Huge bill on Orange stolen phone.

DarkConvict

The cause of the bill lies with the thief,

The prevention of the bill lies with the customer,

The requirement to provide service lies with the operator,



Thief steal phones, customer tells operator, operator stops the service. This is how it is, and i do not see it changing. Even with big bold letters and warnings, the process is not going to change.
The operator is duty bound to provide a service that is being paid for, remember you don't pay to use credit cards so a company can stop issuing credit at any time, however phone contracts are paid a month in advance.

emily1504

Okay well thanks everyone for your comments. I think my my aim coming on here was to try to get advice from others who have been in my situation who have managed to get their money back, as by searching around on the internet and the news I have established quite a lot of people have been able to, when the phone companies establish their circumstances have prevented them from reporting the phone and they have definitely not made the calls.
Obviously it's turned into a bit of an ethical debate around how phone companies should deal with what is clearly a problematic issue and I guess people will have all sorts of things to say about what is whose responsibility and so on.

Anyway, thanks for all your comments and fingers crossed I manage to sort this out, people on other forums have given me some really good advice so I'm quietly confident

(just to confirm whether I knew about the terms and conditions is really irrelevant considering i was in hospital before i noticed my phone stolen and did actually report it as soon as i knew but because of that it was too late, so in fairness it was a bit out of my control and didn't matter whether i knew the terms or not)

DarkConvict

But you originally said that it was your sons phone that he lost, now you saying that it was you who noticed it was missing, not your son owning up? Some of the advice given was that your son should have acted, so been in hospital is irrelevant. As a university student he is old enough to understand the responsibilities in modern society. We are all different in our up bringing, im 22 and manage the family finances, but i know those who are older that just sit at home and do nothing.

We all do have sympathy for your situation and am glad you have found positive advice from elsewhere. We are just telling you how it is given the number of people we have seen and helped with similar circumstances.

Just be wary of advice, some people will always insist you go out and fight even if there is no hope of winning, so I am sure I speak for everyone and wish you the best of luck and report back telling us how it went on. And also be wary that the advice given does apply to your circumstances, we all make guesses on what will happen given similar experiences. I've seen people ring orange to bar international calls or report the phone stolen, yet calls still got made, in that case orange was to blame, from after the point of which the call was made.

My belief will be orange will give a goodwill gesture by reducing to cost price (orange still make a loss due to inflation), but you will still have over £1000 to pay back. Simple because the operator will state the security of the SIM is your responsibility and they will not take responsibility for a loss, due to events out of their control, as they can't act until someone tells them about it.

robt_2

DarkConvict wrote: »

But you originally said that it was your sons phone that he lost, now you saying that it was you who noticed it was missing, not your son owning up? Some of the advice given was that your son should have acted, so been in hospital is irrelevant.

No, emily isn't the OP.

gjchester

emily1504 wrote: »

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

You were camping in the first post when you said you lost the phone.

If your in hospital you should not have the phone on, it should be off, and in that case the pin lock will be active on power on.

We're not without sympathy but there are a lot of people who are new posters who want to know how they can get out of paying for something, be it calls made, or a contract they took you. We have your side and nothing more.

My prior comment about reading the small print wasn't meant to be nasty, most people don't read small print but it's abundantly clear (this is from Vodafone). Usually people are in such a rush to sign up for a phone they don't read T&C's.

6. Loss of your mobile device
If your SIM card/Mobile Device is lost or stolen you must tell us as soon as possible so that we can prevent further use being made from it. You must pay for all Charges incurred until you tell us and you must continue to pay the line rental charges until this Agreement has ended as described in clause 2 or clause 11.

It could not be any clearer. Yes you were unlucky that someone abused it, but thats just it unlucky.

You can try contacting the network, they may give you a good will gesture, but the end of the day regardless of how it happened someone has to pay for the calls, the mobile co will have to pay the terminating network they went to, it's not, as you seem to think, just profit for them.

If you don't pay the bill, then it will be subsidised by other customers and all our bills go up to some degree.

ruggedtoast

This thread is totally derailed. The OPs point was that carriers should block phones after theyve run up a certain bill. They are quite capable of doing this and some have done in the past. They just don't want to.

Jon_01

emily1504 wrote: »

just to confirm, when i refer to cover in the case of the debit card, i mean some kind of insurance the company has (i've never had any insurance on my cards but i have still been covered, so it's theirs not mine)

On the surface an insurance 'sounds' like a good idea, but all that would happen is it would be abused. People even now try it on, there's be so many claims that after a month whichever insurance company that was underwriting it would either close it or make the premiums so high no network could afford it.

In it's most basic, you can't trust some people. If they can get away with something for free they will and that creates problems for everyone else. . . (but I do see people at their worst !).

emily1504

DarkConvict wrote: »

But you originally said that it was your sons phone that he lost, now you saying that it was you who noticed it was missing, not your son owning up? Some of the advice given was that your son should have acted, so been in hospital is irrelevant. As a university student he is old enough to understand the responsibilities in modern society. We are all different in our up bringing, im 22 and manage the family finances, but i know those who are older that just sit at home and do nothing.

Sorry i wasn't the one with the son. My phone was stolen/lost but I became very ill before realising and had to have an emergency operation, it was then quite a while before i came around from this and realised it was gone.

emily1504

gjchester wrote: »

You were camping in the first post when you said you lost the phone.

If your in hospital you should not have the phone on, it should be off, and in that case the pin lock will be active on power on.

Sorry that is what I said in my first post, I was camping when I became very ill. The last I knew before I became ill was that I had my phone because I ran an ambulance from it. Obviously some time in between this and me having my operation etc in hospital the phone managed to get stolen/lost and these calls made.

emily1504

We're not without sympathy but there are a lot of people who are new posters who want to know how they can get out of paying for something, be it calls made, or a contract they took you. We have your side and nothing more.

I am not just trying to 'get out of paying' I am also looking for people's views for how this complicated issue should be tackled. I know that there are definitely ppl that just can't be bothered to report it and then complain when the bill comes through, so I understand the hostility. But all I am saying is that in my situation I was not reasonably able to do that and I was just trying to address the fact that the mobile companies don't consider these things, e.g. by p[utting a block etc