Huge bill on Orange stolen phone.

Silk

MyUserNamesTaken wrote: »

Careful there, Silk. She'll be saying you have no social skills next.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
My OH says similar things .....but she wasn't complaining when I swept her off her feet a few years ago :rotfl:

emily1504

Well considering my experience I had to take a lot of time off work and cannot even pay my rent/bills etc as they are so couldn't believe it when this bill came in. I am trying to sort my life out after such an experience, which was difficult enough after this situation.

Again I will say again, my problem is not really to do with who is liable. My problem is that the phone companies do nothing to help prevent this. If they had explained to me at the time that I should be very aware of this policy (which would have taken all of two minutes), I would have automatically found out what I could have done to organise it, and as I am completely technophobe would have got their help, which I am sure as customer focussed and ethical they would have enjoyed doing. It would be easy for them to monitor unusual calls but as the person I spoke to on the phone said it would just be too much for them with all their customers, as I explained to them I am just one customer and should be treated as such. They could do what the banks do and just call you up if unusual usage was going and if they can't get through (as they wouldn't be able to, or if they got through to the people that had taken it they would have realised it had been stolen as I do have a pin on my phone that they always ask for). Then this situation would have never occurred and if they'd managed to make a few calls, the damage would have been more minimal.

All I am saying is that the policy does not consider individual situations and their human nature, and I am sure no one here expected me to cancel a phone when I was having such an operation. But would you do if you were out of work as a result and struggling to pay basic bills and rent and then this turned up? the operation was bad enough but now I have to organise the payment of this I am in a complete mess.

I have never told anyone they don't have social skills, what I am saying is that the companies are encouraging this by basically saying u have to spend the whole day (and night!) looking at your phone to make sure that no one has taken it. Even with remote access or whatever it is you cannot do that if you don't realise it has been taken! and a pin (which i had) only works if the phone is turned off, which mine mustn't have been

i am not saying that it's a problem the company profits from these things, that's just life and that cannot be changed and no they don't deserve to lose either from theft (as the card companies do, but then they are insured). what i am saying is why don't they tell u explicitly before and help prevent you from being in this situation? that's when i reason that they are motivated by the potential profit, so they are not incentivised to do this. any company that genuinely cared about their customers would make sure they knew, not just wrote it in the terms and conditions which they know so many people ignore. they wouldn't then just go on to blame those people for not reading it because again, they would care about them and make sure it was told to them verbally as well as in the contract. they do it with other details in the contract, so i have no idea why not this one!

To be honest, the total lack of sympathy and understanding for my personal circumstances i have received from some of the posters does confirm my belief that the companies and those who work for them really don't care about the individuals and their lives. i do find this pretty sad and hope the ombudsman has a bit more of a customer focussed approach (ps. I am not saying this as insult so don't jump on that, I am simply saying the fact I nearly died prevented me from reporting my phone and still there is no acceptance that i am not a negligent idiot that just couldn't be bothered to report it!!!)

and i do find it funny that no one has opinion on what a rape victim should do about their phone if it is stolen during the attack and calls are made, but i guess none of us can inside that person's head and assume they would also be prioritising the cancellation of their contract. shame that in this world we wouldn't give anyone time to get their heads together after an attack, a stay in hospital and even more so we don't even warn them that if this did happen we would hold them liable. but as i have said all along why would they be incentivised if they stand to make a fortune?

DarkConvict

I do have some sympathy with the OP. It is not the OPs fault the phone got used and a bill ran up. And i do sympathise with victims of crime, when phones are stolen. The criminal is to blame, but..

The points people are making is that there is something that can be done about it, something the customer (victim) can do. And if they fail to do it, they are making the matter worse for themselves, by leaving themselves open to been a further victim of crime. This part is what is been highlighted in several of the following posts including mine.

I agree that a network cannot cover the loss of the customer, the network is simply not involved over matters of security for the phone/sim card unless they are told about it, its otherwise the customers responsibility. All they are obliged to do is provide a service for the sim card in areas with a signal, when the phone is reported to been used as normal.

