T Mobile - Theft

Pudgenator

Any help on this issue would be appreciated. I have copied and pasted below a draft of a letter I will be sending to T Mobile. Basically, my mobile broadband stick was stolen without my knowledge and used to make phone calls totalling £600 which I am now apparently liable for. The full detail is in the text below - any comments/ideas/similar experience/abuse welcomed. Cheers.



Dear Sirs,

I am writing to express my disapointment in T-Mobile's response to the recent theft of my mobile broadband USB stick. I have called T Mobile on three separate occasions to explain the circumstances surrounding the theft and have been referred only to the following point included in T Mobile's terms and conditions:- 'report your lost or stolen phone right away. Until you notify T-Mobile you're liable for the cost of any services used on your missing handset'.

By way of detail, the mobile broadband stick in question was stolen alongside my flatmates laptop in mid-July. As the stick was not used by myself or my flatmate, neither of us realised this at the time. As it was never used, it was not noticed missing until I received a bill of £105 for the period up until the 20th July. It appears that when stolen, the SIM card was removed from the USB and used to make a number of international calls to Iraq and Pakistan, amongst other places. The additional charges incurred in the period 20th July until the point I reported the stick stolen are £484 (as per my discussions with my T-Mobile colleague). As per your terms and conditions, I am apparently liable for those charges, even though common sense clearly indicates that they were clearly not incurred by myself. I have a police report detailing the date that the theft took place should you wish to see further proof of this.

Under normal circumstances, should I have had my mobile phone knowingly stolen and neglected my responsibility to report it, I would reluctantly accept liablity in accordance with your terms and conditions. However, given the specific circumstances listed below, I cannot accept that I can be held liable for these charges.

• As you may have record of, I previously had a number of discussions with T-Mobile where I expressed my displeasure in the way in which the mobile broadband package was sold to me. I was called by a T-Mobile operator and offered a 'loyalty bonus'. I was informed that my usage of the service would be 'capped', never costing more than £10 and 'would work out about 30p a day if you used it for one day'. As I am sure you will agree, to express something as being 'capped' is grossly misleading in this context, and you can imagine my surprise when having never used the service, I received a bill of £10. At this point I attempted to cancel the service on the grounds I had been mis-sold the service. I was informed that I could cancel should I wish to pay up the remainder of the 24 month contract. I did not opt to take the matter any further and continued with the contract. My annoyance led to me switching my mobile phone operator for the first time.
• I was never made aware at any point of how this product could be used. Whilst it may seem obvious to people in your industry that what I actually had was another phoneline, there should be no assumption that your customers have similar knowledge. As far as I was aware, I had a 'capped' service that allowed me to access mobile broadband, hence my apparent disregard for its value. That this product should then be fraudulently used in a manner I was not aware possible only adds to my annoyance.
• I find it difficult to accept that when T-Mobile sell me a service 'capped' at £10 a month, you would then not notify me/cap the service when the usage has reached approximately 60 times what the normal charges in any given period would be. Not only this, it was being used for a purpose that it was not intended to make international phone calls to countries which I have absolutely no ties. It appears that T-Mobile were more than happy for charges to continue to be incurred in his fashion.

As I am sure you will appreciate, the fact that I am being told that I shall be liable for the full amount of the charges incurred has left me angry and disapointed. I have unknowlingly been the victim of crime that I had no knowledge there was a risk of, all in relation to a service that I still maintain I was deliberately misled into agreeing to purchase. As I have explained, I understand the contractual point which I have been referred to previously. Given my above comments, I cannot accept that it should apply in this case. As such, I have instructed my bank to suspend any further payments to T-Mobile until this matter is resolved, as I will be willing to take the complaint further should you not agree to rescind the charges. I would request that this amount is not passed on to any debt collection agency while these monies are in dispute.
I look forward to receiving your comments in due course.

thatsean

Are they persuing you for charges that were incurred (not just billed) after you reported the theft? If so, they will need to swallow that. Other than that, I'm afraid I don't really see the issue.

The device was stolen, you didn't know - it's not TMobile's fault that you didn't know where the modem was.

Pudgenator

thatsean wrote: »

Are they persuing you for charges that were incurred (not just billed) after you reported the theft? If so, they will need to swallow that. Other than that, I'm afraid I don't really see the issue.

The device was stolen, you didn't know - it's not TMobile's fault that you didn't know where the modem was.

No, only for charges incurred when I didn't know where it was. I don't dispute that, more that I was completely unaware the service I paid for was being used for a different purpose than it was intended. Additionally, the fact they mis-sold something as being 'capped' has now been thrown back in my face when they surely should have intervened.

robt_2

I'm afraid T-Mobile are correct. There would be thousands of people claiming their phones and SIM cards were lost every day if they knew they could make hundreds of pounds worth of calls and then phone up and say it was stolen and not pay a penny! I'm sure you can see this.

Your first two bullet points are neither here nor there, it was up to you to check what you were buying!

As for the third bullet point, your data was capped at £10/month - calls and texts were not. Not very fair I agree - but you ARE liable for the bill. It is not down to T-Mobile to police peoples accounts, or check if every customer knows where their SIM cards are each day.

ruggedtoast

I'm not really getting the t-mobile empathy here. Every time something like this happens most of the posters seem to sympathise with the carrier.

I disagree.

T-Mobile could have, and should have, capped the customers bill. They are quite capable of doing this, as are all the other carriers who refuse to, because they make so much money out of stolen devices.

I think the fact that the data stick was used to make international calls, a function it is not reasonable to assume a customer would be aware of, only adds insult to injury. Unfortunately until pressure is brought to bear on mobile carriers to cap bills then this kind of thing will continue.

In the meantime we have to treat mobile devices like credit cards with unlimited credit amounts and no fraud protection at all.

I sympathise OP, I hope they give you some money off.

boliston

I'm surprised that a data sim can be used for calls. I have tried putting data sims in phones before and have found that they work fine for text and data, but if I try and make a call I get a message saying calls are not allowed.
There is a certain logic here in that a data sim will generally be put in a dongle which can easily be lost or mislaid - they only cost a few quid to buy so people will take less care of them, but people will generally notice the loss of an expensive handset, as most handsets are MUCH more expensive than a cheap dongle.