Text Message Anyone?

I found this amusing story. Now I know first hand what its like to get a cell bill with overages. So i know how mad you can get, but this is still funny to me.

Teen's phone meets dad's hammer after mega-bill

This was picked up by CNN, they have a video that I am dying to watch when I get home tonight. I heard it was hilarious.

Texting Teen Grounded for $4,756 bill

From the (first) story link:

CHEYENNE - In one month, a Cheyenne teenager sent 10,000 text messages and received about the same - all while her family's plan did not include texting.

That means the family's provider - Verizon - charged them for each incoming and outgoing text.

The girl's parents, Gregg and Jaylene Christoffersen, thought texting had been disabled, so one can imagine their surprise when they got the monthly phone bill and it asked for $4,756.25. "It just hit us like a rock, like you're stepping into a bus," Gregg Christoffersen said.

I bet it did.

Dena Christoffersen, 13, had apparently been sending most of these messages at school That's more than 300 texts within an eight-hour period every day for the whole month.

Needless to say, it drew attention away from what she should have been doing: paying attention in class.

"She went from As and Bs one semester to Fs in two months," Dena's dad said.

Did the teachers not NOTICE? How is that possible? especially considering her grades plunging.

Hours after the enormous bill arrived, Gregg Christoffersen took a hammer to his daughter's phone.

He and Jaylene also grounded Dena until the end of school.

Hammer Time!!!! I think its awesome that he smashed her phone. Some people called it over reacting... But I promise she will never do it again. With failing grades and a $5000 cell phone bill... I think that it demanded a equal reaction.

My only suggestion:

Considering Verizon indicated they would help out a little with the bill-instead of eating these charges, would it be better to have an alert triggered to the primary phone when a bill has crossed the $1000 mark? Its a sales opportunity to add a text plan or make sure its disabled the way the parents thought it was, in this case. That's just good customer service.

I am sure someone who works for VZW will explain to me why they don't do that already.

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