Sister's Mobile Phone

[JinnyJoan]

I pay above for her every month like she pays me cos she doesn't have a bank account etc.

However I get notification that she doesn't have Spend Cap.  I am just after getting another email saying you haven't used your Spend Cap so you can't use it - what the hell is Spend Cap.  Thanks 

[Buenchico]

https://www.three.co.uk/support/bills-and-contracts/your-monthly-plan-and-usage/spend-caps

[calmck]

If you have questions after reading the answer from Chris come back on here

[jennyjoan]

Am no further wiser but as long as she is in credit that will do me as she would be lost without her phone. 

[jno]

sounds like she would be lost without her sister

[Buenchico]

Your sister will have a monthly allowance on her phone.  (i.e. so many minutes of 'normal' calls, so many 'normal' texts and so many gigabytes of internet data).  If she stays within that monthly allowance, she'll pay the same standard amount each month.

However if she makes 'special' calls or texts (e.g. to premium rate numbers, to overseas numbers or while using her phone abroad), she'll be charged extra.  Similarly, if she uses lots of extra internet data (e.g. by watching countless online videos), she'll end up with extra charges added to her bill.

Some people have unwittingly run up massive bills (perhaps running into many hundreds of pounds) by, say, using their phones while abroad to watch UK TV content.  To try to help people avoid such problems, Three (and almost certainly all other phone service providers) allows their customers to pre-determine the maximum extra charges which they can incur each month.  (If they try to go beyond that limit, they'll find that they can't use their phone for such 'extras' for the rest of the month).  That limit is called their 'Spend Cap'.

The messages that you're seeing are warning your sister that she's not set a Spend Cap.  So if, say, she was to travel to the USA and then to use her phone to watch hundreds of hours of UK TV, she could end up with a bill running into many hundreds (or even possibly many thousands) of pounds. 

Similarly if, say, she was to get addicted to phoning a premium rate horoscope service every day (at, perhaps, £10 per call), she could end up with a massive monthly bill through doing so.

However if she simply sticks to only calling normal rate phone numbers in the UK and not using massive amounts of internet data, she's got absolutely nothing to worry about.

[Smowball]

Agree with Chris - I knew someone years ago who didn't realise the extortionate rates that some of these calls can add up to - I think she was constantly phoning some sort of competitions - discovered to her horror that the bill for that month was  about 20 times more than usual!!

[JinnyJoan]

thank you