Stolen Three Mobile

Planner

Just to top off my fortnight from hell (redundancies at work, removal of various perks and a 6% salary reduction) I was last night mugged!!!

A part from a nasty cut on the head and the taking of my Three mobile phone, I escaped relativly unscathed. Now it appears that Three are also setup to mug me!

The phone was stolen at 11pm last night (9th April), I rang Three from the ambulance at about 11.30 pm to ask for the phone and sim to be blocked/cancelled. You can imagine my pleasure at being told this wasnt possible at present due to technical issues and their systems upgrading, and I should call back later !!!

Between this time and 4.30am this morning (10th April) I rang Three no less than a further three times, to be finally told at 4.30am that everything was now fine and the phone had been blocked and the sim cancelled. Approximatley £17.00 worth of calls had been made. Great I thought case closed. I rang the stolen phone and it went straight through to my voicemail, which I assumed is what should happen?

I checked the call usage again this lunch time and it had crept up to £17.98. Not to worry I thought, its just the calls made 'catching up'.

I again checked the call costs at 6m today and they had crept up to just over £19.00. Feeling something wasnt quite right, I rang the stolen mobile, it actually rang and the nice gentleman that had mugged me answered.

I therefore called Three again, who where very apologetic and said that it was quite normal for a blocked phone/sim to go straight to voicemail when rang? I said it isnt going to voicemail someone is answering it!!! He again confirmed that the sim had been bloicked at 4.20 am this morning and he will escalate the problem to the billing department and that I should monitor the call amounts for two days and ring back Sunday?, and by the way would you like me to block the phone becasue due to a technical issue its just the sim thats been blocked?! grrrrrrr

By 7pm today the call charges have jumped up to £27.00 and I can still ring the phone and my mugger answers it!

I rang Three back again and said what the he*l is going on? She said nothing to worry about I can confirm that the phone and sim have been blocked/cancelled from 6.20pm tonight? What about my other four phone calls between 11.30pm last night and 4.30 am this morning I asked. Oh yes sorry it was actually cancelled from 4.20am this morning? Really? can you tell me when the last call was made from it, yes the last call was made at 6.50pm today to another mobile number. Due to a technical issue neither the phone or sim have yet been blocked?!!!

Now as I am typing this at 20.15pm, the call charges continue to rise to over £30.00 and the phone still rings and is answered?!

What can I do? Why isnt it being cancelled?

DCFC79

Id ask to speak to a superviser as surely the phone and sim should be blocked to prevent calls being made and the money going up

Woby_Tide

If there is a technical issue preventing the signal going to the mobile/SIM from threes network then there isn;t much that can be done. The fact is that they can see you requested the block at 4.20AM (at the very latest). I can;t see them trying to bill for the useage following that time even if the phone is still active due to their issues.

Can't you arrange to meet the mugger to give him the charger and manual(with some friends...)?

chuckley

judging by the way 3 operates it wouldnt suprise me if they charged u fully for all charges. the way they operate is atrocious!!!!

my mate has CONSTANT problems with her 3 phones and whilst she is waiting for a replacement handset (up to a month) they tell her she has to pay the months bill + they claim she's downloaded stuff that are 11p, 6p, e.t.c. what game u know is 11p?!

rash.m2k

Woby_Tide wrote: »

.......

Can't you arrange to meet the mugger to give him the charger and manual(with some friends...)?

Yup - teach that motherbeep a lesson!!!!

chuckley wrote: »

judging by the way 2 operates it wouldnt suprise me if they charged u fully for all charges. the way they operate is atrocious!!!!

my mate has CONSTANT problems with her 3 phones and whilst she is waiting for a replacement handset (up to a month) they tell her she has to pay the months bill + they claim she's downloaded stuff that are 11p, 6p, e.t.c. what game u know is 11p?!

Avoid three like a plague. Sure they seem OK, but eventually you they will screw you over.

Mr_Rossi

Sorry to hear that you were robbed of your phone the other night. I'm with 3 and have linked my accounts on the 3 website (Take me to my 3).
If you haven't done this before (set-up your account on-line) then it may be a bit late, but if you have then you can at least disable some of the internet access (access settings) of the phone and also, depending when your billings due, see which phone numbers have been called. This may not be of any help but it might be if you give the numbers to the police (for the future). It depends when the bill is due and whether you can access your account on-line. Good Luck.

bakerlad1983

Make sure you cancel the dd at your bank aswell, as it is nearly impossibly to get money back from them.

Planner

Thanks for all your comments. The sim card would now appear cancelled, only took them 30+ hours! and the call chatrges styand at about £60.00, which I am 100% sure they will try and bill me for!

Dont think I will meet the mugger with some friends, although after posting the phone number on facebook Im sure he got a lot of unwanted abusive calls from my mates last night!

The bills actually due next week, so I will be able to see what they are biilling me for and trhe numbers called. Will update you if Three try and rip me off!

Once again, thanks for all your comments.

Planner

A further update,

As suspected, bill appeared online today, of course included all the calls made in the intervening 30 hour period between the phone being reported stolen and actually being barred!!!

Spoke to that fuc*ing call centre this morning, due to techincal reasons can I call back tommorrow as bill wasnt available on their system yet!

Just spoke to someone via Threes online web chat. Similar experience to the call centre, all very polite with lots of 'thank yous' and 'sorry to hear about your problems', but very little content. He initially didnt understand that the phone wasnt barred as soon as it was reported stolen (he actually gave me yet another time (third one now) that it was barred). Its now being reffered to the billing department (again) who will contact me within 48 hours.

Dont think I shall hold my breath!!! Anyone know the address for the UK Head Office or somesuch if this fails?

Thanks.

Sootzer

Planner wrote: »

Dont think I shall hold my breath!!! Anyone know the address for the UK Head Office or somesuch if this fails?

Thanks.

I used this address.......

3 Customer Services
Hutchinson 3G UK Limited
PO Box 333
Glasgow
G2 9AG

HTH

macman

As long as you can demonstrate that you called them at 11.30pm to ask for it to be blocked (hopefully you got a name or some sort of incident reference) then I can't see how they can expect you to pay for any subsequent usage. If 3 have technical issues that is their problem not yours. You did everything right.
I find it incredible that they would not take your details manually and then do the block as soon as their system was up again.