Today I was told of a person who was using a very cheap pay and talk phone plan as it was supposed to be just for emergency usage and they normally topped it up for only a few dollars a month. This consisted of just voice minutes without data as an example. Something interesting happened though as people she knew began to send her text messages. Her plan did not cover that but the carrier did allow people to send and receive text messages for a fee.
She actually had no idea as all of a sudden she realized her balance was at zero dollars even though she apparently topped it up recently. As it turned out, the carrier charged about fifty cents per text message sent or received. So for the people who decided to text her all of a sudden these charges really added up. I did notice before her phone had things like Internet and texting disabled. But it was activated for whatever reason.
That is very expensive and absurd sounding for everyone who is used to using a mobile phone frequently with a monthly plan. This is usually why for pay as you go services that charge high usage fees I usually disable them to avoid such an instance. For example, if you don’t have a data roaming plan I would disable that on the phone to prevent it from ever being used in general. That way, if I do need to use it in an emergency then it would require me to manually enable it while being prepared for what it will cost.