Kids and cell phones

So, last week, on the night of the 19th, I forgot to set my alarm(s). Unfortunately, everyone else went to bed early. No one woke me up.

I finally woke up at 11:30pm. This is about 45 minutes after I was supposed to be at work. I panicked and called my boss, then threw my phone on my bed while I ran to get dressed.

When I was ready to leave, I couldn’t find my phone. I wasn’t too worried about it. I have a brand new car and only work a mile away. What’s the chance that I’ll break down and need my phone?

Well, apparently, right after I left the house, my 13 year old nephew (A), woke up. He went into my room (first mistake). He says he wanted to play with my bunny (second mistake - big one). He says he saw my phone on my bed (lie - I searched all over my bed for it and couldn’t find it). He says he didn’t use it for anything, other than sending ONE text.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here. I didn’t find this stuff out until later.

Anyway, the morning of the 20th, I got home and found my phone. For some strange reason, it was right at the head of my bed, where I would have left it before going to sleep (it’s my alarm clock). I know I didn’t leave it there, since I used it after I got up, and since I checked there.

I wanted to send a text to my ex-boyfriend. I couldn’t find his name in my contacts. “That’s odd”, I said to myself. He should be the first one.

That’s when I noticed something even stranger. I had 3 contacts I had never seen before. They were e-mail type contacts. I started scrolling through my contacts list and found more insanity. The only contacts left were: Me (my photobucket e-mail), my sister, and her boyfriend. Even my Verizon default contacts were gone. All my friends. My whole family, other than my sister. My work. All gone.

I started getting concerned.

I started to call the local Verizon store to see if the Juke is known for having contact erasing bugs. That’s when I noticed that my dial font had changed from boring white on black. To rainbow.

As I continued to search through my phone, I noticed other strange changes.

My entire call history was gone.

My entire text history was gone.

My entire (almost) contact list was gone.

I had new contacts added.

I had 4 new ringtones. Prior to this, the only ringtone I had was Massachusetts - used for my ex-boyfriend and to combat homesickness (it’s not working). These new ringtones were songs I didn’t recognize.

I didn’t find anything else at that point. Granted, I don’t use much else on my phone so I didn’t know where to look.

Fast forward to the night of the 21st. It’s 6PM and I’m trying to sleep. It’s not working. I get a text message. I read it. It says, “Who are you?”

I recognize the area code as being this area. So, I assumed it was someone I know and that they lost their contact list too. So, being a smartass, I asked, “Do you always randomly text strangers? LOL.” Then, I told them who I was. And asked who they were.

I got back:

“If you don’t know who I am, you shouldn’t be F@cking texting me, saying b*tch.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. This is not something I would ever, ever do. I am 28 years old and fairly responsible. I am not some teenybopper with my first cellphone. So, I told them that.

The person called me.

It was an adult female. I explained to her that something odd was going on with my phone. I told her that I was getting worried about what had happened to it and that I didn’t know any texts had been sent since my whole call history had been deleted.

She asked if I had kids.

I said no. But I do live with kids.

She asked if they were middle or high school aged.

I said yes, one of each.

I asked if she had any kids that age.

She said yes, one in middle school.

I asked, does your daughter go to ****** Middle School?

Why, yes, she does, she said.

Does your daughter know A?

She knows OF him. But doesn’t know him personally.

Does she know T (my niece - high school).

Sure, she knows her, they’re friends.

  • my niece spent the vacation week at my cousin’s house so I know she didn’t do it.

I told her that it never even occurred to me that my nephew would do something like this to me, or to anyone for that matter.

Anyway, I found out what her daughter’s name was. Even I recognized the name, and I try to avoid getting involved in my nephew’s life.

Luckily for me, this nice lady was very understanding and even laughed by the end of the call.

Things were not so jovial at my house.

I started getting worried. I knew now, that the little shit had downloaded at least 4 things. I also knew that I had strange contacts. I called Verizon. I was hoping they’d be able to tell me everything he had done. Unfortunately, they couldn’t. It wasn’t the end of my billing cycle yet.

What he could tell me though, was that starting at about 11:50, the night of the 19th, and continuing until almost 4am, HUGE amounts of downloads were charged to my phone.

So, the nice Verizon guy helped me to find the downloads. I had wallpaper, games, songs, and even something having to do with the weather. Most of them were subscription downloads.

He couldn’t tell me how much this was going to cost me.

I explained what had happened and said that under no circumstances did I allow anyone to use my phone. I explained that my nephew knows he’s not allowed in my room and that all the cell phones in the house were off limits. He put a note about that in my records.

Today, my bill became available.

$275.
$195 of that was my nephew’s doing.