Sure, a mass of international phone calls is surely unusual usage, but as has been said. If operators block the phone the customer complains and threatens to sue for breach of contract, the operator does nothing and customer gets a bill for services used. Customer again threatens to sue for not providing duty of care. Networks can't win, so they have decided on what is the best approach probably given several court cases they have been dragged though, and a hard policy has had to be decided on to draw the line.

And no, i don't work for a mobile company, I just graduated from University in Software Engineering.


Emily you do have to imagine it from the side of the business. The best they can do is provide it as an at cost level, which is not always much cheaper depending on the charges on the account. International calls are pricey to the operator.

Imagine someone wants to lend money from you, so you give them a card to take money as they please and you expect them to pay it back. They do this every month without fail. One month the person rings in and says I have lost my card. You look at there account and see that the card has been used to draw out £2000 of cash. You tell the person about it now you have seen the account and they say its nothing to do with them, yet it was only them who had the card, so only they could take the money out.

What do you do, you are now missing £2000!

1)Did the person draw the money out, spend it on what they wanted, and then report the card is missing and play the game so they do not have to pay it back.
2)Was it really stolen and used by someone else, did this person not actually take any money.
At then end of the day, there was nothing you could have done about it until it had happened, or the person has told you about it, of which all you could do is stop any money been taken out.
If the person does not pay for the missing money, then you do! The money is not going to be recovered by a mystery man if one exists that took out the £2000!

You say the business has no sympathy for the customer, the issue is both ways. The business has paid out to make the service available, incurred costs by its use. And the customer is now refusing to pay the agreed amount.
If you paid for a mobile signal and phone, you expect the phone to work and a signal to be available. You would be peeved if they turned around and said its not our problem.

--

As to the comment on the rape victim, I think a victim of mugging would be a better example, as a phone is more likely to be used in this circumstance. As it happened to my friend, sure the initial hurdle is what has happened, but you are not alone. You have friends/family and the police. Even if the victim does not directly deal with the issue someone else will. As soon as i asked how my friend was and asked what was taken i said have you rang the operator, he said no so we got on to it.

emily1504

Silk wrote: »

Hi Emily,
First of all I don't work for a mobile company ..God forbid I did :rotfl:

I would have thought that considering the "near death experiance" you should be glad to be alive

The few hundred quid that was run up by whoever should be the last of your worries

What worried me is why you should think that the network should pay for your loss ????
Is it because they make a profit from providing a service that you think is overpriced to the extent that it covers you for unexpected losses ???
Working on that principle when we went up to the house in the Lakes last month and somebody stupidly left the heating on constant for a couple of weeks in our house, do you think we should write to British Gas and say that as they make a huge profit they should credit the two weeks we were away ??? They should know that in Summer it's unusual for someone to have the heating on 24 hours a day ????:rotfl:
Was it one of your friends that stole the phone or was it one of your friends that left your phone unattended ??? Should they not have been held responsable for the loss ???

Going back to the OP's post ....what gets me is my OH's daughter who is a typical student teenager has her phone constantly welded to her wrist :rotfl:
So do all her friends and so does my DD ....I doubt whether any of them could go for longer than an hour without their phones ....to try and accept that a teenage student would manage to go to a day let alone 8 days before doing something about it is like believing my OH could spend 8 days in Monsoon without using my credit card ...it doesn't happen :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Which leads me to another point ....anyone know whats wrong with Monsoon sale stuff ???? It seems exactly the same as the non sale items so why can't we buy the sale stuff eh ??? :mad:

just to confirm i didn't stupidly lose my phone, it was maliciously stolen from me. that's like saying a murder victim was stupidly killed and somehow it was their fault for being murdered. i also didn't stupidly not report it, i was in hospital and didn't have the chance to go through my stuff to check i still had it and as soon as i came around and realised i did what they tell u to and report it. so my situation is not the same as someone leaving the heating on, that's like me accidently calling algeria and leaving the phone connected for hours, which of course i should be responsible for.
as i say time and time again, i don't want to hold the companies responsible, i want them to do something about it to prevent it from happening in the first place, i.e. make sure the policy is known in full by the customer before they sign not just in small print. to be honest when ever i take a phone contract out they always rush me through and i feel a bit awkward, right or wrongly, reading it all in full so maybe they could start making their customers feel more able to do this at that point. i think the answer can be found, obviously no one wants the criminals to win (who are the real winners, as they have got to have their fun with the calls) so why doesn't the phone company and the customer work together to prevent this? if they both did all they could then people wouldn't bother to commit these kinds of crimes. the criminals know most people don't report their phone stolen that instance for various reasons so they feel confident they can make these calls for even a short period of time. if the companies made u fully aware, tried their best to track unusual usage and helped with the different ways to stay secure (pins, remote access etc) then the problem could go a long way to being solved.
i've had it with home security, the guys are great and telling you how to maximise security and use the equipment in the best way. so surely the phone companies would enjoy a reputation of providing their customers with all the help and support in preventing a victimisation, or shall i say again... they probably don't enjoy it as much as their profits!!!

