to sell the xbox my son got for christmas to pay his phone bill?

[fatkatyslim]

just checked my bank account and my sons phone bill has gone out,£178!!!
phone was a gift for his birthday and i pay the £30 monthly for chores he does around the house.i phoned vodafone and they have confirmed he has been downloading games,he was given the phone on the trust that this would not happen.so,do i sell his xbox?

How old is he? I'd be tempted to say yes, sell it. Only trouble is that if there was no potential sanction to the warning not to download, it may seem a bit draconian to him (not necessarily a bad thing). Maybe you can stop the pocket money/halve it until the debt is repaid and if he does it again, bye bye xbox.

I think if he has just got the Xbox for Christmas then selling it is a bit harsh. Could you sell some of the games if he has a few, and cut his allowance if he gets one until the phone bill is paid? I just think selling the brand new Christmas present is likely to make him feel very angry and alienated.

Hmm, I agree with Ilovegregoryhouse, maybe work out some agreement this time then if he does it again, the xbox will be sold to pay for it.

I'd certainly be taking his phone away until he can learn to behave more responsibly with it. Then I'd make him do his chores for free until he's paid it off.

Never mind the xbox how about selling his phone?!

he's 13.i can't reduce his pocket money as it is a contract phone so has to be paid for the next 18 months.this was the deal when he got the phone as all his money was going on top ups and he was always asking me for more.i'm so angry,i've taken his phone off him but the bill has left me broke

How old is your DS?

I´d take the phone away-he can´t be trusted with it!

Is it possible to get phones that are just phones?

selling it a bit harsh imo, but what you could do is confiscate xbox and set him to work doing chores until he has earned back the amount?

Selling his Christmas present is a bit harsh.
He's 13 - did he know he was racking up such a big bill downloading games? Why did you not put a limit on how high his bill can go before the phone is cut off?

oh shit. My son is under pain of death if he downloads any extra bits to his xbox. He doesnt do it via mobile, but the monthly payment is set up on our direct debit and they can download whatever they want whenever. But he knows that it would be the end of the xbox if he dared.

I would certainly remove the xbox. Not sure about selling it, but would nbot let him have it for a good while til he learns.

I agree. Remove the Xbox till he's earned it back. Can he get an after school paper round of something to help pay off the bill?

Surprised you are even asking TBH.

Rather than getting angry with him, treat him in a more adult way - show him the bill for £178, tell him you are paying £30 of it as agreed and ask him how he proposes to pay the rest.

You can discuss this very reasonably with him but make it clear that it is his problem, not yours - he has run up a bill and now must work out how to pay it just as he will when he is an adult.

Obviously he may not be able to come up with a solution but by making him at least think of ways round it, you are showing him that his behaviour has consequences without appearing draconian and unfair which is how he would respond if you simply sold his x-box.

This way, he might suggest selling something of his without you having to suggest it, and it will certainly set the precedent that you will not pay his bills whatever they are.

And as diddl says, in future - maybe a phone that doesn't connect to the internet might be a wise solution!

i've removed his xbox,he has taken on extra chores to pay for his bill every month already.will definately look into having the bill capped at a certain level.great advice,thank you.
selling his xbox was just a reaction to how angry i am,i don't think i could do it but the threat has got him cleaning his room at an alarming speed

Sorry, just read 13. Tricky age. Old enough to understand consequences but young enough to just not 'get it' that downloading games would lead to such a huge bill. I agree with everyone else. You definitely need to sanction this but selling the XBox does seem a bit harsh, though you could possibly remove access to it for a while? Even though you'll have to pay for phone anyway, I'd confiscate it for a while to amek the point about privileges coming with responsibility, etc

at 13 ,he probably doesn quite grasp the huge cost of downloading etc.take phone away, cut his pocket money. My ds had pay as yo go, cheap phone until he was 16 and i knew that he understood the contract system and wouldnt go over his monthly allowance.
dont sell xbox, too harsh.

I agree with sleepinglion.

At the end of the day, you are the parent, and you have enabled this by not limiting how he can use his phone.

My son is only 7, so I have deleted the network settings for emailing and downloading, and told him he that he cant do this as it is too expensive.

the bill has already gone out of my account.

I wouldn't sell the Xbox, but he clearly needs to understand just how much £178 is, but also needs to see any punishment as fair.

I'd deduct the £30 you said you would pay off the amount - so he owes you £148.

The minimum wage for a 16 year old (I know he's 13 but it's the lowest minimum anyway) is £3.57 - £148 this equates to 41 hours work under this rate (which is generous for a 13 year old).

You could tell him that he needs to do 41 hours of chores for you to pay it back, but anything of his own he can find to sell - games, DVDs and then give you the money can be deducted from the amount and therefore reduce the number of hours work he needs to do. You could set up a spreadsheet or something to track it.

Not only will be a good punishment, but a very good money lesson - and might even encourage an entrepeneruial streak

fatkaty

I've worked for Vodafone - and true, you're in a contract but:

i) You can choose a financial limit that he has to adhere to on a monthly basis (e.g., they'll put a bar on it if he goes over 40 quid)
ii) You can put a bar on 3G/GPRS (even just temporarily!)

When GPRS first went live, what was it? 6/7 years ago - we had literally hundreds of teenagers run up enormous bills and we twigged before the parents did and phoned each and every person to warn them what was going on...

Can you block certain things from the phone? We had a similar problem with ds2 and ds3 who both managed to sign themselves up to those services where you get jokes or horoscopes or other stuff via text message at £1.50 a time. Luckily they are both on pay as you go, so the bill couldn't reach the astronomical proportions your son's bill did, but dh was able to block those numbers from the phone.

I think you have done the right thing by confiscating the xbox and making him earn it back - and I have to say that I totally understand why your first reaction was to sell the xbox to cover the bill - I think I would have thought exactly the same thing in your position!

Selling his xbox is a bit harsh. Just take his phone away.

good post sleeping lion!