Now, because I told them, as soon as I knew, that my phone had been out of my possession, and that no one else had permission to use it, they actually counted that as being “stolen”. They were able to credit back 35% of the fees.

And $12.49 was a 10 credit purchase to Sony Musicbox. I will actually use that at some point. So, I’m not going to make my sister pay that back either. But, the total still came to $115.

My sister was, obviously, furious. She doesn’t have that kind of money lying around. I make more money and have fewer bills, and have a huge amount of overtime coming to me next week. So, I was actually willing to take it in $5 increments each week but she didn’t want to do that. I currently owe her $130 from last week (I made a massively stupid mistake and got myself a huge overdraft charge). She insisted on paying the phone bill back out of what I owed her. I don’t need the money though. I wish she’d agree to pay it back one week at a time. I know she can’t afford it.

My nephew still insists he didn’t do anything wrong.

He doesn’t seem to realize the severity of what he’s done.

His first major mistake was going in my room. I actually share this room with his sister. Since I work nights and she’s at school during the day, we’re never in there at the same time. But, it’s still both of ours. We have personal stuff in there. I have some important papers in there. He’s not allowed in there, at all - unless I specifically tell him to go in there.

His second major mistake was admitting that he was going to play with my bunny. I have told all the children in this house to stay the hell away from my bunny. He’s 7 years old and very skittish. He had never been around children until just recently. He’s used to a very quiet home, with two sedate adults. I don’t want my bunny being manhandled by irresponsible children who can’t even eat a simple meal without getting food all over themselves, the floor, the table, and the person sitting across from them.

His third major mistake was admitting that my 9 year old nephew never woke up. Well, dumbass, you just implicated yourself right there. You say you were in my room. You say you were the only one up. Your sister was 3 miles away. You admit that you knew my phone was there. The phone bill details the times that each download happened. The one text which was sent, was sent to a classmate’s phone number - a girl you’ve been lusting after for over a year. The only contacts in my list which WEREN’T deleted, were me, and your parents. The only contacts YOU recognize. If my other nephew had done this, he would have kept my ex-boyfriend too. (The younger one is my actual nephew. He knows my ex and considers him an uncle. The one who did this is my sister’s boyfriend’s kid and has never met my ex.)

He honestly seems to be confused as to why he’s in so much trouble right now.

So, what did I learn from all of this?

Set my friggen alarm before I go to bed. :smiley:
Actually, when I called Verizon again today, I had the nice lady teach me how to use the lock function on my phone.

I’ve said this before and I’m sure I’ll say it again.

Children are evil, disease infested Satan-spawn and they should all be locked up until they’re at least 25.

For some reason, I’m actually not really mad about most of what happened. I’m irritated about my contacts being deleted. I’m mad - for my sister’s sake, about the charges. But all in all, I’m ok with this. I hate children but I still realize that they’re not perfect and that learning from their mistakes is the best way to earn right from wrong.

What pisses me off is that he didn’t learn a damn thing. He just doesn’t care at all.

And he touched my bunny.

This may sound like I’m getting down on your sister for parenting skills, but I’m honestly not. I’m just curious as to how he has absolutely no idea why damaging (deleting) something that belongs to someone else, as well as causing his mother to pay money constitutes nothing wrong. Is he a sociopath? Does he understand cause and effect?

If he’s really that thick, maybe it needs to be put in terms he understands, like how he would feel if his WoW character got deleted, or if his journal had pages ripped out or something. I’m just honestly confused right now.

And I’m totally using “Don’t touch my bunny” in my daily life from now on. You should make a lolcat with that phrase.

my 19 yr old son racked up my bill to almost 400 bucks. He’s never been that irresponsible before - he used a lot of data minutes during the day causing overage. Luckily he has a job and paid his portion and this month’s bill is back to “norm”.

When my kids do something they’re not to do - they get things taken away. Radios, computers, toys, etc. There’s been times they’ve had nothing to do after scrubbing a toilet & bathtub but read a book in their room.

Just wondering, why is your sister paying you back for this, instead of the kid? I know he’s young and probably doesn’t have money, but he does have hands and legs. I’m sure there are chores around that he could do to earn this money. Bathrooms to clean, laundry to do, walls to wash, something. He needs to learn that mommy can’t bail him out.

I’m saying this as the mom who didn’t do this as well as she should have, and wound up with a son who used to think he could get away with stuff. He’s learning the really hard way now, in a low end apartment with bills he can barely pay.

Why did he delete all of your contacts? Just to be a dick? I highly doubt he is going to learn anything from this unless the mom makes him pay for it, and even then that’s iffy. It sounds like he has no concept of personal boundaries and what constitutes other people’s property.

You’re very lucky that Verizon credited you without making you file a police report. Most cell phone providers have to see a police report showing the phone was stolen before they will do anything. You must have a high-value account.

