Canadian Man Hit With $11,000 Cellular Bill for Letting Kids Stream Movies

On our last multi-state vacation wife took away all cell phones and pagers from kids and I. She went and bought rubiks cube's, travel chess etc.etc. and went on E-bay and purchased the old mattel electronic football games. Needless to say we absolutely had a blast after our withdrawl period ended.

Bunch of idiots in these comments. Oh ground the kids, yes ground the 3-5 year old kids whose parents set up the movie on netflix and sat them down in front of their laptop. It's the kids fault! Gimme a break! It's an easy lesson learned - don't stream movies or do much of anything online WHILE IN ROAMING, especially using a plug-in wireless adapter. I'm sure the parents WERE happy to pay the $1,000 after first being charged 12 g's.

This is a sad statement about today's society and parenting skills!

My God, they were ON VACATION in one of the most beautiful states in the 'lower 48;, but just had to have an 'electronic babysitter', Worse yet, it wasn't even educational programming - they were watching movies on the newest version of the "boob tube" (nicknamed that for a reason)!

When are parents going to wake up and start BEING PARENTS??? No wonder kids are so uneducated these days!!!

Some of my fondest memories of being on the road with my parents were playng the "A-Z game" - name what you see that starts with the letters A-Z (and license plates didn't count) - spelling challenges, "what direction are we going in?" (taught me my NSE&W, which has helped me to this day), etc.

I cannot believe I live in a society where children need a TV in their car/van/minivan to go from point "a" to point "b"; watch people grocery shopping while pushing kids in 'carts' that play Nickelodeon and cartoons, 5 year-olds with cellphones and laptops, I could go on and on. But yet children have no arts, drama or music in their public schools and have to pay to play sports.

I'm sad for what the world is coming to; the 'dumbing-down' of our children while those in other countries (India, Japan, etc.) are excelling. The fact that teachers (those who are in charge of shape our children's minds and futures) are some of the lowest paid people in the country while bankers and stockbrokers make millions (and billions) while destroying our economy, need bailouts and still get million-dollar bonuses.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! Turn off the cellphones, "crackberries", iphones and ipods and get involved in your children's lives while there's still hope!!!

DUH. Once you leave your country, turn your phone off!!! The charges will kill you!!

why dont they just plant more poppies?

Come on... It's a vacation. You're a parent. You're supposed to force your kids to hangout with you and go outside against their will.

hmm.... what did I do when on long road trips during the 80s and 90s with my parents... Oh yeah... We talked, Read books, listened to music, and looked out the window.

If that had been Verizon the charges would have stayed the same.

Here's an idea: Read a few books!

Why not buy a portable DVD player (100-200 dollars) and bring along (or rent) some DVDs from home? Be money ahead in the long run,,,and you can watch the movies over and over again. The player even has a 12V power supply so the kids can watch while we are driving.

Finally! A parent that accepts responsibility for himself and the actions of is children. He was even going to pay the full amount. Thumbs up to John Gibson!

I read about this a few years ago. I man took his family on a cruise. The son was downloading a movie. The instant the ship got into international waters, the price went up. The man got a $100,000 bill from the computer wireless provider for downloading the movie in international waters.

At least he accepted responsibility.....most people these days try to place the blame on anyone but themselves...remember McDonald's hot coffee episode!

First of all, you don't t go on vacation to watch freaking movies!! Adn at the grandparents at that!! There are places to go to and things to see & do- THAT is a vacation- and with the grandparents- why not spend quality time with them!?!? geesh

Sad that they spent their vacation watching a stupid screen but also unfortunate since they could watch for free most of the time if they just used a regular internet connection instead of using a cell phone data streaming. We watch netflix all the time at no extra cost by using common wi-fi connections at home, at hotels, at Starbucks, Airports, Etc.

I also think by law a data plan should be required to have a maximum agreed on limit that the customer must review and accept, say $200 dollars for any month. Normally it would be less than $100 anyway and never should it be possible to surprise a customer with a multi-thousand dollar bill.

Have your kids read!!!!! That's what my parents did -

Why not keep a set of coloring books/crayons, and, or - heaven forbid - BOOKS in the car. Kids do NOT have to be entertained all the time. They need time for their imaginations to develop, learn how to think for themselves, maybe even learn something about the world around them.

Whatever happend to kids playing with a yoyo, frisbee or ball in a cup toy? Those were the good old days where kids actually went outside and played. I pass through the park everyday coming home from work and I never see one single kid on the playground.

how about reading books on road trips...what a waste of time, watching movies they probably already watched before...

These charges are clearly spelled out and one reads about them all the time. There are options. People should know about them by now. That said, the wireless companies are only too happy to let you run up absurd charges and there could easily be automatic shut offs or other safeguards.