A right mess and my fault!! Help please - UPDATED

blatisingh

well im waiting to see if the teacher rings me back tomorrow. the question is if the police refuse to get inovolved, how do iu get the address of the kis who is yusing the phone, at the moment i only have his full name?

soolin

I think if you approach the child or parents direct you may find the authorities will take a very dim view and I would certainly advise that you tread with extreme caution if trying to track him/her down. The teacher should not give you details of the child as that breaches all sorts of confidentially rules and any teacher will realise that and frankly I can't see how else you can get the details.

You didn't sell the phone with the sim, but on the other hand you didn't sell it without a sim, it could be considered that you were at fault for not taking better care of your possessions. Ebay is an odd place and a police office or magistrate may consider that the child or even the teacher ended up with the sim through no fault of their own. They didn't just find the sim, or lift it from your car glovebox (as in a previous example) you physically sent it to them.

With so many free sims, and sims for sale on ebay that give free minutes or free texts it is not beyond the realm of imagination for someone to receive a sim and honestly not question it.

Soo

oldMcDonald

Sorry, just a question but i'm getting slightly confused with who knows what!!

Did the kid actually KNOW that his phone had been stolen, and that he now has in his posession a replacement, or is there a possibility that he believes that he has his own phone?

haveagoade

oldMcDonald wrote:

Sorry, just a question but i'm getting slightly confused with who knows what!!

Did the kid actually KNOW that his phone had been stolen, and that he now has in his posession a replacement, or is there a possibility that he believes that he has his own phone?

Good point......if he was under the impression that it was his old phone back, then he can't really be held responsible, it would also be similar if he was told it was a replacement for the one that went missing.....difficult one here.

Best to get all parties involved to explain to mobile company waht has happened and get them to see the situation and write off the debt.

By the way......the law see's the unauthorised use of a contract sim in the same way as the unauthorised use of a credit t card. As both are basically the same...........credit cards.

Need_More_Money_2

haveagoade wrote:

Good point......if he was under the impression that it was his old phone back, then he can't really be held responsible, it would also be similar if he was told it was a replacement for the one that went missing.....difficult one here.

Best to get all parties involved to explain to mobile company waht has happened and get them to see the situation and write off the debt.

By the way......the law see's the unauthorised use of a contract sim in the same way as the unauthorised use of a credit t card. As both are basically the same...........credit cards.

Presumably he would've noticed that his phone number had changed..

soolin

haveagoade wrote:

By the way......the law see's the unauthorised use of a contract sim in the same way as the unauthorised use of a credit t card. As both are basically the same...........credit cards.

Is that absolutely correct? If a credit card gets stolen or cloned the CC company tend to pick up the bill even though *most* cc terms and conditions do have a sort of excess where a certain percentage is picked up by the owner if the card was not reported as stolen .

Contrast that to the various stories on the mobile phone forum where users have had to pay enormous bills as they did not report their phone stolen and the phone companies have made them pay up in full.

If it were possible to just refuse to pay a phone bill as it wasn't you that used the phone then this would be ripe for scamming. Hand your phone over to a mate and refuse to pay as you didn't make the calls

In this case the OP basically gave away the sim, it was not stolen. I feel sorry for the OP but i can't see why the phone company would write off any of the bill, nor can I see that the OP can persue the child that did.

Soo

IvanOpinion

There is a lot of speculation, guesswork and hearsay going on here ... talk to the phone company, talk to CAB and find out what the actual position in law is .. you may find that you are fully responsible since there does not appear to be any deliberate attempt to obtain money or services in an illegal manner.

Ivan

xycom1

Need_More_Money wrote:

Presumably he would've noticed that his phone number had changed..

He did - according to the above, the kid's girlfriend told the OP that the kid had been giving out his 'new number' to anyone and everyone at school.

IMO you don't have a hope in hell of getting Orange to cancel the bill. Better off trying to recover the money from the person the phone was sold to on eBay - it's their problem whether they cough it up themselves or get it from the teacher/school/kid/his parents.

haveagoade

The law will not excuse you if you find a credit card or sim card or whatever, and then go on to use it, knowing that it is not yours and that you will not be paying the bill.

In this case there could possibly be circumstances to excuse the use of the phone.

But if the kid was using the phone, he must have known he would have to pay at some stage or other. The kid has made the calls, the kid/parents should pay.

We are confusing this matter with a circumstance when something is used without permission and it is difficult imposssible to establish who has run up the bill.

In this case its clear the OP has not incurred the bill, he did not give permission for the use of the sim, and the USER who did run up the bill IS KNOWN.

Poppy9

haveagoade wrote:

IN This case its the child, so persue the parents!

Any responsible parent is gonna want to sort this out, without it getting out of hand!

If my DD had her phone stolen from school and was given a second hand replacement and ran up a huge bill in someone elses name I don't think I would pay the bill. The OP is at fault for being careless and sending the sim with the phone. The teacher who gave the replacement phone to the child should have contacted the parents to explain what she was giving the child etc. Then the parents could have sorted out the new number and tariff etc. Most children are not paying for their own mobiles & calls so are a bit ignorant of cost issues etc. He might have just thought he'd struck lucky as his top up never ran out and his parents might have been unaware he'd had a replacement phone and sim.