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jessp8

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2011
2
0
She had the iphone 4 and dropped it off a balcony 2 months after recieving it. One of her friends had a iphone 3 they were not using and gave it to her. Well she broke that one too! The problem is we are under a 2 year contract, do you know if I can just buy a cheap att phone that just does text and calling and drop the Data plan with out penalty? Or does anyone know of a cheap phone that will do data with Att that I can put some real restrictions on as far as time of use for the phone texting and Data? Thanks!
 
There is no penalty if you want to change your data plan. I went through the same thing with my daughter.
 
Typically with AT&T you've been able to buy a cheap GoPhone and put your regular SIM in it and you're good. Data plans are a "feature" and should be able to be dropped once AT&T's system doesn't see a smartphone on the account. Either wait for their system to see the new phone and do it online, or call them with the new IMEI and switch over.

As to time of use, that may be possible via the "Smart Limits for Wireless Parental Controls" feature on AT&T but I don't know much about it.
 
She had the iphone 4 and dropped it off a balcony 2 months after recieving it. One of her friends had a iphone 3 they were not using and gave it to her. Well she broke that one too! The problem is we are under a 2 year contract, do you know if I can just buy a cheap att phone that just does text and calling and drop the Data plan with out penalty? Or does anyone know of a cheap phone that will do data with Att that I can put some real restrictions on as far as time of use for the phone texting and Data? Thanks!

U know apple will usually give you a replacement iPhone 4 for $199 even if your daughter dropped and broke it.
 
Drop it once, accidents happen. Do it twice... her problem. I would buy her the cheapest thing I could and let her deal with it. But I also would have bought her the otterbox on the 2nd attempt... lol
 
geez, kids are so spoiled these days. I took great care of my phones when I was in High school no matter they were cheap or expensive. However, breaking 2 iPhones in 4 months? I would suggest you just buy a cheap AT&T prepaid phone that can withstand beatings until she can prove to you that she can take care of her own stuff.
 
I think I would go a step further. Make her responsible to replace it herself or go without.
 
I personally agree with replacing her with an iphone friendly model...but not sure I can get away with that! If I leave it to her she wont replace it, and being that we dont have a home phone and she goes back and forth between me and her Dad's, she needs something. I think i am going to go the cheapest option possible and just do texting.
Oh and by the way the smart limits does not work on the Data plan and the kids just download a texting ap and can text whenever.
 
I personally agree with replacing her with an iphone friendly model...but not sure I can get away with that! If I leave it to her she wont replace it, and being that we dont have a home phone and she goes back and forth between me and her Dad's, she needs something. I think i am going to go the cheapest option possible and just do texting.
Oh and by the way the smart limits does not work on the Data plan and the kids just download a texting ap and can text whenever.

Have her cough up $150 bucks, and voila! New iPhone. But buy a case. Amazon sells a decent case for about 9 bucks called Amazon Basics.
 
geez, kids are so spoiled these days. I took great care of my phones when I was in High school no matter they were cheap or expensive. However, breaking 2 iPhones in 4 months? I would suggest you just buy a cheap AT&T prepaid phone that can withstand beatings until she can prove to you that she can take care of her own stuff.

You had a phone in high school?? Geez, I'm old.
 
I vote for a less expensive phone that makes calls and sends texts. It's all a teenager really needs and even that would be more than many kids had back in the day.
 
Don't they make those cute little Disney phones that only do certain things and have GPS tracking?
 
Oh and by the way the smart limits does not work on the Data plan and the kids just download a texting ap and can text whenever.

Interesting. If I remember correctly you can put a per-line block on all data and leave texting; but it disables MMS. Same also for texting unless they've changed it. Call customer service and check on your options.

When I still had teens, I didn't go with the limits feature but set the expectations. AT&T online account manager lets you see detail of text usage including time/date and incoming vs outgoing. Outgoing texts in the blackout period (i.e. when they were supposed to be sleeping) resulted in texting being blocked for a period of time. I'd check a couple times a month, easy enough to skim through the records. One instance was enough to "send the message".
 
BINGO. She wont learn anything if she just breaks her phones and daddy just buys her a new one.

I third this... Let her figure it out for herself. Cheap flip phone that calls and texts. The luxuries of a smartphone were tossed out the window (well, off the balcony in this case) when the 2nd one was broken.
 
I agree with having her replace her own phone with whatever savings she has. OP, your daughter needs to learn to be careful with any device, you can't always come to the rescue. I would suggest doing what my parents did when I broke something, either save up on my own and replace it or save up at least 50-75% of the cost of the replacement, and you as the parent help them pay the rest. It's effective and it'll help her appreciate the phone.
 
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