habbo hotel credits and my phone bill....what should I do?

[alligator]

Dp noticed a strange number on the phone which was for some 'cheats' line for habo hotel credits which claims you get free credits and that the call is free too. (its a teenage web chat thing apparently...I looked it up).Phone bill comes through with £20 worth of calls to said number .(we are broker than broke atm so puts a big hole in our budget)
Dss is point blank denying that he rang it but the calls correspond to when he was here (and even worse he had his cousin over to stay too so we need to ring up and let them know in case cousin tries at home. Cousin was not the instigator btw as calls started before he came over).

Dss refused to come over last time he was due to come as dp had had a go at him about this and is refusing to speak to dp on the phone and doesnt want to come next week. Dp is really worried that this whole thing is going to cause a massive rift between them and that he is going to drift away from his son but at the same time he feels that he cant let him get away with this IYSWIM.
Any words of wisdom anyone?

PS. Dp feels that the money should come out of dss's birthday money which is next month and which we have put aside for him. Do people think this is fair?
TIA

[catsmother]

I think so.

Okay ..... many of these lines are ambiguous at best and DSS might have genuinely thought the calls were free.

However, if you have a rule (do you?) that he shouldn't use the phone without asking first, shouldn't call "chat" lines (I mean, why would they be free ?) then docking his money should make sure that he doesn't do it again.

It might be worth checking out the site for ICSTIS who regulate premium rate lines and sites. With their help, we (eventually) got back £123 which had been racked up on the Net by my then 13 year old DS. It wasn't entirely his fault .... but nonetheless he'd been on the PC when we had popped out, found some dodgy porn site (which made it even worse !) and somehow downloaded a virus "dialler" thing which connected at £1 something a minute each time anyone turned the PC on. Needless to say the firm concerned was in the Bahamas somewhere, and they didn't send any compensation for my time, worry, stress, sorting out the PC and so on. Also had a big argument with BT about it.

ICSTIS

[alligator]

thanks for the link CM. I'll check it out. Dss has always been told to ask before using the phone so he def knew he was in the wrong. I'll check out the auto dialler thing but from the pattern of calls it doesnt seem to fit IYSWIM.

guess all teens do something silly like that at one time or another just wish dss would admit he's been silly, got caught and then we could move on. We also have a problem with him using dodgy porn sites too [sigh]

Well I guess we all went through it.Its just that bit harder when you only see them every 2 weeks.

I'm so thankful its only £20 I think I'd have heartfailure if it was £123.

[skippydog]

My 2 sons done that same thing last Christmas and ran up a bill of nearly £80.
They admitted that they had done,but maintained they did not realise how expensive it would be - so that would be why all the calls were made during the night after i had gone to bed.
They paid every penny back - took a portion off their pocket money and pressie money and the phone is now set so that only i know the code if i need to call a mobile/premium number etc.
Habbo Hotel is the bane of my life - i destest it.

[izzybiz]

my son got into trouble with habbo hotel too, i wont go into details here, but it was ALOT of money, and porn sites too.
He had to get a paper round to pay us back, and was banned from the pc for a long time.

[MarsLady]

Yup! Make him pay for them. It's all about learning to take responsibility.

I must check that my children don't know about that line and check my bill, cos I know that they use Habbo Hotel. Thanks for the heads up.

[MarsLady]

skippydog.... how do you set a code on the phone? (Preventative measures and all.......... thanks)

[skippydog]

sorry for the delay - pc had a virus - i just phoned Ntl/telewest and they set it up and gave me the code to dial when i wanted to overide it - best thing i ever done.