Shock bill over son’s mobile gaming
Couple battles phone firm over shock charge
Mark and Tracy-Anne Bruce have a warning for parents after their young son ran up a shock £1,500 mobile phone bill in less than a month.
Tracy-Anne bought a Samsung Galaxy S8 phone as a 12th birthday present for her boy, Evan, from the Vodafone shop in Glenrothes earlier this year.
“We selected Vodafone as both my wife and I were existing customers and we took out a £37 monthly plan for Evan,” said Mark. “Staff recommended a capped limit be set for the phone to avoid large bills and my wife left the place thinking that this had been done.”
The Bruces, from Thornton, Fife, had recently moved house and, while they were waiting for their broadband to be set up, accessed the internet through a pre-paid 4G router from EE.
“This worked fine for all of the family,” said Mark.
“For nine months we also had no problem with Evan’s mobile phone bills, which gave him 4GB worth of monthly data as well as unlimited calls and texts.”
However, in October the couple were stunned when a demand for £1,579.51 arrived for the boy’s phone.
Unbeknown to them, Evan had set up a “hot spot” on his device.
This meant his Vodafone mobile data was being used to connect his Xbox gaming device to the internet instead of it going through the EE router.
“We genuinely thought that there was a financial cap on the mobile account,” said Mark, 45. “The only communication from Vodafone was on Evan’s phone advising him that he was nearing his limit and that additional charges would apply fordata.
“Unfortunately, Evan didn’t open the text or bring this to our attention.
“He is only 12 and would have no concept of what this meant anyway.
“We later discovered he had been