Mobile Stolen - No Insurance - Should I Pay?

macman

This is not what you said in your first post.
In all, I have a £200 outstanding balance on the account, plus my monthly charges for my time away, and a £60 fee for a new handset if I want to reinstate my account. That will come to about £360.
Taking away the the £200 o/s and the £60 handset fee from £360 leaves £100, which is where I got my figure from. Now if you are saying you have 6 months (surely 3 can tell you when you are OOC if you don't know?) to run on the contract @ £40 then you will owe them that plus £200 o/s. Total £440.
I can't understand why you turned down their offer to drop your price plan (which by the way is entirely discretionary for them-they're not obliged to do so while you are still in contract), this would have reduced your debt by at least £90 immediately. But of course they're not going to do this if you are already owing £200-that's about 5 months usage, so I'm amazed they haven't cut you off anyway. If you don't pay up they willl chase you for a while, then they will put a note on your credit file so you won't get another contract phone (or probably any other credit) while that remains. They will then sell the debt on to the debt collectors who will most certainly chase you.
All you had to do was report your phone stolen to get a crime number, if you didn't know who stole it you don't have to name names.

macman

soolin wrote: »

My son was mugged for his phone a year or so ago, 2 other phones were taken at the same time from mates (they left one phone behind as it was too old!). We called the local police immediately and had a crime number in about 10 minutes. We also had a good idea who did it as we obviously got the phone blocked and my son was approached by someone at his 6th form to say that their mates weren't at all happy to find out that the phones stolen were blocked before they could be sold on and it had caused the thieves a lot of grief.

Hang on, am I reading this correctly-it caused the thieves a lot of grief?
Did they consider complaining to the police about how it wastes their time going out mugging people if they're going to go and get their phones locked afterwards? How inconsiderate! They'd probably be offered help from trained counsellors to get over their disappointment...
I'm going to stop now because I feel I may be in danger of turning into Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells...

Fortis_in_Arduis

macman wrote: »

This is not what you said in your first post.

In all, I have a £200 outstanding balance on the account, plus my monthly charges for my time away, and a £60 fee for a new handset if I want to reinstate my account. That will come to about £360.

Taking away the the £200 o/s and the £60 handset fee from £360 leaves £100, which is where I got my figure from. Now if you are saying you have 6 months (surely 3 can tell you when you are OOC if you don't know?) to run on the contract @ £40 then you will owe them that plus £200 o/s. Total £440.

I can't understand why you turned down their offer to drop your price plan (which by the way is entirely discretionary for them-they're not obliged to do so while you are still in contract), this would have reduced your debt by at least £90 immediately. But of course they're not going to do this if you are already owing £200-that's about 5 months usage, so I'm amazed they haven't cut you off anyway. If you don't pay up they willl chase you for a while, then they will put a note on your credit file so you won't get another contract phone (or probably any other credit) while that remains.

They will then sell the debt on to the debt collectors who will most certainly chase you.

All you had to do was report your phone stolen to get a crime number, if you didn't know who stole it you don't have to name names.

Too late to report it now. What a terrible mistake.

I will give them a call this evening and discuss it with them.

They were prepared to drop my price plan from £40 to an amazing £35 per month, I was just not sure if it was worth paying my bill, just for that.

I cannot honestly tell you how much longer my contact continues for, but it is at least six months.

Anyway, they have cut me off now, because when I last phoned to ask if the guy who stole my handset had made any calls, they told me as much.

So, it is time to shake the sand out of my ears and call them.

Thanks.

soolin

macman wrote: »

Hang on, am I reading this correctly-it caused the thieves a lot of grief?
Did they consider complaining to the police about how it wastes their time going out mugging people if they're going to go and get their phones locked afterwards? How inconsiderate! They'd probably be offered help from trained counsellors to get over their disappointment...
I'm going to stop now because I feel I may be in danger of turning into Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells...

I was horrified as well when I found out, my son didn't tell me for ages. It was a gang, that's how they managed to take on 4 strapping 16 year old boys and walk off with 3 phones. My son was stopped in the corridor pinned against a wall basically and told that blocking your phone when stolen was a very bad idea as the thief could get himself well duffed up (or words to that effect) which he might want to pass on. I told the police as I still had the crime number but my son could not or would not identify the person who threatened him, and the police while very sympathetic said it was very difficult to offer any advice where youths were concerned but this was not uncommon. They even had a very good idea where the phones were going as the case was not an isolated one and the gang would target what they thought were middle class boys from a Church school who were likely to have the best phones, they actually refused to steal a cheap old phone, they were that choosy!

macman

Your story changes with every post. You said that they would drop your price plan to save you £15 per month. So that is £25, not £35. Whatever it is, it still reduces your debt. The £200 is what you already owe them, it's not what you will lose in the future due to having no phone.
When they say they have cut you off, surely that is because the phone is now blocked? Or do you mean they have terminated your account with them?
TBH I think your mistake was to refuse to pay the o/s £200 when they offered, that way you could probably have negotiated something better once you were back in credit.
If you walk away, that is your choice but don't believe the advice you were given that they will not pursue a debt of £440. They will, there are plenty of examples on this forum of people being hassled by debt collectors for as little as £20.

chris_spackman

Do you have travel insurance?

As with a previous post you need to get your story together as if you keep telling 3 different stories they may be in their right to think you may be trying to pull a fast one!

Are your future credit needs worh £100? I would pay it, let them reduce your plan and for gods sake get some insurance cover, that is what it is there for!

Fortis_in_Arduis

Actually, their story changed, and I am going to try and clarify this later, in case it helps somebody else.

At first I owed them about £400, and was going to have the pay the line rental for the time that I did not have a handset.

So I asked them if there was anything better they could offer me. The bill is now £160 (??? I am going to have to find out what happened there) and I am being offered a spangly new handset for £120, and I do not have to pay the line rental because in the contract it states (they now tell me...;)) that I have to have a handset in order to be charged line rental, and as mine was stolen and I phoned them to block and blacklist it, I do not have to pay line rental for the time I have spent without a handset. :T

Their story has *muchly* changed, and so I have paid my puny bill of £160.

I am now being advised to order a telephone before I leave for the UK, so that it can be sent to my upstairs neighbour ahead of my arrival.

They had previously told me that my account had been sent to their debt collectors, then, when I negotiated, their story changed, and I could pay them by debit card...

Thanks Chris.

I do not have travel insurance, and my telephone was stolen in London from my own house, but I am happy enough with this outcome, and I am surprised that negotiating has got me this far, but it is a shame that I unable to recover the cost of the lost telephone on insurance, and it is pretty disgusting that anyone should steal anybody's property as well.