Stolen Mobile Abroad - Now have a bill for £1120 - Advice Needed

Leopard

pwni,

Your solicitor will charge you £200 an hour plus VAT (more, in London) to tell you what is written in Post #3 above. Unless s/he thinks you will be game for pursuing a lost cause through the courts at a similar rate of legal fees.

The attitude of O2 will be that if you could not afford personally to assume the risk of incurring the losses arising from theft of your SIM card, you should have insured yourself against it.

I assume you ensured that your home and its contents were insured while you were abroad? The same reasoning applies: you insured it because you could not afford to bear personally the losses arising from a burglary.

You contracted voluntarily to indemnify O2 against loss arising from misuse of the SIM card unless and until you informed them that it had been misappropriated. They will require you to honour that contractual obligation.


PS. You got a free Thanks: my mouse slipped when I was aiming for the Quote button.

(And that's the only beneficial thing you're likely to get out of pursuing this.)

Leopard

iwanttosave wrote: »

When I go away I always go to an internet cafe at least once a week and double check my recent charges to make sure I'm not in for a shock.

You access your mobile 'phone accounts, complete with passwords, at Internet cafes? :eek:

Jon_01

pwni

As I posted above, your network can not monitor your usage while you are out of the UK. The network you're roaming on will collect the billing info and send it to your network (O2) once a day, lagging between 24 to 48 hours.

You seem to think the 'duty of care' is only on the networks side, what about the customers duty of care to look after their phone ? or report it lost/stolen as soon as it goes missing ?

O2 do seem to be bad at this one I have to admit. As I said above, I see these reports as they come in (not for lost/stolen reasons), but even so, if I saw a large usage I would call the customer and do a security check. I have no idea why O2 don't.
But even so, its covered in the T&C's so you don't have a leg to stand on, sorry. . .

bringmeshoes

the problem with international calls is that they can take longer to show (sometimes up to 3 months) so they don't necessarily know that the bills have been run up.|It is not up to your network provider to monitor your account it is up to the account holder to do this

greyster

I would perhaps mention your financial status to them when you complain. A friend did this with T-Mobile and only had to pay half the bill. It was a lot less in the first place though.

Good luck. I think you'll end up having to pay something, as everyone above has said, until reported stolen it is your responsibility.

Woby_Tide

Are PIN codes on mobiles/SIMs that easy to crack?

iwanttosave_2

Leopard wrote: »

You access your mobile 'phone accounts, complete with passwords, at Internet cafes? :eek:

Yes, technology is amazing and allows you to do this.

You really think if they had keyloggers and stuff they would be open for more than a week?

pwni

greyster wrote: »

I would perhaps mention your financial status to them when you complain. A friend did this with T-Mobile and only had to pay half the bill. It was a lot less in the first place though.

Good luck. I think you'll end up having to pay something, as everyone above has said, until reported stolen it is your responsibility.

Thank you. Paying "something" is not the problem - I understand that the sim card is my responsibility but I still contend (after taking advice from my bank manager, a solicitor friend and a couple of mobile phone employee friends) that O2 does have a responsibility to me in terms of the huge difference in this bill from my total history over several years. The consensus seems to be that even though the T&Cs to the letter dictate that I am responsible for every penny, the courts are likely to take an altogether more sympathetic line based on this.

The good news is that the bank have recovered the first payment of £1386, which is now back in my bank account and the direct debit is now cancelled so there will be no more payments.

I'm unsure yet as to whether they will still be pursuing me for the balance - they probably will - but I am moving to Cambodia permanently soon and this, combined with my willingness to be reasonable and pay a reasonable amount should put me in a strongish position to negotiate.

All will be revealed in the fullness of time I am sure....

sporedude

Why is it O2's responsibility to check everything for you? Its your "Duty of care" To make sure it hasnt been lost/stolen. The network are being reasonable asking for every penny.

robt_2

Your bank manager and friends were only telling you what you want to hear

You ignored your duty of care (waiting until after your holiday to report the theft to the network).