Saturday, January 12, 2008

An Expensive Lesson

Land line to land line calls (under one hour) = free

Land line to mobile (cell) phones:

daytime = 21 cent a minute
evening = 15.13 cent a minute
weekend = 14.10 cent a minute

Between the 5th November and the 5th January Dillon made 269 calls to his girlfriends mobile phone at a cost of €200.02 ($293.28) and 77 calls to her house phone at a cost of €0. Now it's plainly obvious to me which phone he should have been calling her on and he does have a few braincells rattling around inside his head so why did he keep calling her mobile phone despite me telling him not to? This I can't really answer except to say that the girlfriend can manipulate him (his words) so he feels he has to call her and sometimes quite often her house phone is in use.

When valued added tax is added to Dillon's calls it brings the total amount of his bill to €242.02 ($354.87) that's a lot of pocket money Dillon will be stumping up so I guess life won't be quite so peachy for a while.

Was it worth it? I know what my answer to that would be.

28 comments:

Steffi said...

Oh poor Beccy! I know such problems with my young girls and I know how you feel now! That´s a lot of money!I hope our Anne find very soon a own job that she work for her own pocket money!
We had often much trouble with her mobile phone bills and other things which cost a lot of money!You are not alone,Beccy ;O)!

Have a nice weekend!

Yvonne said...

Ouch! An expensive lesson indeed. I've remember having one of them myself ;)

ChrisB said...

beccy now I'm dreading getting my phone bill for when he was here!!!!

Alix said...

Oh dear that was an expensive lesson - hope it gets learnt. I seem to remember it took me a while to learn it!

Anonymous said...

That is a very expensive lesson for him, and a good one to learn now. He will hopefully know from now on that despite someone 'manipulating' him the responsibility is ultimately his and it can be pricy. I am so pleased when these lessons are learnt by my kids when they are home, and I will hopefully worry less for them when they are out on their own. I still can't help but feel empathy for him. Life is full of painful lessons.

laurie said...

oh golly.

and he'll pay it himself, yes? so that he remember not to do it again?

wow.

and texting, i think, is even more expensive.

Unknown said...

Our phone bill at home for the last quarter was £0.57. My mobile is pay as you go. Maybe that is the answer?!!

my4kids said...

Ouch!!

It costs to call from a land line to a cell? It doesnt' cost anything from a land line as long as it's local but even then for us a long distance call is only .02 cents a minute. Cell phone to land line or cell is the same cost but you pay monthly for a certain number of minutes as long as you stay in those minutes no extra charge. Also land line to land line is free no matter how long you are on the phone if local.
Crazy!!

I do hope that Dillon learns his lesson for all of your sakes though!

Pamela said...

Tell Dillon that would have bought some nice flowers or candy on valentines day. Whew.

Yours is not the first cell phone horror $tory I have heard involving teenagers.

Unknown said...

My daughter only did this once. She took a while to pay it off and hasn't rung a mobile from our landline since. ;) She totally realised she could have done a LOT with that money, lol. In hindsight.

Ah. The joys of life lessons, hey!

ChrisB said...

Beccy after reading this I looked at onetel bill on line so I wouldn't get a shock when I got my bank statement. This one tel bill is generally well under £10 a month if it is £15 I consider it high these would only be calls to you and Sam. Shall we say this month is more than usual which I was expecting!!!! How much was your bill in £'s.

Anonymous said...

No Cell Phone For You! (that's my best Seinfeld Soup-nazi voice).

yikes. I'm glad my kids don't use one yet!!

frannie said...

that is unreal!

I wouldn't be worth it to me.

Alison said...

Kids!! My goddaughter once had a $700 cell phone bill!! Ouch! My daughter does not have a cell phone yet!! Oh...I can't wait!!

Unknown said...

My daughter did something similar. Only, she had the cell-phone and the boy kept calling. Her bill was around the $300 mark and we changed her phone number and forbid her talking to the boy on that line. Told her if she had one more bill like that the phone would go. Never had anymore issues, thankfully.

SO in my experience with teens, they typically learn after one time of this high bill. Hope this is true for Dillon too.

Carla said...

Ouch! That's pretty steep. In Canada it doesn't cost us any more to call from a landline to a local cell (it's free). And the long distance charges, when that's the case, are also the same as regular long distance tariffs. And gee, hearing your woes, am I ever glad. Calling from a cell, though, is expensive.

katy said...

oops! been there and done that one and my lad learnt the hard way too! in the end we put a block on the land line so you couldn't phone mobiles!

Unknown said...

Holy Cow B! That's crazy. I didn't even look at the conversion. I see 200 Euros & think, WOW THAT IS EXPENSIVE!! I wonder if she's worth it, too.

Sam said...

Tell Dillon - less talking more smooching. Cheaper and way more fun.

theotherbear said...

Holy cow.
Also, I am jealous of all you folks that seem to get free local calls.

katy said...

morning, i know its bright and early on a monday and you will be doing fun monday but just to let you know my tag is up

kitten said...

OMGEES! That would a lot of yards to mow. A LOT!
Bless your heart! Or should I say Bless his hind end.

Anonymous said...

Me thinkith you will have his cell phone for awhile.

thefoodsnob said...

Yikes, that is a lot of money! (Good for you to make him pay it, too. Too many parents would just let him get away with it.)
My nephew will call his girlfriend's cell (and vice versa) at all hours, so the parents won't know, which they would on the house phone. :(


Lisa

Rachel (Crazy-Is) said...

OMG and I have 3 girls who will, no doubt, want cell phones!

"J" said...

HOLY SMOKES! That is CRAZY....there is NO way it was worth it!!!!!

"J" said...

HOLY SMOKES! That is CRAZY....there is NO way it was worth it!!!!!

That Chick Over There said...

Oh Lawsy!