Making an agreement on the telephone and internet connections - Do not let your child do this alone!
There are now more great telephones on the market than ever. Our homes are absolutely flooded by the pictures of attractive technical products that are sent to us by the TV and by mail through the post. It is difficult to be even without the internet at home nowadays, if you need to get daily information on events and fresh news from other parts of the world. Even faster and faster internet connections are marketed to us now.
Especially the children and the adolescents in the family want to carry all the new technology with them. They may be looking for acceptance with the fine things; they want to be as good as everyone else. They are hoping they would at least not have a mobile phone that is older, cheaper or worse than the one other Finnish children of the same age have. The illiterate parents of the families may find themselves in a difficult situation when their child comes home with a great mobile phone and tells that he/she has done a great free deal on the connection agreement. The child may have seen an advertisement on the street that promises free talk-time and free text messages when you sign the agreement and hire a special mobile phone connected to the offer. In reality, the monthly bills of the connection soon start coming in through the post. After a couple of months paying these bills, you would have paid as much as a simple cheaper mobile phone of your own would cost to buy.
There are also many different deals on internet connections on the market. It is best that you would never let your child go alone or, for example, with his/her friends to make these kinds of deals. At first, it would be best to find out, if the building you live in is going to get, for example, a cable connection. After that, you should find out how fast internet connection you would need. It is advisable that you would find out about all this with a grown up person that knows about these things. After this, the adults can go to a shop to ask about the deals and to make an agreement. Otherwise, the same can happen as happened with another family: the family’s under-aged son had made several agreements without understanding what he was doing. Some of the unnecessary bills were already paid for about six months before anyone noticed anything. They were unable to correct the mistake afterwards.
All parents - please, get enough information on things before anything happens and take a charge; do not let your child deal with these things on their own!/SS
Käännös: Keski-Suomen tulkkikeskus
Pictures: Microsoft Word ClipArt