WWYD? Cell Phone headache

[Princess Nancy]

DD is really hard on cell phones (she is the queen of texting)

Anyway, she got a new phone for Christmas, but by Feb it had a pressure crack on the inside screen. She went back to her old phone and it now has a bad front screen. She has been using it like that for some time.

For her Bday in August, I said I would spend $100 for a new phone.

I am with Verizon. Without going into all the details of the headaches I have had trying to get anything decent (and now I am looking at as much as $169), what would you suggest?

1. We cannot upgrade til next August.
2. Noone in our family seems to have an extra phone we can buy or use.
3. I bought a refurb from Verizon but it is the Samsung Glyde and she wants me to return it. It is really hard to choose a phone without touching it!


Hmmm maybe I am letting her be too picky? Please someone give me a great suggestion!!!!!

Thanks!

 

[hereyago]

How old is she? She wants you to take back a refurb? Yea, she would be using her allowance to pay for her own pre paid minutes. Kids don't need a fancy phone.

DD12 has a pre paid and she knows won't get another one from me if she doesn't take care of it.

 

[LilyWDW]

How old is she?

You have spent enough on phones for her. Obviously she goes through them way too fast. Maybe it is time for her to have to start buying her own if she is not already. You may be surprised that they last longer when it has had to come out of her own pocket.

And yes, you are letting her be WAY too picky. Your money, your choice. You get what you get and you don't have a fit.

DD is really hard on cell phones (she is the queen of texting)

Anyway, she got a new phone for Christmas, but by Feb it had a pressure crack on the inside screen. She went back to her old phone and it now has a bad front screen. She has been using it like that for some time.

For her Bday in August, I said I would spend $100 for a new phone.

I am with Verizon. Without going into all the details of the headaches I have had trying to get anything decent (and now I am looking at as much as $169), what would you suggest?

1. We cannot upgrade til next August.
2. Noone in our family seems to have an extra phone we can buy or use.
3. I bought a refurb from Verizon but it is the Samsung Glyde and she wants me to return it. It is really hard to choose a phone without touching it!


Hmmm maybe I am letting her be too picky? Please someone give me a great suggestion!!!!!

Thanks!

 

[luvmy3]

My dd got a used LG Rival on ebay for $60 with her own money.

 

[Hannathy]

Why or how is she so hard on her phones. I complain at my DD that she is hard on her phone but she has had it for over 2yrs close to 3 and all that is wrong is the corners have some of the finish dinged. Before I got her a new one I would want to figure out what she does to them.

Has she gone into verizon or at least to a kiosk in the mall and looked at phones? I would have her look and then let her go on line and look for a refurb one or a new one from verizon that she can afford. I would make her do the shopping and research to find a new phone, she destroyed hers she does the work to find one that you can afford and until she does this she can use the old one. It will also show her how much they cost and she can learn to make choices and live within a budget and live with the one she picked.

 

[NotUrsula]

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but she's walking all over you.

Take the refurb back, by all means. Let thunder-thumbs do without until she's earned the money to replace the phone herself. If she needs one for emergencies find her the absolute oldest, largest, cheapest phone that Verizon's guys can offer you, and let her live without texting for awhile. (Did Verizon offer Nokias? Those 5190's were well-nigh indestructible. ... And they had such nice large keys! )

It's the rule in our house -- the first one might be a gift, but we do not replace toys or personal electronics if the original was lost or broken through careless handling. If you lose it or break it and you want it replaced, then you save up and replace it yourself.

 

[Imzadi]

Considering how quickly she goes through phones, I'd tell her to live with this one, as it's only a matter of time thill this one gets wrecked.

Why are you indulging her with such expensive phones? Especially when she has no respect or appreciation for the ones you get her? If you told her you would only pay a certain amount for a cell phone, and she wants something different, then she needs to cough up the rest of the money. I agree with the person who said make her get a prepaid cellphone. I have TWO Tracfones for the different phone numbers. Had them for 8 years.

You can get a Tracfone for $10. That's TEN dollars. It's not missing a zero. The extra money that you used to pay for phones, can be money SHE pays for monthly minutes.

