ice off the inside of me cardboard box" etc. went to uni before fees and the abolition of student grants.

    hora
    Free Member

    Does anyone with student kids fund them?

    I really don't want to slip into attacking you- that isn't fair. full stop.

    There is providing assistance and there is funding their lifestyle.

    Everyone is different but I was encouraged to find a part time job at uni. Acommodation – yes however bills is a different matter.

    It didnt hurt me and I paid my bills.

    hora
    Free Member

    What I will say is though shes not even at Uni yet and shes landed you with an explanatory-high bill.

    Being a student is about learning ones self, about learning life, not starving but not living freely either.

    BigButSlimmerBloke
    Free Member

    either way his messing around has cost someone lots of money.

    LOL, so it's not orange's fault now, it's the boy who didn't answer the phone? She didn't phone me at all, do you expect me to help out as well?

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    damn
    Hassling him for supporting a child at Uni is well out of order ….given no grant and level of loan/fees not sure how else to expect a child to get throgh Uni even with a PT job if they can get one….anyone seen the under 25 unemployment rate recently [33%]. Supporting you chid is one thing paying a 2k phone bill is [imho] enabling them to remain a child/not take responsibility for own actions [payg phone contract in her name@18 for example]. We all do things for our kids that are daft as we love the but dont let them take the pi55 /advantage of this..only you know whether she is doing this.

    Seeing people who got grants and did not pay fees giving advice is rather strange. The costs are not what they were when we did degrees now there are no grants and course fees.

    flippinheckler
    Free Member

    I think you need to go to parenting classes and learn how to deal with that spoilt madam you have as a daughter, why are you subsidising her relationship with so called boyfriend, why wasn't he making the calls, and leaving it up to your daughter, strikes me she is immature and knows how so play/manipulate you.

    I would put a limit on her calls arrange with orange for her phone to be blocked if she reached a predetermined limit.

    MartinGT
    Free Member

    This HAS to be a troll?

    What a numpty, you knew the cost of the calls, so surly should of mimited her?

    Oh shit, I spent £1000 this weekend on shite on a credit card, I wonder if ill get it back

    Numpty 🙄

    TooTall
    Free Member

    there is also some feeling that the bill should just be paid. If you are presented with a bill though, and you don't feel as though you had value for money, do you pay it and learn that lesson, or contest it?

    She burned up £2k using a service that you contracted for at a cost that is clearly laid down on the company website. FFS – it hasn't got anything to do with VFM – they provided the contracted services at a pre-determined rate. Accept responsibility for the actions of your daughter – and your own if we're at it. You could have (should have?) prevented this very easily, yet you appear to be trying to weasel out of it after the fact. You gave a 19 year old girl an unrestricted method of communication without limits – would you give her a debit / credit card linked to your account with the same freedoms?

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    I think we're going to need to see some pictures of your 19 year old daughter in order to advise you correctly.

    hora
    Free Member

    Some of the comments are harsh but essentially true. NO ONE is telling you how to be a good Father. 🙂

    How many more large phonebills are you going to receive though? At what point will your daughter feel guilty about her level of spend?

    When you were growing up- would you have done the same? If you had and realised would you have curtailed your behaviour?

    mieszko
    Free Member

    hora – Member
    I'd still put contracts etc in her name otherwise she is going to run up (potentially) monumental levels of debt at uni.

    Its only a small lesson!

    mieszko- strangely always comes across as sorted/well thought out. mieszko are you a groomer on here of older-males?!!!

    Hora, have we ever met? It seems You know me so well 😉

    Paying for uni. Back home studying is free but my mum was still paying for my room, books and uni stuff. Everything else I had to pay from my own pocket (when my dad died I got some state payments out of his retirement fund). Apart from nicking some food from home I managed quite ok and also learned how to manage limited budgets 🙂 Now I study here and because it's Scotland SAAS pays for uni, but I do work nights during the weekend. So far I'm on 3rd year and manage just fine with what I earn. Working during weekends on nights sorts out the problem students here have, spending on nights out. Seeing how much my friends spend on night outs etc I do think cycling is probably a cheaper hobby 😉

    cranberry
    Free Member

    Am I right in understanding that part of the reason you will be hitting the boyfriend for part of the charges is that he repeatedly did not answer the phone when your daughter called him? Would you be charging him more if he had answered the phone each time and the bill had been £3000 ? How many times a day was she calling, and what did she have to talk about that was so important? You've not given any hint that she is daft, so how big a bill was she actually expecting? Did she think that the phone pixies were letting her call for free?