emily1504

DarkConvict wrote: »

I do have some sympathy with the OP. It is not the OPs fault the phone got used and a bill ran up. And i do sympathise with victims of crime, when phones are stolen. The criminal is to blame, but..

The points people are making is that there is something that can be done about it, something the customer (victim) can do. And if they fail to do it, they are making the matter worse for themselves, by leaving themselves open to been a further victim of crime. This part is what is been highlighted in several of the following posts including mine.

I agree that a network cannot cover the loss of the customer, the network is simply not involved over matters of security for the phone/sim card unless they are told about it, its otherwise the customers responsibility. All they are obliged to do is provide a service for the sim card in areas with a signal, when the phone is reported to been used as normal.

Sure, a mass of international phone calls is surely unusual usage, but as has been said. If operators block the phone the customer complains and threatens to sue for breach of contract, the operator does nothing and customer gets a bill for services used. Customer again threatens to sue for not providing duty of care. Networks can't win, so they have decided on what is the best approach probably given several court cases they have been dragged though, and a hard policy has had to be decided on to draw the line.

And no, i don't work for a mobile company, I just graduated from
University in Software Engineering.

Not sure if you read my post but not sure what i could've done considering i was going through an operation in hospital? i had a pin but obviously the phone was not turned off. i rang as soon as i came around from the op and realised it was gone?

i am not asking for a change in policy (although recognition that people may take at least 10 mins to notice a phone even gone?), i am asking for the policy to be explicitly communicated (verbally as well as in the contract) so the customer is 100% in the know and can do all they can. trust me i will be checking my phone every minute now this has happened!! they could not ignore the credit blocks put on phones, which plenty of customers have experienced

also there is an easy answer with the block. as i have said, call the individual and find out whether the usage is normal. i mean one call abroad is ok but literally these people were calling one country and talking, hanging up and calling over and over again for hours so clearly unusual and if there is no answer then block it. if the person is genuine they'd answer, say it was genuine and no problem. i've had this with the banks (once when it was a crime and once when i was buying a tv) simple!!

emily1504

Emily you do have to imagine it from the side of the business. The best they can do is provide it as an at cost level, which is not always much cheaper depending on the charges on the account. International calls are pricey to the operator.

Imagine someone wants to lend money from you, so you give them a card to take money as they please and you expect them to pay it back. They do this every month without fail. One month the person rings in and says I have lost my card. You look at there account and see that the card has been used to draw out £2000 of cash. You tell the person about it now you have seen the account and they say its nothing to do with them, yet it was only them who had the card, so only they could take the money out.

What do you do, you are now missing £2000!

1)Did the person draw the money out, spend it on what they wanted, and then report the card is missing and play the game so they do not have to pay it back.
2)Was it really stolen and used by someone else, did this person not actually take any money.
At then end of the day, there was nothing you could have done about it until it had happened, or the person has told you about it, of which all you could do is stop any money been taken out.
If the person does not pay for the missing money, then you do! The money is not going to be recovered by a mystery man if one exists that took out the £2000!


