Posting from my phone, so no link, but check out TeenSafe for monitoring your "Childrens" cell phone usage.

http://www.teensafe.com/

It also has a version for Android, but with that one you do need physical access to the target phone.

Teen Safe seems to be a highly regarded and well known outfit to do business with without seeming like one of those Scam companies out there, AND...

The cost is ONLY $14.95 per month!!!

Copy/Paste from the site:

However, TeenSafe lets parents spy on text messages � and more � without the child knowing. TeenSafe iPhone also works on an iPhone without needing to �jailbreak� the phone. The process is simple:

1. Register with TeenSafe. 2. Pick the type of smartphone your child uses � either an iPhone or any Android device. 3. For an iPhone, you just need your child�s Apple ID and password � you don�t even need to have the phone in hand. 4. For Android devices, you�ll need the phone to initiate the program download, but that�s it.

Once set up, you can read all the text messages your child has sent and received from your TeenSafe login page.

No icon appears on your child�s phone, so they won�t know about TeenSafe unless you tell them. As long as you are the parent or guardian of the child, this is legal. As for whether or not you should tell your child, TeenSafe puts it this way:

LTL

LTL, thanks for sharing this option.


I tried the free trial and wanted to share my opinion incase it helps someone.

This is a great option to investigate someone who has an iphone but doesn't connect to a mac/pc for itunes.
(if they do connect to a mac/pc and they (or you for them) create a backup, there are other threads that give you option for that route.).

For teensafe to work, you need to know that apple id and password (just like find my iphone). Also on that phone, you need go in settings/icloud/storage&backup/ turn on icloud backup and "back up now".

The "back up now" needs be done while on wifi. And it can take from 2-5 hours or more depending how much is on the phone and wifi speed. But this only needs done once. After the backup now has been completed, the phone updates the icloud with the most recent info while plugged in and lock and connected to wifi.

Things that you can see on teensafe that you can't see on the phone bill are content of texts including imessages, contact book like it appears on the phone, deleted text(although date/time/recipient aren't 100% reliable in somecases) and webhistory and websearch.

With the free trial it only gives you 3 entries for each text conversation, and 3 web history and 3 search history.

It also has a instagram and fb and whatsapp text feature, but didn't try those options at all.

It does not provide realtime information. And there is a lag of about a day. (info needs to upload from the locked, powered, and wifi connected phone to apple. And then apple batches the info to be available for backups or this.)

There is a phone log also available, and there might appear facetime calls on it, but I was not able to verify that.

I am glad that someone had the opportunity to check out this product and report back a pretty detailed overview.

Please let us know how well the paid for version operates and also if you have the chance to check out the other functions.

LTL

I am currently using this. The hardest part was "borrowing" my husband's phone long enough to turn on icloud backup and do the initial backup. It took about thirty minutes. The program is great. I am able to view text and SMS plus deleted messages. They don't guarantee to have all the deleted messages. One tricky feature is that it sorts out the texts from the SMS so the thread of conversation seems disjointed since I guess my H is switching between the two a lot. Well worth the $15!

Note - the iPhone apparently isn't reliable in it's daily uploads to icloud. You may have to borrow the target phone for a manual update to icloud to get the most recent info.

It's nice and informative to see that someone is doing follow up reports about using this cell phone monitoring software.

Do you think that the daily update snafu is a problem with the actual i-phone backup schedule or software, or a glitch with the Teen-Safe product?

Is there an option on the i-phone on how regularly it backs up to the i-cloud?

LTL

I subscribed to this also. It showed some deleted texts clear back to 2012 for me. I did not look at them past opening up the thread to see who it was. I knew that I couldn't risk triggering myself by reading it. WARNING if you don't think you've got the nerve to ignore the old ones�may be something to think about.

It also shows web sites visited, which is great for me since my H doesn't use our home computer any more.

In my case, I am getting really bored with snooping (yay!!!) and so I jumped right on this thing to try it out. Thank you for posting it, it is AWESOME! I don't care about the delayed updating (these days), but it sure is nice to take a look once per week and say "good to go!".

Has anyone used the Android version? Will it access Facebook chat?

Does iCloud alert the target phone that something has accessed iCloud? Itching to know before I buy... It did this when I signed into my husband's icloud acct from my phone once... Need to know before I sign up with teensafe. At info is appreciated!

iCloud notifies only once whenever the account is accessed by a new device. After the new device has been given access, it does not notify again unless the new device is deliberately removed from the account by going to appleid.apple.com and editing the trusted devices.

Thanks! Have to do it when he's in the shower again I guess

Icloud does not send anything to the phone, when someone is accessing icloud or the icloud phone backup via teensafe.

Now if you happen are trying to monitor sms text messages by way of the verizon "my messages" detailed here:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2758251#Post2758251
...then yes when you sign-up for that it does send a text message to that phone.

Does this also show imessages?

Teensafe is listed as an app on Adnroid phones, but is not labelled as teen safe. One of my children was going through her apps, saw it and googled it where she saw posts on the internet where kids were saying it was being used by their moms to spy on them.

Also, it appears on the credit card bill once per month as "Teen Safe".

FYI.

It is a great app, though.

What name does the App show up as on the phone?

LTL

Is there a way to make it so it doesn't appear?

Interesting, I haven't updated H phones or iPad, but it does show some deleted texts... Does anyone know if it let you see information in suspended Facebook accounts, and deleted IM's for Facebook?

I can't remember and googling didn't bring it up. The name sounds system-ish. I don't have access to the phone to look it up without causing suspicion.

Also, I received information that the eblaster mobile app was discontinued and they are not replacing it. I had both eblaster and teensafe on one of my daughter's phones after she was exhibiting high risk behaviors (thankfully the behaviors have since abated and she is doing great).