What can I do about a £3500 bill on lost mobile?

Nige1999

jamespir wrote: »

you can cancel your contract youd have to pay the reamsining line rental and the 1928.28 so youre stuffed either way you should have blocked the phone the minute you lost it

I did cancel the phone as soon as I realised it was missing but whovever had it racked up those messages within a few hours. Your comment is just an echo of what I posted.

Jon 01. Yes it is shocking that O2 didn't do something when a phone that is NEVER used for premium services and has a £25 monthly bill racks up such charges in a few hours. I would never have thought that possible. Thank the gods that banks and credit cards don't operate this way.

wantmemoney

82070, 80777 and 84070 are all short codes owned by Oxygen8 (aka Opera Telecom)

Oxygen8 Communications UK
3 Brindley Place
Birmingham
B1 2JB
Tel: 08081 313 131
[EMAIL="customerservices@oxygen8.com"]customerservices@oxygen8.com[/EMAIL]

The use of these codes are regulated by Phonepayplus. The revenue has to be held for 28 days by the 'Networks' before it is passed on to sms2win.co.uk


When your Network Operator debits your account they keep up to 50% before passing the rest on to Oxygen8. Oxygen8 then shares that revenue with sms2win.co.uk

If you reported the phone as being lost within 28 days then your Network Operator and Oxygen8 would still be holding that money.

I think you should point that out to them and if they don't see moral reason you should most definitely contact your MP.

sporedude

I'm sure O2 wont do anything about the charges made before the service was blocked, As they dont really have to.

Martini

If it happened to me then they would have to look elsewhere for the money because one things for sure, it wouldn't be me paying it!

wantmemoney

@ Nige1999
82070, 80777 and 84070 are short codes used for billing premium rate services. They are not used for billing 'air time'.

The 'Networks' withhold that revenue for 30 days before passing it on. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060207/text/60207w10.htm
7 Feb 2006
Mobile Telephones (Charges)

Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures are being taken by his Department to prosecute companies who charge people for a service they did not want on their mobile telephone.

Alun Michael: One key recommendation that has already been implemented is to slow down the flow of funds from network operators to service providers, by making operators withhold payment for 30 days from when a PRS call is made. New rules on compensation for consumers who have been subject to a scam are also being implemented. Then, if there are complaints, it will be possible to hold back funds for a longer period, thus ensuring that fines and repayments can be paid. This will reduce the likelihood of a quick gain being made through the provision of unwanted or unacceptable practices. The new requirement will allow ICSTIS to have suspect services cut off at an earlier stage using its emergency procedure and prevent service providers from being paid for fraudulent services. The commencement date for this new requirement was 15 September 2005.

vikingaero

What's the betting that the scrote who runs these short code sites uses stolen phones to rack up revenue for himself?

davilown

wantmemoney wrote: »

@ Nige1999
82070, 80777 and 84070 are short codes used for billing premium rate services. They are not used for billing 'air time'.

The 'Networks' withhold that revenue for 30 days before passing it on. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060207/text/60207w10.htm
7 Feb 2006
Mobile Telephones (Charges)

Dr. Kumar: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures are being taken by his Department to prosecute companies who charge people for a service they did not want on their mobile telephone.

Alun Michael: One key recommendation that has already been implemented is to slow down the flow of funds from network operators to service providers, by making operators withhold payment for 30 days from when a PRS call is made. New rules on compensation for consumers who have been subject to a scam are also being implemented. Then, if there are complaints, it will be possible to hold back funds for a longer period, thus ensuring that fines and repayments can be paid. This will reduce the likelihood of a quick gain being made through the provision of unwanted or unacceptable practices. The new requirement will allow ICSTIS to have suspect services cut off at an earlier stage using its emergency procedure and prevent service providers from being paid for fraudulent services. The commencement date for this new requirement was 15 September 2005.

All I can say is Excellent post - informative and useful. Shame that some of the on House Price thread are the same!

littlestar1981

Jon_01 wrote: »

You are responsible for all the usage up to the point you call and report it stolen, sorry not much help to you...

I'm surprised that O2 let it get that out of hand, I work as a fraud agent for one of the other networks and this level of usage would have flagged on our system well before that. One of our team would have called the phone to security check the person using it and then (if they passed) would have alert them to the size of the bill (if they failed we'd have blocked the phone for all calls and texts).

I do know that the billing staff wouldn't have seen the usage go through as the billing system usually lag, sometimes by a day or more, while the fraud systems run 2 seconds behind real time.

I work for O2 (not in fraud)

Items arent always billed the second they are sent... it might be that the b$(&$% that got your phone had already sent hundreds/thousands of these texts, costing hundreds/thousands of pounds by the time the first few reached the billing system... there is a flag somewhere.

Its hard to explain, the above probably makes no sense... for example, when I went to volunteer in Tanzania I made calls back to the UK, when I got home my phone was barred for high usage and when I queried it it was £150 of calls that I had made 8 -17 days previously, yet they had only just got the billing data though so therefore had only just auto barred the phone. Plus of course I was still liable for the calls I had made in between.