I should be ashamed of myself.

[Ringtail Z28]

There's a commercial for one of the wireless providers, I think the one that starts with C, and a pre-teen girl and her mother are having a discussion about the girl's overuse of text messaging. The girl is replying to her mother in text-talk (NBD, OMG, etc.), and subtitles are provided at the bottom of the screen. The mom is telling her that she is going to have to cut back on texting.

Oh god that has to be the most annoying commercial in history. I feel like ripping my ears off when I hear it.

[myswtghst]

I just love the fact that people would rather yell at some poor, helpless rep who did nothing wrong than to try to teach their kid boundaries and rules in the first place, or to punish them for doing something they shouldn't have.

I was raised to know better than to use a parent's CC without permission, and if I had, I'd have been working to earn the money to pay my parents back, no question about it.

[CrazedClerk]

I get this ALLLL the time at work. Parents pissed of their bill is high because their son or daughter ran up the charges.

Right Miss, your daughter is not responsible for those charges because no 16 year old ever dare goes on the internet with her phone and yes, she has to pay for the Kanye West ringtone too.

I had people blame my company for allowing their kids to run up so much usage on the phones! (ummm what?)

Or the parents that believe that because they have no internet package on their plan that their phones will magically not access the internet.

[BusyBee]

Two of the things that every customer hears when they sign up for an account at the movie rental store are:
- You are responsible for everything that is hired on your account. (Also repeated on the info sheet we give them.)
- Anyone can use your member card or key tag to access your account. ("So if you lose it you should let us know so we can change the number!!")
I bet you can see where this is going right?

When we call the account holder to let them know that they have movies rented on their account that are 3 or more days late, or when they come in next time to rent out and have a whole lot of late fees owing - that's when they throw a tantrum. 95% of the time it turns out a friend has 'borrowed' their card, or a family member has come in and given all the correct account details and password. It's such a relief to be able to say "Well, you are responsible for everything that goes on your account."
It's not like we won't put a note saying that users must know the password and have their driver's licence with them to prove they're the account owner. But most people don't want to do that, because that would require continued effort on their part

[Freemage]

I do have to admit, I'd be pretty peeved if I discovered that the company I was doing business with allowed my underage child to enter into a contract on my behalf (which is what those minutes amount to). Your company should at the very least offer some sort of lock/code to prevent that from happening, and if they already do, you should be mentioning it when people like this call in, to prevent a repeat occurance. (Of course, this won't help when dealing with SCs who are actually just blaming their [non-existent?] children for their own actions in order to get out of the bill, but that's something else entirely.)

[ThePhoneGoddess]

I do have to admit, I'd be pretty peeved if I discovered that the company I was doing business with allowed my underage child to enter into a contract on my behalf (which is what those minutes amount to).

prepaid cell phones do not have contracts, and consequently, are not under anybody's name. People buy and sell them all the time at garage sales, at school and other places. If someone calls to place an order, we put the order under their name (or the name they give us.) We ask specifically if it is their credit card. If they say it's their mom's, we ask nicely to speak to the parent, and verify their identity. But if they tell us it's theirs and give us all the necessary info, we have no way of knowing its their 16 year old doing it. If the money on the phone hasn't been used up, we will be happy to refund it back to the card. But if the money's gone, there's nothing to refund and so they need to get it from their offspring.

[Best Made Tacos]

snipped
If the money on the phone hasn't been used up, we will be happy to refund it back to the card. But if the money's gone, there's nothing to refund and so they need to get it from their offspring.

It's pretty cheeky of them to think they should be able to keep the minutes that have been used up AND get a refund. Gee, one OR the other isn't such a hard concept, is it?
Here in Aust., many phone companies won't even do a refund on pre paid mobile credit. You can transfer them to someone elses account, but once they are paid for, that's it.

[DesignFox]

Another thing to note- some cell phone companies allow you to add features to your account or purchase ringtones/games through text messaging and internet. I've never tried those things, but I imagine it can't be hard for kids to fudge their parents info and place the order.

Yes, these things can be blocked if parents have problems controlling their children. Some adults lock it simply because they don't use it and don't want to use it "by accident." Also, they don't want their friends sending them images or messages, or have their kid get ahold of the phone and use it.

So, as easy as it is for the kids to rack up charges, it is equally easy for parents to avoid these problems.