A 13 year old boy rang up quite a high charge to his father's monthly Verizon Wireless cell phone bill, an additional $22,000. Ted Estarija's son reportedly downloaded 1.4 million kilobytes of cell phone data last month, costing Estarija close to $22,000. The plan that Estarija was covered by did not allow for data usage, so each download was much more expensive then it should have been, had the plan covered data usage, and Estarija was charged more than $50 per megabyte of data, a menacingly high rate. Verizon Wireless eventually credited Estarija's account entirely, after the story made headlines at NBC. Now this begins to trouble me, as the younger generation, in particular teenagers, are becoming so endowed with technology. I have a friend whose little brother has an iPhone, and hes only a fifth grader. When I asked him about his phone, he replied that all the kids in his class have iPhones. What could a fifth grader possibly need an iPhone for? Oh well, I guess times are changing, and the youth is becoming more dependent on technology at an earlier age then ever. But downloading $22,000 of data over your cell phone in my opinion, (I hope you would agree) seems to cross the line. That boy needs to get outside, and go to a Borders to buy his music, not rack up his father's bill.
I definetly agree with you here JD, it is ridiculous that kids younger and younger are getting such advanced phones. But on the flipside, the times they are a changing. Every year people get more connected with newer and farther advanced technology, and part of that is helping younger kids get connected sooner so they can understand this new technology and be able to utilize it efficiently as they get older.
ReplyDeleteJD, while I think your sentiments regarding the appropriateness of younger kids having complex phones has value, I still can't begin to imagine what it was like for Estarija to get that $21,000-plus phone bill. Talk about shock! And the human-factor here continues to his son, who is apparently taking the predicament very hard. So for the sake of minimizing these sorts of situations, I wanted to respond to you by mentioning that I work in the consumer advocacy division of the Houston-based company Validas, where we electronically audit and subsequently reduce the average cell bill by 22 percent through our website, http://www.fixmycellbill.com (and I'll add that 22 percent equates to over $450 per year for the average user).
ReplyDeleteYou can find out for free if fixmycellbill.com can modify your plan to better suit your individual needs by going to the website. Check out Validas in the media, most recently on Fox News at http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/consumer/conlaw/lower_cell_phone_bills_072409 .
Good luck to everyone reading on retaking control over your wireless expenses and potentially freeing up some extra cash this holiday season. These kinds of situations are avoidable!
Dylan
Consumer Advocacy, Fixmycellbill.com
Well, if you divide $22,000 by 50$, you get 440 MB of data, which really isn't a lot. He could have been using the internet to watch youtube videos, or loaded one movie, and it would have taken up that space pretty quickly. Although I know the know he was using a Verizon phone, 440 MB is about the equivalent of 4 albums off iTunes, or two 20-minute mp4 videos off iTunes (the length of 2 children's cartoons). It's not a lot of data, it's just Verizon ripping people off, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt is really bizarre that kids use phones at younger and younger ages, I guess. Or maybe it isn't, and we just think it is because we didn't have the technology until recently.