Teen Runs Up $22,000 Cellphone Bill – A 13-year-old teen is in hot water with his father after running up a cell phone bill of nearly $22,000.
Ted Estarija said he was expecting his bill to be higher this month after adding his son to his plan, but wasn’t expecting a bill of $21,917 in data usage charges.
The Hayward man said his Verizon Wireless bill soared after his son apparently downloaded about 1.4 million kilobytes of data last month.
His plan didn’t cover data usage, so he was charged by the megabyte.
Estarija said after the first media reports, Verizon said they would credit his account for the entire amount.
He has also suspended his son’s account.
A spokeswoman for Verizon said the company investigates cases with exceptionally large bills.
And that’s the latest at Action News about Teen Runs Up $22,000 Cellphone Bill.
Tags: 000 Cellphone Bill, bill, cell phone, huge cell phone bill, Teen Runs Up $22
December 17th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Like many of us, I’ve been hearing about this story again and again and personally, it’s so hard to imagine how Estarija felt upon receiving that $21,000-plus Verizon Wireless bill. It’s such a nightmare of epic proportions, only augmented by the fact that he is apparently recently out of work. And the human factor continues here with Estarija’s son, who apparently is taking the predicament very hard. But from a practical perspective, I wanted to respond with a strategy for eliminating those large bills before they even happen by effectively “right sizing” your plan. 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% through our website, http://www.fixmycellbill.com.
Check us out in the media, most recently on Fox News at http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/consumer/conlaw/lower_cell_phone_bills_072409 . By ensuring that Americans’ wireless plans are optimally compatible with their wireless usage, we can work together to prevent situations like Estarija’s from reoccurring.
Dylan
Consumer Advocacy, fixmycellbill.com