£1500 Phonebill.... HELP :(

Toastandmarmite

Sorry, but you are going to have to pay this. If you ask Orange nicely they may organise a payment plan for you and break it down over several months.

It really is your responsibility to cancel the contract as soon as you realise it's missing, and this is why. Sorry you've had to find this out the hard way.

DarkConvict

I'm in full agreement with the others, its in the T&Cs you are liable for all calls until you report it to the operator. You only need to report it to the police for insurance claims.

You admit you forget to ring orange, that was a £1500 mistake to make. Orange get billed by other operators for calls abroad so no chance of them wiping out the bill. They may lower it to cost price but basically you are stuffed, as if you can't pay your contract is going to defaulted so more charges and no mobile service to boot!

Have a dig around any insurance documents you have home, contents, mobile see if any pay out, some do!

There is a debate about operators cutting of calls abroad and generally people are against it, add in the phone is your responsibility not theirs. You won't get anywhere complaining they should have realised. 10 days is pretty good for them to cut it off as data takes days to process, and even longer for roaming calls.

I would inform CCCS of the mistake and then probably add another £1500 to your DMP.

llama13

Hi

Oh dear, that's such a pain (to put it politely)!! Some **** stole my phone in feb and called Ghana and Puerto Rico. Luckily I had called Orange who barred outgoing calls as I thought I'd dropped it and was hoping some kind soul would figure out how to get it back to me (as I have done in the past).

But no - the next day when I realised one of my bank cards had been swiped I knew they'd both been stolen and not lost. Orange were able to tell me about the international calls made the day before (for some stupid reason they can't check on the same day/instantly, or I would have known if they'd told me about international calls when I first called) and I was annoyed as they'd spent £40 on my contract.

As said above, it is technically in the contract that you have to pay and are liable up to the point that you informed them. I know that's rubbish. I'm just counting my lucky stars that I thought to call them at the time. A bit of online research told me that some people have had to pay much more, in the region of £10k or more for calls made on stolen phones - there is something so unfair about it as it is clear the contract holder didn't make the calls.

I was lucky in that they offered me 50% good will so I paid £20 of this person's calls. I did dial the numbers they'd rang but it was pointless, even if one of them did speak English he was playing dumb, and I couldn't see what useful info I could get... but for £1500 it might be worth trying to have a chat with them (buy a phone card first!). Say you'll pass their number to the police if they don't help you (which could be true! just we know the police wouldn't do anything about it!!).

I wonder if Orange would have recordings of the calls? highly unlikely I guess.

Anyway, bottom line is get insurance for future (I know Egg now have a policy that covers these calls), check all lines of your current insurance inc. house, credit cards etc. and most importantly, as I have done, ask Orange to switch off your ability to dial international calls. At least that way any future thieving idiot will have to make do with calling their local pals.

Very sorry to hear about your case, it's not your fault and it happens easily, especially when you don't expect there to be such selfish and nasty people around.

Good luck!!

Jon_01

llama13 wrote: »

I wonder if Orange would have recordings of the calls? highly unlikely I guess.

The networks never record your calls, they sometimes record calls to them but not between you and someone else. That would break the data protection act in a big way...

watcherman

Jon_01 wrote: »

Do you really think the network have people sitting there watching the activity on your acc ?

Orange have something like 14,000,000 live acc's, they (or any other network) have never offered to police your acc for you. The phone's yours, all you have to do is keep track of it or call them as soon as you lose it. It's not that hard. . .

Strange that credit card companies can do it where the liability falls to them, but mobile phone companies can't, where the liability falls to the customer...Bet they'd find the algorithms if it started being the phone companies liability....

Jon_01

Credit card company's have huge fraud depts and can monitor card usage in real time.
Networks do monitor some acc's and take action to restricted and closed those that are proven to be fraudulent. Also no networks billing system work in real time.

But you're not really comparing like for like.

watcherman

I know what they "don't" do Jon, I'm just saying, if you were able to run up thousands of pounds on your mobile, and liability fell to the network, they'd find a way to have systems in place.....like the cc companies do.

DarkConvict

Its not just the company it is how it works.

When you use your CC abroad the transaction is done directly against your account. A request is made from the machine to your CC company, If you have no funds or other issues it won't go though, if there is the transaction is authorised.

Come to using phones it is another thing, a call is made and stored in a system (maybe just the local mast i dunno), then bit by bit it gets registered to their account to be billed, especially true for roaming calls where data can take upto 3 days to reach the UK network.
It wouldn't be just a change to a company but a change to how mobiles are operated worldwide.

Pinlock your phones and turn off roaming/abroad calls when not required. Protect yourself don't rely on the networks.

Valli

Thing is though credit cards can be cloned and therefore misused even if the original credit card is still in the possession of the account holder. So the account holder would have NO REASON to suspect misuse until they faint with shock when the bill drops on the mat. Phones, on the other hand, are different. If you have possession of your phone then no-one else can use it.

Everytime my teenage son mislays or loses a phone I block it. And as he is on PAYG no-one is ever going to be able to spend more than the remaining credit anyway.
It took three weeks to get the block lifted once. he'll learn!

DarkConvict

Phones can be cloned as well, new laws were passed some years ago to make it illegal.

People would probably stay away from doing it, as they cant really make money out of it, and a phone can be tracked so is a homing beacon for the police to find.