I got the latest web capable, camera Tracfone, which was $29.99. To me, that was a splurge spending that much on a cell phone. I still only pay per minutes I use, The rest roll over each month. With Double Minutes and extra free bonus minutes each time I add on a card, it works out to little over $0.10 per minute. Texts are each text is a third of a unit. A full unit equals a minute.

They also have a separate monthly program that included unlimited texting. I think it's like $30/mo.

 

[tar heel]

Can you actually return the refurb? What would I do -- I would tell her to be happy with the phone she has.

No one in my house is getting a full-price phone between contracts, and that includes DH and me. My middle child's phone broke a few months ago. He's a college student without a land line who was heading to NYC for an off-site art class, so a phone was needed. I helped him find a "new" phone on Craig's list for $40. He met the seller in the Starbucks parking lot, then had to pay Verizon $20 to activate it. Ironically, he got the same phone in the same color as the one that broke.

If we had had any old Verizon phones in the family, I would have just activated one of them. We've done that in the past when someone's phone broke. We had switched from Alltel to Verizon, though, and only had one phone each.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

She needs to learn to text with less pressure and do so only after she can come up with the difference in what you said you would pay and the cost of a new phone. My SIL is a texting queen, but she hasn't destroyed a phone in the process.

I can't think of a valid reason her phones are breaking so quickly that don't point to her lack of care of her phone.

Time for her to suck it up--and deal with the lesson that phones are not meant to disposable products that get replaced frequently.

I'm not sure what you mean by you can't find anything decent. Is that by your standard or hers?

Pretty much all phones text.

And before the question comes up in the future--do not get her an I-Phone...ever! It will be broke before you know it. Those phones are not cheap. You are better off flushing your cash down the toilet than spending it on such a luxury for your dd.

You can also check around to see if anyone has an old cell phone they are no longer using that you can buy.

We switched from Sprint due to dissatisfaction over a billing issue that they refused to help us with. So I had a perfectly fine cell phone (the recycled one...can't recall the name).

Anyway--I had a friend whose husband accidentally went swimming with it. Hey--accidents happen. It wasn't misuse--just an oopsy. Anyway...she asked if I had ANY sprint phone...and we did. So I loaned it to them as they didn't have cash ready available. I actually told them to take their time and use it as long as it was needed. We would like it back, but have no use for it anytime soon. I may see if she just wants to buy it off of me.

Another friend--her dd is in the Army and accidentally washed her cell phone. Again--accidents happen. I think it may have been an Iphone or something. She did by her a "new" phone--but it was a used one.

There is no need to go out and buy brand new phones with the latest features. If she wants a phone bad enough...any phone will do. Just ask around. Everyone and their brother are upgrading their phones frequently. You'll find something.

And make sure it is the LAST phone you buy. As stated---she needs to learn that they are not disposable.

 

[bumbershoot]

What is she doing????

Since you say she's texting, I take it she doesn't have "real" buttons, but it's in the screen? If you must get her a new one, get her one with proper buttons instead of the touch screen.

But wow, breaking two phones...I wouldn't have gotten a third whatever-I'd-broken, we wouldn't have gotten DS a third, heck, we wouldn't even buy something for me or DH if we'd broken that something twice before!

 

[mommasita]

DS14 lost his phone last year, and had to use an old one we had hanging around. He had no issue with that.

This summer was when we were due a new phone. He chose one (at no cost) and KNOWS that if he loses, breaks, whatever this one, he will go back to that old back up.

I sense that your DD knows she can get away with it and does. Anyone, any age will do that if they can. Human nature.

 

[aprilgail2]

I found its much easier to replace a ATT phone than verizon-- ATT you just take your SIM card out of your phone and put it in any other ATT phone (same with Tmoblie phones) so you are able to just buy a phone on ebay. My friend just washed hers so I gave her an old phone we had, she put her sim card in and now has a working phone.
I took out the insurance on only one phone out of the 4 on my plan and that was my daughters phone--I thought for sure it would be lost or broken in a few months but she has had it almost a year and it is still perfect. I did tell her that she would be paying the 50.00 deductible to replace the phone if lost or broken so I think that makes her even more careful with it LOL.