--

As to the comment on the rape victim, I think a victim of mugging would be a better example, as a phone is more likely to be used in this circumstance. As it happened to my friend, sure the initial hurdle is what has happened, but you are not alone. You have friends/family and the police. Even if the victim does not directly deal with the issue someone else will. As soon as i asked how my friend was and asked what was taken i said have you rang the operator, he said no so we got on to it.[/QUOTE]

sorry i didn't see this part of the post
just to confirm that i do work in the area of forensic psychology and rape is often combined with a burglary (i.e. the burglary takes place and the rape then is a kind of lovely added extra for the victim) and in these occasions phones have been taken and potentially used. what i am referring to here is the fact that even in what some may seem as unusual circumstances these things do happen and what protection is there then? i can also tell u as a victim of mugging at knife point it can be a while before u manage to access the police/friends/family (partly because i hid for quite a while feeling very scared) in which time the calls can be made

to address the first part, isn't this what the banks do? well they definitely do because several of my friends and family have been in the situation where their credit/debit card have been stolen and they have been refunded any money. although the companies do have insurance, maybe an idea for mobile companies? what i am saying is that if say the companies were liable in the case of card companies, then they would be so hyper vigilant against the situation, monitoring usage, helping set up security features and emphasising the importance of calling immediately it probably wouldnt happen. my card company rang me when i bought a tv they were concerned it may be a theft, so obviously a bit over vigilant but i am sure most people would appreciate this to avoid ending up in mine or other's situations

or maybe we do keep liability, but as i have said the companies, really as an ethical and moral thing, should make sure we are 100% aware. they know a lot of people don't read the small print so they should take the time to explain it to us and make sure we have set up any security features when they sell us the phone. i find it hard to believe they cannot do this when they explain plenty of other aspects of the contract/phone etc.

DarkConvict

I agree, the operator could tell you about the features of the phone at the point of sale, but you are generally advised in writing somewhere to read the manual as it would explain such features available.

You have heard the sayings, read the terms and conditions it is there for a reason. In the T&Cs it will state about what happens if the phone/sim is lost/stolen. It explains the procedure and who is liable for what.

I agree circumstances do differ and yours may well be one of the exceptional ones, as are ones like i lost my phone abroad and as such had no contact numbers so no way to contact the operator. Sure you could dial home once available but some people in say Asia can be on trains for days at a time.

You say your son did not own up to it for 8 days, now you have not told us your sons ages but whether you were in hospital or not, there are plenty of adults he could have talked to. All of which would likely have said, have you told the operator. I do take knowledge for granted, I admit that and I do assume that someone your son would have been able to contact would know what to do as i consider contracts to be "common" knowledge.
I am only going though what the operator is thinking but hopefully in a manner you can see better.

People do not always see the benefit of insurance until they need to use it, they spend money on it for years and if they never claim they never see any benefit. In your case you only see the issue now that it has occurred.

DarkConvict

I do not argue, operators could do more. But as i said in a previous post, unless it affects enough people to demand a change, then a change will not happen. Remember credit cards are used by millions of people and credit card fraud is more common. Yet still many people do not get refunds as the bank says the card was used with the correct pin number, even though it has been proved on TV cards can be cloned!!!

As to use of credit card, every transaction is logged and authenticated. A phone call cannot be billed until the call is completed and processed, for a CC an order of £2000 for a laptop is placed the CC can block the transaction, but for mobiles they cannot advise you in advance or during the phone call for the cost of it untilt he call is over. But I do appreciate the point you are making, and im picking up on subtle differences however these may well be important differences on how the operator can respond.
Credit cards are also more strongly regulated in law by CCA 1974 / CCA 2006, it is likely the banks obligations to security have been laid out and much more well trodden ground than mobile phones.

The answer always is, then how does PAYG work, your calls drop when you run out of credit. My answer is, I do not know. But vodafone rep on here did once state some of the differences on how they are processed, but its not something i can answer.

my card company rang me when i bought a tv they were concerned it may be a theft, so obviously a bit over vigilant but i am sure most people would appreciate this to avoid ending up in mine or other's situations

I agree, my friend got rang up when he brought a laptop the card was refused, he was confused and then he got a call from the bank. it was all confirmed and the card unblocked.
But i have seen another friend have his credit card cloned, and someone buy airline tickets to America with the details, no questions asked. And it was an uphill struggle, even though the tickets were not ordered in there name or to their address! The payment was still processed.

