Trying to control son's texting
Krissi
Newbie

I changed my plan today and signed up for usage controls hoping to put a time restrictions on my son's texting. In signing up, I found out that if I put a time restriction on his phone, I would also be blocking ingoing and outgoing phone calls. I only want to block the texting. Is there a way to do this? My husband and I want him to be able to text, just not during the day while he is at school and late at night. He lives with his mom, and she is obviously not on our plan, so she can't be a "trusted number", hence why I don't want to put the time restriction on his phone calls. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated!

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Re: Trying to control son's texting
SuzyQ
Community Leader
Community Leader

This topic has come up before--and unfortunately, the time controls DO block both calling and texting.  How old is your son?  The workaround found by the other Mom who ran into this was to call Verizon CS each morning, put a text block on for the hours she didn't want him texting, then calling later in the day to unblock it.  She was hoping they would get so annoyed by her daily calls that they would somehow figure out how to selectively block just texts for restricted times.

 

Anyway, I agree it would be useful in many cases to be able to block just text, just calls, and choose times for those blocks to be effective.  And maybe it will be available at some point.  For now, it's all or none.  :smileysad:

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Re: Trying to control son's texting
SuzyQ
Community Leader
Community Leader

Krissi - Here's a workaround that may work for you - I just learned that when you set a limit on the number of text messages (under usage controls) and when that limit is reached, texting is blocked.  Phone calls are still functional.  It would involve you tracking his text messages as far as numbers go, and logging on to set the daily limit to where he is at so it would be blocked during the school day.  Then logging back in to increase the limit so he COULD text after school hours.  And logging in each day to reset the limits.  But it would accomplish what you want - blocking texting but allowing phone calls.

 

HTH,

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Re: Trying to control son's texting former Alltel Customer
rdavis29212
Newbie

I am a former Alltel customer absorbed by Verizon.  I too have a daughter that texts way too much!  I have tried to purchase the parental controls, but since I am a former Alltel customer, it's not available.  I need this!!!

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Re: Trying to control son's texting former Alltel Customer
SuzyQ
Community Leader
Community Leader

Just an update - I have since learned that it does NOT limit in network texting  :smileysad:  so if your plan is unlimited or the texting is mostly Verizon to Verizon, the workaround doesn't work.   And another user's "solution" to call and cancel the texting plan for the day, and add it back at night for her son so he wouldn't text during work hours?  Backfired big time when she got her bill - every addition and cancellation resulted in pro-rated charges for the texting allowance and a big bill.  (I can't imagine the billing nightmare that one was....the computer was working overtime!)

 

Anyway, no easy solution, except to hope Parental Controls can be made more flexible to selectively block texting and/or voice and not lump them together as they are now.

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Re: Trying to control son's texting former Alltel Customer
madskilz
Newbie

This is exactly what I am trying to do with my daughter. We had her on our accout with T-mobile, which has that exact feature. I could turn some, all, or limit texting, calls, etc. I got her a verizon phone with the intention of switching our account to Verizon when my contract is up. I am rethinking that now. Having that control is a powerful thing, now I am forced to take the phone, which is very confrontational - just easier to turn it off online.

 

Verizon - please take note - people want this feature.

 

 

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