As to your nephew – he has obviously not been brought up to respect other people. The fact that your sister is paying you back instead of making the kid figure out how to do so is pretty bad. Since this isn’t even her kid, why is she the one paying you back? Where is the father? Seriously, this kind of crap makes me sick. Not all kids are like that. My daughter had her own cell phone at age 10 – she was in middle school and had a lot of extra-curricular activities that required her to have to call when she was to be picked up – it was safer. She never once downloaded ringtones, wallpapers or anything else. She kept her minutes within the plan as well as her text and picture messaging. To forestall the question – yes, many of her friends also had cell phones at that time. Kids only know what they’re taught – mine was taught boundaries, your nephew has not been taught boundaries.

I am glad you learned to lock your phone – it is the only way to keep unwanted people out of your business. I am sorry that you have had to deal with this kind of idiocy, but at least you learned a valuable lesson – do not keep anything valuable in that house – if the kid will steal from you by using your phone, he won’t think twice if he sees your credit card lying around.

Am I the only one who got some funny mental images before realizing that you were talking about an actual bunny?

I knew that I should have been more specific about my nephew and the paying back stuff, but I had to go to sleep so I never got around to it.

My nephew has “developmental disabilities”. I guess that’s what it’s called. He’s mildly autistic (very mildly). He has a severe case of ADHD. He’s actually the only person, other than my mom, who had ADHD which I actually recognized for what it was. On top of that, he’s got some abandonment issues due to his own mom. She makes no attempt at all to be a part of his life. The sad thing is that she goes out of her way to be a part of his sister’s life. She’ll do this to the extent that she’ll call to talk to my niece but when asked if she wants to talk to her son, she’ll say no and hang up. The kid has problems.

My sister and her boyfriend are doing the best that they can with him. Unfortunately, he cares so little about everything that it’s impossible to adequately punish him. They take away tv and his DS. He does’t care. He never goes to his friends houses. He doesn’t use the phone. He has a tv in his room but he’s only allowed to use it when Nascar is on the living room TV. Lately, he’s not allowed to use it even then. He has no life. There’s nothing to take from him. Other than grounding him, what are they to do? Beat him? He goes to school. He comes home. He honestly doesn’t care if he sits on the couch and stares at the wall all day. His doctor, teachers, and parents are trying to help him but nothing seems to get through to him. In addition to his mental problems, he’s a 13 year old boy and that’s never a picnic on it’s own.

My sister is paying me back because she’s the one who pays the bills in the house. Her boyfriend’s check gets deposited into their joint account and she takes care of everything. So, all discussions about the paying back has been with her. Her boyfriend doesn’t care how she does it, as long as it happens.

They fully intend on taking away his birthday money but that’s in a few months and they don’t want to make me wait. They told him that he will be getting no presents from them this year and any money from his grandparents and uncle will go toward the cell phone bill. But, he showed no reaction at all. He didn’t cry. He didn’t yell. He didn’t offer to do chores to pay it back. He just doesn’t care. I can’t help but wonder if he’s a sociopath in the making.

It’s a kinda screwed up situation. I spend about half my time feeling so sorry for him because of the way he is and the other half of my time wanting to kill him.

I wish I could help my sister and her boyfriend by giving them some magic cure-all for their son (he calls my sister Mom). Unfortunately I am not “a kid person”. I’m also not a doctor. I don’t know what to do with him either. So, I’m just the one who works third shift so that there’s always an adult in the house because he can’t be left alone. That’s the best I can do for them and they seem happy with it. I’d be happy not taking the money from them, because I know it would make their lives easier. But they would never go for that. It’s a crappy situation all around.

You are a sick sick person. :smiley:

The bunny

I am still shocked that they did credit back any of the bill. I’ve never had any problems with Verizon and this incident has just reinforced my belief that they are the best cell phone company around. Every time I’ve had to deal with them, it’s been completely pain free and in most cases, actually pleasant. I don’t have a high value account. I pay about $60 per month. I’ve never had any problems before and my account is only about 3 years old.

I’d unlock that phone right now and start calling around for apartments…

Your other post clarifying the boy’s issues makes it much clearer, I still stand by keeping anything remotely valuable locked up out of his reach.

As for having a high-value account – it doesn’t have to be a high-dollar-value account to be high-value. I suspect you pay your bill on time every month and have likely been with them for ages – or at least have finished 1 full contract with them. I also imagine you don’t call very often for little things – I used to work for one of their competitors in retention – I know what makes a customer worth a lot to a company.

