£5000 Vodafone Phone Bill

mhamill_2

Okay - here is my tale of woe. It's a long story so bear with me and I'll try to give the main points. Feedback and any advice or inside industry info greatly appreciated. Apologies if this isn't the right forum - if nothing else it could serve as a lesson in looking after roaming sim cards.

I work abroad in Africa in a remote area for 2 months at a time. I had my UK mobile phone stolen from my accommodation but I did not discover it had been stolen for almost a month. You may wonder how that's possible but it was hidden in a secure place plus the area where I work has no network coverage so I have no reason to use it.

I called Vodafone to report it stolen and they informed me that a £5000 roaming bill had been run up over an 18 day period after which they cut it off. That's right - £5000! :eek:

Vodafone maintain that I am liable for the full amount, as per contract, up until I reported it stolen. And to be fair I accept that, to a degree - I accept that I am responsible for my phone and any calls made until either I report it stolen or it is blatantly obvious due to useage pattern that it is being used fraudulently.

Vodafone state that they acted immediately to cut the phone off as soon as they had the info, but as call records are delayed from foreign networks that was how the bill got so large. They refuse to tell me exactly when the call records were received or any details of the known cost at the time they acted to cut off my account.

From some experiments on a friends UK Vodafone mobile I determined that the max delay in Vodafone getting the call records was 3 days. In which case they acted immediately to cut off my phone after a known £3700 bill had been run up (with another £1300 on the way due to the delay). My average bill over the last 6 years has been approx £20 per month.

My discussions/complaints have reached deadlock and they have offered me 50% off the bill as a 'goodwill gesture' with a time limit to accept otherwise I'll have to pay it all.

Since talking to friends and colleagues after this happened I have heard many stories of phones cut off after £200 - £300 of calls (which they had made). It seems that in my case something went wrong and the normal controls were not applied.

Is it right that Vodafone can simply revert to the clause that I'm liable until I report it stolen? Is it right that they don't have to disclose when they received the call records and at what known call cost they acted? Don't they have a responsibly to me to detect fraudulent use of my phone? The answers are Yes, No, No - apparently.

I'm considering my next move. Complain to OTELO, get legal advice, sell my story to the papers, change my name and hide in a cave near Timbuktu for 20 years.....

Any thoughts?

intel

Did you report it when you were away.. if so the Afrikan police
may have recorded this incident and may have a crime number
thus showing you were not the user of the phone at the time
voda claim you were, thus naking the call amount null.

Amaxed

Vodafone are useless when it comes to things like this. i got charged over £400 for some pay as you go sims , took around a month to get it back

redux

I've heard of a couple of friends being blocked by Vodafone after £200 or £250 of legitimate own use abroad - to protect them in case the phone had been stolen they were told when ringing up to enquire why

kmhtkmhtkmht

You'll need legal advice - the amount is 5000 therefore outwidth the small claims court effort - they'll come after you with Debt Collectors and the like but if it were me I'd act on the offensive and get my own legal team to initiate court proceedings, perhaps under unjustified enrichment or even delict citing Caparo and they should have foresaw something like this when the usage when sky high.

feival

I am really sorry for you but the delay they report is totally reasonable and the roaming network can actually send the billing records up to 30 days after you made the call. The moral of the story is really simple to everyone - please put a PIN on your SIM! i would accept Vodafone's offer before they end up getting a CCJ against you.

intel

feival wrote:

accept Vodafone's offer before they end up getting a CCJ against you.

And whilst your there clean their toilets with your toothbrush :rolleyes:



:rotfl: :rotfl:

us,thecat&thedebt

this is riduculous

we were with vodaphone had been for 11 months each month bill was 40-70 one month whilst we were abroad we had alot of probs at home to sort out and bill went to 120 and they cut us off!!!
i was fuming cos i knew the credit limit was 160
there cs said they cut it off as a security measure cos bill was double our avarage

fair enough i thought they did it for my own good will help people whom have their phones stolen abroad...

THEN I READ THIS :mad:

I AM SPEECHLESS (4 ONCE)

redux

I know it's no use after the event, but ...


it's much cheaper to use a local pay-as-you-go SIM card, and if it's stolen you can only lose the phone and the remaining credit.

feival

You need to understand that when a phone is stolen abroad people the thieves will start using it 24*7 and will sell air time to other people since it is free to them. At £1 or £2 a minute roaming costs it doens't take long to hit a £5000 bill!

digp

try arun.sarinATvodafone.com