We knew teens love their texting and downloading, but not this much.

One California teen, whose father had recently added him to the family cell phone plan, managed to jack up the bill to $21,917. The father, Ted Estarija, has wondered publicly why Verizon Communications Inc. didn’t bother to contact him during the excessive activity – luckily, the service provider says it is crediting Estarjia’s account for the entire amount.

So how did this happen? The family plan didn’t include data. The 13-year-old son downloaded about 1.4 million kilobytes of data in November and Verizon charged by the megabyte.

The son no longer has cell phone privileges.