The article said there was no texting in their plan. Not that texting was disabled on the phone.
My guess is when they got the family plan they assumed since there was no provision for texting that there was no capability to text.
We could go around and around all night over whether that was Verizon’s fault or the parent’s fault. It’s probably a little of both.
My guess is Verizon for not making it clear. It seems tha parents thought there was none.