My sister, her boyfriend and I have all decided that until we get him on track, we’re going to buy a small safe for our important stuff. The only thing I have that he can abuse is my phone. I have no credit cards and my debit card is always in my possession. I’m going to have to start locking up my Cadbury Eggs too. :smiley:

Your room needs to be locked anytime you or your sister are not in there. No exceptions. If he really doesn’t care or feel any kind of remorse he probably wouldn’t care or feel remorse if he stole from your wallet or anything else. He might not even be upset if he hurt the bunny. While they try to deal with him and help him get through whatever problems he has you need to be protecting yourself and your possessions.

My other thought is that if he felt he needed to lie to you it was probably to keep from getting in trouble, so he obviously cares about something. You guys just haven’t figured out what that thing is yet.

I would love to have my own place. Sharing a room with a 16 year old girl, even though we get along and are never in there at the same time, can be a bit demeaning. And, I feel bad for her because she has to deal with my smelly work clothes because my sister wont let me keep them anywhere else. Hell, I smell cooking rubber for 8 hours a day and I still makes me feel ill. I don’t know how she deals with it.

But, the arrangement we have is for all of our benefit. I get a rent free place to stay while I save up enough money to (hopefully) be able to buy my own trailer* next year. I’m hoping to buy the one they just traded in- which is right across the street and will allow me to continue helping her out with the kids. Living with these guys has allowed me to sell my piece of crap car and buy a brand new one. I’m also able to save money in fairly large quantities for the first time in my adult life. For my sister’s side, they don’t have to worry about the kids being home alone and they can both work the same shift, which allows them to use only one vehicle (they work at the same place). And, they don’t have to pay for child care. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. For the most part, the kids are pretty good for me. About once a month we have a big problem, such as the cell phone ordeal. But the benefits definitely outweigh the problems.

*Before you guys make fun of me, trailers probably the most common habitation up here in the frozen wasteland. I don’t know why. All I know is that they’re everywhere, they’re cheap, and they can be pretty damn nice.

pbbth: It was a total fluke that the day he was in there was the day I forgot my phone at home and his sister wasn’t there. Most days, my niece is there when I’m at work. This just happened to happen on their vacation, I forgot my phone, and she was staying with my cousin. He wouldn’t have had the opportunity any other day. I think that was why he was in there that day. I wont let him near the bunny and he felt that with his sister gone, it was his one chance. And, he didn’t have to get up early for school the next day so no one would think it odd if he slept until 12:00PM (which he did) because he had been up until 4:00.

I wish we could find that one thing he cares about. I was hoping when I moved in last spring that I’d be able to see what they couldn’t - as a fresh pair of eyes. I can’t see a damn thing. I’m going to suggest to my sister that he see a psychologist (outside of the one at school). I think he’s severely depressed and while I’m not the type to get on the medication bandwagon, I think he might benefit from it.

When I was in college, if I knew then what I know now I would totally have gotten my parents to help me buy a trailer instead of paying rent on cramped smelly apartments/dorm rooms for 5 years…

I was very turned off by the whole thing when I first moved up here. I grew up in a city in Massachusetts and there’s a definite stigma attached to living in a trailer there. There’s a whole mentality up here in New York that I don’t understand. Part of that is living in trailers (and Nascar, beer, hunting, beer, fishing, beer, yard sales in 3’ of snow, and beer). But, as the months go by, I’m finding that I like it more and more. If I can save enough, I might even try to buy a brand new one. With a fireplace. My sister and her boyfriend just bought a new one. It’s beautiful. It has two full bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, a huge living room and a huge kitchen. They paid about $10,000 less than my ex-boyfriend paid for his condo and they have almost twice the square footage. And their lot fees are lower than the condo fees. And the lot management is much more lax than the condo management. And Lake Champlain is about 3 miles away. Yeah, this place is starting to grow on me.

We love Verizon, too. I ran over my plan minutes last month due to a car accident, and because I called before the end of the billing cycle, they credited me a free 150 extra minutes–covered the overage and gave me an extra 68 minutes for the next month, just in case. Verizon rocks!
I was told by a former employee after relating this story that if you call and complain, they’re authorized to give you up to $100 in free stuff–hence knocking off 35% of the fees in your case. I suspect if you call back you can continue to negotiate the fact that it was stolen and that you did not authorize any of the charges, though now that the billing cycle is over it may be more difficult.
I don’t know what to do about the kid, though. Sucks big time to be an observer in a situation over which you have little or no control.

I think he might benefit from paying for what he stole or destroyed.

Type him up a nice bill. Pay his mother back, and tell her that you don’t want her to pay. Tell him he owes you this money, and an apology, and you won’t accept anything but cash from him. Don’t use any coercion at all, but make him understand that you think decent people are responsible for their own actions, and you want to believe he is a decent person.

It might not work, but it might.

Tris