All's well that ends well. . . . Well. . . .

I thought it was time for the kids in the family to have a cell phone. Seems they are always going someplace, and there is no way to contact them. I added 2 cell phones to my family plan. Joshua and Michael have one to share, and Anthony and Juan have the other to share. Sharing doesn't really work, but that is another story for another time.

I get my first cell phone bill and all is well. I get a list of who the kids are calling and who they are texting. I didn't mention that I got the kids "unlimited" texting, because I know that teens like to text. Fine.

The second time I got a bill, it was a little different story. The bill had a $1,637.37 charge on it. Yes you heard me right, ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED THIRTY-SEVEN DOLLARS AND THIRTY SEVEN CENTS. It seems Joshua found the WWW on his cell and used it abundantly.
I called AT&T in a tizzy on the 25th of July. Mark noticed that this particular billing cycle ended on the 18th of july, and he was worried about what went on between the end of the billing cycle and the 25th of July. Soooooo, when I called AT&T there were indeed more charges that had not yet shown on my bill, to the tune of $2,964 dollars. Yes you heard me correctly add $2,964 to 1637.00 and you get FOUR THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND ONE DOLLARS. Yea, I can pay that. . . .Right. Joshua was going to be working for me for the rest of his life.

Well, when I get on the phone to AT&T, I talked to the nicest gentleman, his name was Monty. Monty gave me "free unlimited internet service" back to the 19th of July, so most of the $2964 was wiped out. . . .and Monty put in a request for a "high rate adjustment" to my bill. . .
The wonderful folks at AT&T took every cent of Internet off of my bill. They gave me "free unlimited internet service" back several months - so I just owe the normal amount. I will never switch my service, and Josh has learned a valuable lesson about responsibility.

When you are old like me, you don't read the fine print, you know enough about technology to be dangerous, and you take lots of deep breaths when dealing with teens. I fear the day, these kids get behind the wheel of a car.

Later.