Looking to get our eldest his first mobile phone, going to use a hand me down Moto G3 to start with.

We’re thinking of getting a cheap SIM only deal that has some minutes and data allowance (99% of the time he’ll be on WiFi) but is there any way of ensuring that he can’t go over the built in allowances?

I don’t fancy coming home to an unexpected two grand phone bill because he’s been streaming movies with the WiFi off! 🙂

Yep.. you can usually put on a data cap.
Plusnet (uses ee network) usually do some good deals

I use Giffgaff, when it is running low they add a Gb and I have to top it up or set up a regular top up through the app. Used them for a few years now always been happy.

We use Plusnet mobile sims that have a cap for overspends (think set to £5 at the moment) plus they notify you when at 80% used. We also encourage them to check the Plusnet app for usage.

We did get stung on our sons first mobile a few years back on a carphonewarehouse sim…think that cost us £250

Another vote for Plusnet – mine costs £8/month for unlimited mins, texts + 4Gb data.

It has an adjustable Smartcap to prevent over-spend. Mine is currently set at £5 and I’ve never had to use it. Decent app as well to monitor usage.

I bought my son a £10 pay monthly Vodafone SIM. After a £150 bill I realised that Vodafone sent the notification that he had breached his data limits and was being charged to his phone, not the bill payers number (mine).

EE don’t let you go over. They send you a text when you’re at 80% then it cuts out at 100%. You have to purchase extra top ups.

Can highly recommend Talkmobile … SIM is £5 a month, their customer service is excellent.
Any changes to caps, roaming etc are done instantly. Couldn’t have picked a better provider for my kid’s phone. They use the Vodafone network.

Tesco Mobile have a cap then a buffer (£5 default). Excellent customer service in the event of problems. They use O2.

Have both my kids on Three unlimited data contracts (£20 p.m.) after a massive bill from Vodafone – decent service, no worries about unexpected bills and they can stream as much as they like. Also, if the home broadband ever goes down I will not have to deal with a “major crisis” ! 🙂

Have both my kids on Three unlimited data contracts (£20 p.m.)

Same here – not worth the pain/stress of grumpy teenagers to do it any other way IMHO.

Another vote for Plusnet – mine costs £8/month for unlimited mins, texts + 4Gb data

This for two of ours.

Other one is on a silly ID mobile offer of £5 for 4.5gb and 300 mins/text, again we’re able to data cap.

I’m with ID (which is Carphone Warehouse using 3’s network).

I asked about 2 years ago when I was looking, everyone said the same (they have caps etc) the problem is that the all pretty much work the same, they send an SMS to the actual phone saying “you’ve run out of data, reply with xxx to buy more”.

IF, you’ve got the kind of teen who will think “drat, I’m out of data, I’ll have to wait till I get home, I’ll be more careful next month” then the world’s your lobster.

But IF you’ve got the kind of teen who will think “We’ll it’s only £15 for another 1GB and this INSTA is the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD EVA and anyway I can claim I didn’t do it, or I must have done it by mistake or I’ll tell him my mate did it when I wasn’t looking” and repeat every day, or even several times a day never once stopping to count or consider how much all these texts were costing then don’t come crying when the bill hits £1000 (like it did for a friend of mine, TWICE).

I’ve got the latter, so I chose ID, you have to give them an over-spend cap of £5 (lasts about 30 seconds) but they cannot go over it without accessing the ID portal and wild horses couldn’t drag the password for that from me.

Used them for a year, then upgraded him to an iPhone SE for an extra £6 a month, obvs, being the social media darlin’ that he is, he couldn’t be parted with it when he decided to go swimming and waded into the pool with it in his pocket “I wasn’t going in deep” and it was deader than a dead thing inside 3 months.

yup, ID mobile here for both of my little sods.
£5 cap is a winner

Thanks everyone. We’ve gone with Smarty (basically a Three spin off) as you’re not tied into a contract for more than a month and it looks like you can get extra data at £1.50 per gig (we’ll see on that I guess).

Not tied in so can change it if it isn’t working