    I don't know any more about your daughter than you have chosen to post here – so like everyone else we are evaluating what information you've chosen to give us in terms of our own experiences and prejudices.

    large418
    Free Member

    There's some helpful comments and some less helpful comments on here. Yes, lessons are learned – maybe even those of you with younger kids may learn the lesson my daughter has learnt from this thread. Maybe some of you would never had got into this position in the first place. But some of you might. Not that I meant this as a PSA, but as a request to see if anyone knew if there are any ways of dealing with the level of bill. It seems some people do know how to deal with it, and a hell of a lot don't. Obviously I am not going to post my families life story on here when the real issue is a phone bill.
    Hopefully none of you with kids will suffer this (but what steps have you put in place to prevent it?)

    simon_g
    Full Member

    Have you actually spoken to Orange yet, or are you entirely relying on the internetards to tell you what to do? 😀

    simon_g
    Full Member

    what steps have you put in place to prevent it?

    I wouldn't give a child effectively unrestricted credit against my bank account. What's wrong with PAYG, and if you want to give them an "allowance" for calls, pay it into their bank account?

    Once they're 18, they're free to apply for contracts and run up their own bills.

    large418
    Free Member

    simon_g
    haven't spoken to them yet – waiting to get home to do a bit of digging into the bill, the moneysaver forums etc. I think I've been given all the help I need!

    And my daughters paying – so the unrestricted access bit doesn't really apply.

    hora
    Free Member

    I still say shes not even at Uni yet. Surely you are slightly concerned about whats to follow?

    I'd pay her rent but the rest- she has to learn to live within her own means….to budget and control. Its a lesson in life. Surely?

    scotia
    Free Member

    The more constructive feedback on here is that I could contest it, but there is also some feeling that the bill should just be paid. If you are presented with a bill though, and you don't feel as though you had value for money, do you pay it and learn that lesson, or contest it?

    Of course contest it for the reasons mentioned by others above, but i dont think orange should just pay it out of charity (in the OP).

    I am sorry if you feel that I attacked your parenting skills but its MHO that she is a spoilt princess with a contract phone paid for before she was 18 anyway – its one of the many problems of yoof these days..everything is free or if not mummy & daddy will sort it out.

    Sorry if its a rant, but i have two cousins who are exactly like this and are really struggling at uni/beginning of the big bad world of job & life now because they were treated in a similar fashion.

    Teetosugars
    Free Member

    I can't believe no one has said it yet…

    cranberry
    Free Member

    You haven't been happy at some of the replies on here, but getting replies that don't fit what you want to hear is the price of asking a question in an open forum – people are going to be open with their replies.

    If I had posted asking about a mate that had gone to a pub, looked at the price list, spent 6 weeks getting hammered and then complained that the bill was more than he wanted to pay – what would you have replied?

    I do hope you get it sorted out, that responsibility is taken and the right lessons learned.

    Elfinsafety
    Free Member

    Bloody hell with all the technology we have at our disposal these days, I'm staggered how someone can run up such a huge bill and be daft enough to use a flipping mobile when abroad!

    Mind you, I've tried to tell friends with these fancy new 'smart' phones to use Skype, but they're just too flipping dumb. 'But I get loads of free calls with my contract' they're not 'free' you're paying £60 a month or whatever you dozy gits!

    And then there's those who don't bother with a landline 'phone. 'Oh I don't need one I've got my mobile, people can call me on that' **** off! Costs me extra to call your mobile, whereas it's free for me to call a landline! I just tell them to call me back on their 'free calls' let them pay £60 a month. Idiots.

