Of course they have the ability to see when the charges are getting excessive. They have access to all the same tools credit card companies use to watch for unusual activity. Unlike credit card companies though, they have no financial motive to alert you when the bill becomes high. Credit card companies only do that because it's cheaper to catch fraud early and freeze the card than have to eat the cost of the fraudulant charges. No such motive exists for cell phone companies. You're even still responsible for charges ran up after the phone is stolen but before you notify the company of the theft because there's very little theft/fraud protection for cell phones. The only alternative is a pay-as-you-go phone.

Lucky for me, the actual bill was only about $140. But if it was actually over a grand, someone would be phone-less for a long time.

I know a guy whose high school son racked up over $1200.00 in one month just on text messages!  When the dad got the bill, he nearly went into cardiac arrest.  The dad looked up his account online and found out his son was text messaging all day long everyday, even when he should have been in class.  If the dad would have printed out the detail list of text messages, it would have been 99 pages long.  OH, MAN, that kid was in trouble --- BIG TIME!!!  The phone company didn't let them off the hook, either.

I think there should be something in place where the phone company notifies you if out of the ordinary activity or excessive activity occurs on your phone.  The technology is there to do it, but I'm sure they'd rather collect the money.

Nope Ghost~ we had to fight it out hoof and nail...finally they realized"a mistake had been made"

This one is good...I pay $19.95 a month for unlimited texting. When I got my first bill, there was an extra sixty-something bucks on there, so I called Sprint. I was told that was for "network usage" for texting, and that it was not included in the unlimited-text charge I already paid. The problem was, I was told it included EVERYTHING, and I threw a fit. I even faxed them a copy of the paperwork that said the text charge was all-inclusive. They took off the sixty bucks, and have never tried to charge me for network usage again. Makes you wonder: how many people get stuck with that and don't bother to follow up on it?

I think that means that they got your check, and cashed it, but that they are waiting to post it to your account. Gotta get that extra fee from you, ya know!

Me too! My first and last cell phone was cancelled because of a conversation with one of those sweet voiced ladies. "I recieved another bill for $600 (never loan your phone to a "friend") which I have already paid and my bank shows your company cashed that check". "Just a minute ,let me check your records" . "We show that you paid us that amount but your records is not showing you paid us" huh????

Thank dog is right.  And don't you hate the ringtone places that sign you up for monthly service when you only wanted ONE new ringtone?

LOL ghostrider, i would have had a heart attack. lol.