£600 phone bill

[TheMrs04]

So Saturday morning came about I was just about to leave to go to crufts with my mum when my brother (15) rang me to ask what to do with his phone as he couldn't call or text. So my mum gave me her phone so I could set up the Vodafone app so she could check her details and costs. As I was checking to make sure it was all correct I came across the additional charges bit at the bottom and it totalled £600!!!!
Well we were all livid to the point of my mum screaming on how she was going to be able to pay it! Well cutting a long story short she rang Vodafone who practically told my mum she had to pay it (which I agree with as it is in her name) but they are taking payment this week! My mum repeated her self and said there was no way she could pay for it just like that and that she would have to cancel her D.D and set up a payment plan with them! Brother has since admitted to calling his friend in America and not Microsoft as he first admitted to! Any idea how she can go about this? She works but only 3 days a month self employed and is at her wits end on how to deal with this! As to say the SIM card is now in my possession 50 miles away from brother so there is no way he can get to it! I feel for my mum she has called me everyday since Saturday in tears wondering how she will get this sorted!!! Any advice you guys could give would be great

To TheMrs04, I recommend that your Mum makes a complaint to Vodafone to get the bill reduced on the basis that a child used her phone and that the charges are extortionate and that she cannot afford it. They can use their discretion to reduce one off blips like this. Before the regulations were changed on overseas data roaming, loads of people ran up huge charges when travelling and there were cases where the providers reduced bills that were just outrageously high, particularly when parents did not know kids were playing games on the internet, etc. My sister-in-law got £2000 wiped off her bill that her DS has run up while on holiday in Europe.

@teaforoneplease my mum rang them Saturday and fortunately for her they wiped off the whole amount! They have now disabled international calls and they have increased his data! I have to admit they need to add the ability to cap a contract! The contracts me and my DH have are both capped on data and calls on my DH phone! I'm just glad she managed to get something done about it! As for his xbox it had been sold to my BIL but has agreed to sell it back to my brother. But my mum has already told him he's not allowed it back until he proves worthy of having it back!

@TheMrs04 I am really pleased they were reasonable about it. It causes a lot of stress though doesn't it.

Teaforoneplease - thank you for that cap info I've just done it on both my dc's phones and had confirmation back that it's on - thanks awfully! Vodafone actually called me to renew my contract today and I got the data doubled and the monthly payment reduced so well chuffed

@iknowimcoming That's excellent. Vodafone called me about my compliant yesterday. Tried to say that I has been told about the CAP but they were actually talking about a BLOCK. Two different things. They admitted fault and refunded all of my extra data charges since November when the cap came in. So I was refunded £500. They admitted that they do not provide info about the CAP on our account pages and this is not an online feature (which is very bad).