Systems are not flawless and we do not live in a perfect world. In a perfect world people would not steal, a lost handset would just be handed to the police. Therefore we do have to take steps to protect ourselves, unlike 50 years ago people keep there doors and windows locked even when inside the house. We just have to be prepared for the worst when possible, and sadly in your case you were not fully prepared for it.
I to have been hit by mobile phone bills, and as stated further above do not have full pin locking of the phone (only on start up), but that is what preparation i have made. And i know if it goes missing exactly what to do, and what i am liable for.

emily1504

I am not the one with the son by the way? I was in hospital

I have no issue with things being in terms and conditions, but companies have been pulled up before on the issue of very important matters being included in small print without any specific mention at the time. to be honest, had i have been more aware i probably would have gone to pay as you go, i am definitely doing that now.

It just seems like the whole 'it was written in t & c' is kind of a way of covering their backs. like they know no one is gonna read it, but they chuck it in their to get themselves out of liability. so it makes me think the whole thing is quite uncaring and not customer focussed (surprising considering the success of phone companies depends on their customers actually getting the phones) and i suppose that just quite disappointing really! but as i have said in a number of posts previously, i think the world we are living in is becoming more and more corporate and profit focussed, and it seems to be the consumer who is missing out!!

we are not really encouraged to be dynamic consumers making informed choices. we are bombared by advertising and marketing and phone companies definitely quite pathologically insist they we continute updating and buying phones by the second, i mean by the time you walk out of the shop the phones already outdated and it's hardly a case for encouraging mindful consumerism. so how can we be surprised when the customers don't read the small print and end up in this situation? every time i have got a new phone i have felt rushed and not comfortable pouring over the small print in detail (which i will definitely be doing now!) and to be honest, quite naively believed that the company does genuinely care about you and would alert you to policies that could have such an impact on your life. but i have always been against the rush of technological advancement we have seen in the last ten years and am definitely against immorality of present day corporations that appear not to take an interest in the consumer. sham really, because considering how our lives are so dominated by these things it is probably passing over to how we treat each on a day to day basis!

emily1504

DarkConvict wrote: »

I do not argue, operators could do more. But as i said in a previous post, unless it affects enough people to demand a change, then a change will not happen. Remember credit cards are used by millions of people and credit card fraud is more common. Yet still many people do not get refunds as the bank says the card was used with the correct pin number, even though it has been proved on TV cards can be cloned!!!

As to use of credit card, every transaction is logged and authenticated. A phone call cannot be billed until the call is completed and processed, for a CC an order of £2000 for a laptop is placed the CC can block the transaction, but for mobiles they cannot advise you in advance or during the phone call for the cost of it untilt he call is over. But I do appreciate the point you are making, and im picking up on subtle differences however these may well be important differences on how the operator can respond.
Credit cards are also more strongly regulated in law by CCA 1974 / CCA 2006, it is likely the banks obligations to security have been laid out and much more well trodden ground than mobile phones.

The answer always is, then how does PAYG work, your calls drop when you run out of credit. My answer is, I do not know. But vodafone rep on here did once state some of the differences on how they are processed, but its not something i can answer.

it is definitely an issue that they cannot do anything until the call is finished. all i will say in my case (and i cannot speak for anyone else) i would not have minded being liable for the first call if something was then done by the operator before all the subsequent hours of calls were racked up!!

i think the issue is that we live in quite an individualistic culture, where people are encouraged to look after number one (and at stretch your family, but even that sometimes doesn't happen) and the mobile phone industry definitely acts like this. we don't help each other out or take an interest, we throw important matters in terms and conditions and we say it's the customers fault if they don't read it. but where is the human compassion in that? i believe everyone should try their best to help each other out and make sure no one gets into trouble, i mean what is even the point of these small terms for such important matters? i mean obviously include them, but we're told about other features and issues to do with the phone, i can't believe we are not alerted to such important matters. when i was nearly dying in hospital and all these calls were being ran up the company weren't interested, saying it was my fault i hadn't yet realised the phone was gone and alerted them... but what kind of world is that? when we are that ignorant to each other's experiences that we couldn't even care less why someone may or may not have reported the phone, if they haven't been able to do so for whatever reason it's their problem? i'm not saying the company should take responsibility, but shouldn't they try their best to help out these people who may not realise for a multitude of reasons?

this is why i totally believe that the customer should be made 100% aware of the policy and the phone company should attempt to prevent victimisation as much as they can, blocking the phone etc