    If that were my child run up £2000 bill, she'd be paying the whole flipping lot back, I can tell you. Feckless youth.

    simon_g
    Full Member

    Anyone else expecting a "Daughter's gone to uni – has spent all her overdraft and is asking for bailout" topic around November time?

    leffeboy
    Full Member

    Some of the 'spoilt princess' stuff seems a bit harsh and quite possibly wrong. If my 18yr old daughter was going travelling I would probably rather have her phone on a contract on my tab rather than PAYG quite simply so I can be sure her phone works when she needs it. Yes, 2000 would be too large a bill to be allowed but the OP clearly said that no-one was aware the bills were that large until they were both in. The mistake was in not knowing the costs or bothering to check before they actually came in. Orange know their job 🙂

    druidh
    Free Member

    simon_g – Member
    > what steps have you put in place to prevent it?
    I wouldn't give a child effectively unrestricted credit against my bank account.

    You might if it was your child and you trusted them.

    Elfinsafety
    Free Member

    Anyone else expecting a "Daughter's gone to uni – has spent all her overdraft and is asking for bailout" topic around November time?

    November? Ha! End of September more like! 😀

    hora
    Free Member

    The worry is if you don't start giving her tough-love now what will happen in the future.

    The best you can do IMO is give part-responsibility 🙂

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    I hope the boyfriend tells you to go forth and multiply when you ask him to stump up some cash towards the bill

    hora
    Free Member

    hope the boyfriend tells you to go forth and multiply when you ask him to stump up some cash towards the bill

    ??

    MartinGT
    Free Member

    Youre **** when she goes to uni mate.

    You say youre going to feed & put clothes on their backs until they have a full time job. thats what any responsible parent would do. However she is going to uni for 4 years, she wont have full time employment for a min of 4 years.

    I do hope she has learnt something from this, we on here dont know whats gone on behind closed doors.

    When I was 18 I ran a phone bill up for £250 and it was I that had to pay for it. My parents went ape shit. I wouldnt expect them to pay for it, nor did they. I made sacrifices, I cancelled the phone, sold some stuff. But I spoke with the provider and got to pay in installments. It tought me a LOT about managing money.

    Did she do any work out there too? Sounds like she was gabbing all the time.

    Good luck with calling them,however I doubt youll get anywhere.

    tiger_roach
    Free Member

    Students – can they cover everything with the student loan or is it assumed/expected parents help out too?

    daveob
    Free Member

    Shit luck.

    If it helps my wifes dad would have paid for her at 19 leaving her feeling worse. My parents would have made me pay every penny back. She would move heaven and earth for her dad and feels homesick if she doesn't see him for more than two weeks twenty years later, I see my parents twice a year.

    Yes I'm independent and she's a daddys girl, but I know which parent I want to be!

    Chase orange, talk to her about consequences and dumb boyfriends, but be there for her if you can. Why allow this to ruin her uni years by deferring or being crippled with more debt than she will already have if you can prevent it.

    Good luck.

    donsimon
    Free Member

    The more constructive feedback on here is that I could contest it, but there is also some feeling that the bill should just be paid.

    The more constuctive feedback, for you, is the feedback which satisfies your need to ask for a refund, anything which goes against this is dismissed. You are just looking for support for your claim. There is also constructive feedback which says pay the bill, your daughter has used the service and that service should be paid for.

    We actually wanted the relationship to end, as they're not best suited,

    So, he gets the message and doesn't want to talk to her and you still want him to pay?? Perhaps she should have taken the hint, HE DIDN'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU LOVE, YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED CALLING!

    Not that I meant this as a PSA, but as a request to see if anyone knew if there are any ways of dealing with the level of bill.

    Pay it and move on!

    Or do I just STFU and pay?

    Yes!

    Actually I've changed my mind, ask for a refund it'll give someone else a laugh. 😉

    hora
    Free Member

    MartinGT. Brilliant post. +1

    tron
    Free Member

    Cor blimey. Why don't you all go the whole hog and start praying for the poor chap to get cancer of the arse whilst you're at it?

    jon1973
    Free Member

    Cor blimey. Why don't you all go the whole hog and start praying for the poor chap to get cancer of the arse whilst you're at it?

    Yes, there do seem to be a fair amount of self-righteous twonks on this forum.

    Jamie
    Free Member

    Yes, there do seem to be a fair amount of self-righteous twonks on this forum.

    You must be new if you are only just noticing that now.

    jon1973
    Free Member

    You must be new?

    No, after several years, I've just had my moment of clarity 😉

Viewing 40 posts - 81 through 120 (of 149 total)

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