 

[luvsJack]

We tried the prepaid bit with dd's first phone, it just didn't work out for us.

My child has been through more phones than I have, but I wouldn't exactly say she is hard on them. The last time she had to have a new one, the dog chewed hers up. So, I looked on our service's web site and told her "I will spend X$ or less" and she set about picking a phone. By the time she knew what she wanted, she had saved up some money to go with it so she spent a bit more, but I stuck to the amount I agreed to pay.

I would help her figure out what she is doing to the phones and how to correct the problem. Set the amount you will pay, let her pick a phone and then she can save up or whatever to get the one she wants.

I agree that she needs to learn that phones are not disposable. Dd has been a lot more careful with hers since she got this one. Also we added the insurance to her phone so that all we have to pay is $50 out of pocket to replace it instead of the price of a phone plus paying out the contract (we will keep the insurance until the contract is up) and she knows that she will have to come up with the $50 herself.

It would depend on her age as to whether I would say this is the last one I would buy, phones do wear out and the latest and greatest are pretty good gifts sometimes. I would just set limit as to what you will pay and when and under what conditions.

 

[scrapquitler]

Would insurance have covered this crack? If so, whatever phone she gets next time, be sure to get the insurance.

In the meantime, tell her that if she doesn't like the phone you got her, she doesn't need to have a phone.

That's just how it would work in my house.

 

[mjkacmom]

My dd14 and ds12 have lost and broke phones. Their options are to spend their own money to buy a phone. I made dd14 buy a Razor (crap) for $80. I did get insurance on her next phone, she lost it, so she paid $100 for a replacement. DH actually found ds12's good phone in his golf bag on the same day ds12's phone (his grandmother's 4 year old phone), broke in half. He's a lucky boy - I would've made him spend his money on a crap phone.

ETA - dd would complain about the razor on a daily basis, and I just laughed at her. Who was the idiot that put her good cellphone in a ziploc to take pictures under water, and then forgot to seal the bag....

 

[mjkacmom]

I found its much easier to replace a ATT phone than verizon-- ATT you just take your SIM card out of your phone and put it in any other ATT phone (same with Tmoblie phones) so you are able to just buy a phone on ebay. My friend just washed hers so I gave her an old phone we had, she put her sim card in and now has a working phone.
I took out the insurance on only one phone out of the 4 on my plan and that was my daughters phone--I thought for sure it would be lost or broken in a few months but she has had it almost a year and it is still perfect. I did tell her that she would be paying the 50.00 deductible to replace the phone if lost or broken so I think that makes her even more careful with it LOL.

Verizon isn't hard - you just go to their website, and get the numbers under the battery (done it many times).

 

[Christine]

Heavy texters don't do well with the phones offered for free or cheaply at contract renewal. I can also tell you that my kids have hated the Samsung phones they had (they returned two models shortly after purchase).

My DD (who is 19 and now pays for her own phones) was having similar issues. Between our normal upgrades and birthday gifts, she had a few phones. She found that the Blackberry is the only one that can stand up to massive texting. Apparently you can beat that thing to death. It finally did break (the track ball) but after 2 years. She ended up getting a Samsung after that with her available upgrade. Used it for 6 monts and hated it. So she sold it to someone and bought herself a Blackberry on E-Bay (with her own $$$$).

You can get some deals on the Blackberry in the store and through Ebay. In order to use all the features of the Blackberry, you do need an upgrade on the plan but it is not mandatory and my DD operated hers for years with the simple $10.00 data plan on AT&T.

 

[MizTink]

maybe the phones/screens are breaking because she carries it in her pocket?
if she does carry her phone in her pocket that may be why they break easily. girls wear really tight jeans and they have tiny pockets. sitting down might put pressure in a odd place causing the damage......
this is what happened with one of my dd's phones soon after she got it. now she keeps it in her purse and has no problems.

 

[sparklynails23]

Odds are she's dropping the phones, but kids will be kids. Find her a cheap re-sale.

 

[ICF]

tell her she has to buy her own phone....bet that would change her tune a bit on what you wanted to get her.