Flowers, trinkets, Kindles or another e-book reader, a lovely dinner – these are all nice Mother’s Day gifts. Do you know what isn’t? Giving Mom a smartphone or tablet and sticking them with the bill.
Right before every major holiday season, many mobile phone carriers pitch ads that encourage the gifting of cell phones and smartphones. They always talk about how such devices would be great gifts, but they never quite mention the associated service fees.
While I’m sure my own Mother would like a smartphone, she wouldn’t want to pay for data service fees, and she certainly would never allow me to pay for them.
It’s one thing to set things up with the gift recipient’s knowledge or approval, but I can’t imagine that such a surprise gift would ever go over well. And don’t service contracts usually require personal information that usually cannot be provided by a 3rd party?
jim rivers says
my siblings and i, six of us total, got my father a cell phone a few years back. as part of it we each paid for 2 months service each year. my father, as was typical of him, would repeatedly tell us “you kids don’t need to do this i hardly ever use it”. since we added him to my plan i saw the bill and he used it all the time LOL. i also believe that if you are going to get a gift that requires a “plan” you shold cover that as well otherwise it is a gift that sucks
later jim