Kevin Kristopik, the (now former) fan targeted in a tweet by Justin Bieber after he got the pop star's cellphone number and allegedly sent unwanted texts, was flooded by more than 26,000 text messages and calls before he shut down his phone account, he told the Detroit Free Press on Monday.
Kevin's dad, Mike Kristopik, told the paper that the Biebs was trying to get his son -- who won't exactly say how he got the singer's number -- to stop texting him, and that it worked. Still, said the elder Kristopik, "if it costs us $2,000 or $10,000, it's out of line."
By the time he talked to the Detroit News, that estimate had grown: "If I have a $20,000 bill, I'm going to be pretty upset," he said.
"I thought it was some kind of prank number," one JB fan who called the number told Gawker. "I didn't think Justin Bieber would be stupid enough to post his own number."
A local radio host told the Detroit News that Kevin had e-mailed the show last week ago to brag about hacking into the Facebook account of one of Bieber's friends. WKQI-FM host Spike said Kevin wanted tickets to Bieber's concert and closed his e-mail by saying, "Give me tickets or I'll hack you."
Whether Bieber or his friend will press charges against Kevin Kristopik is still up in the air, the News said, with no comment from Bieber's camp.
That aside, and perhaps unfortunately for Kevin, texts don't come free of charge, even when Justin Bieber is involved. Especially those texts that might originate from international numbers, which are the ones Mike Kristopik told the Free Press he's most concerned about.
One Ministry service provider charges a quarter per international text and a dime for "all messages whether sent or received, read or unread, solicited or unsolicited," with messages longer than 160 characters being broken up into chunks, each of which counts separately.
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