Call charges on lost mobile phone

JODEKETI

Hi,

I hope someone can help me on this.

My son had an orange contract phone, in my name as it was a present to him at Christmas.

In mid July he couldn't find the phone and thought it had been left at a friends, when he couldn't find it there we decided it was lost and I reported it to Orange.

When the next bill arrived it had over £700.00 worth of calls to Morrocco and other places made over the week-end before I reported it missing.

I telephoned orange and was told the only thing to do was cancel the direct debit and wait for Orange Collections to contact me.

Almost two months later they contacted me and asked how I wanted to pay the bill, I explained what had happened and asked if there was anything they could do as I hadn't made the calls to Morrocco and didn't intend to take liability for them.

I spoke to a manager who insisted that I was liable and that I would have to pay. I asked if I could appeal to anyone and was given an address for the Correspondence Department.

I wrote to them two weeks ago, have not received a reply as yet but on Saturday I received a letter from Northern Debt Recovery demanding payment within seven days.

Can anyone give me any advice please.

Jon_01

You could try to appeal to them for a goodwill gesture, they may reduce it a bit. It's going to be harder now its got to an agency though.

But it states in your T&C's that you are liable for all calls made until you report the handset lost/stolen. So they have every right to peruse you for the outstanding I'm afraid...

nickmack

JODEKETI wrote: »

I telephoned orange and was told the only thing to do was cancel the direct debit and wait for Orange Collections to contact me.

Canceling your Direct Debit and not paying the bill is a sure fire way to get it passed to Debt Collectors. This seems to be spectacularly bad advice from Orange CS.

Almost two months later they contacted me and asked how I wanted to pay the bill, I explained what had happened and asked if there was anything they could do as I hadn't made the calls to Morrocco and didn't intend to take liability for them.

I spoke to a manager who insisted that I was liable and that I would have to pay. I asked if I could appeal to anyone and was given an address for the Correspondence Department.

He is correct, I'm afraid the actual issue of liability is firmly with you until it's reported stolen. Even an insurance policy wouldn't have paid out unless it was reported. Some people have had the bill reduced on appeal, but don't bank on it.

Albeit too late in your case, you should always have device PIN protection on contract phones and set it to lock after a short period of time, this buys you time to report the device lost/stolen or find it down the back of the sofa, vastly reducing the risk of expensive bills being rung up. Nearly all devices have this feature and it shouldn't be difficult to configure. Also as important, is to implement a SIM PIN so the card can't be taken out and used in another phone.

Hauptmann

Its about time the cellphone companies took some action to reduce the level of airtime usage on stolen phones. There are two things they could easily do:

1. Put a credit limit on the airtime. The Three network already do this. Once you hit the credit limit (say £100) then you have to contact Three to raise it. They do an ID check at that point.
2. Use software to detect unusual usage patterns. Energy companies already do this (to help detect fraud), as do credit card companies. The software flags unusual usage and the company contacts you to veryify your identity. A telephone account suddenly going from short domestic calls to lenghty international calls would raise a flag. Its not difficult to implement.

gjchester

Hauptmann wrote: »

Its about time the cellphone companies took some action to reduce the level of airtime usage on stolen phones. There are two things they could easily do:

1. Put a credit limit on the airtime. The Three network already do this. Once you hit the credit limit (say £100) then you have to contact Three to raise it. They do an ID check at that point.
2. Use software to detect unusual usage patterns. Energy companies already do this (to help detect fraud), as do credit card companies. The software flags unusual usage and the company contacts you to veryify your identity. A telephone account suddenly going from short domestic calls to lenghty international calls would raise a flag. Its not difficult to implement.

One problem.

One people will get the hump with it and st the limit high, this problem really only affect a few people. If you think the phone is lost call the provider and get it temporarily blocked.

If this came in then what happens with phones where they are given to a child. Said child runs up £100 bill and Mum/Dad can't contact him not cna he phone them. They'll scream blue murder at the phone company, phone compnay will be natianally pillarised and the system will be quickly removed.

As has been said, put a PIN on your phone and Sim, set it to Auto lock. Not foolproof but will stop most people long enough to get the sim cancelled.

The UK can be a nanny state at times, but this is taking it too far, people need to take responsibility for there posessions and stop expecting someone to hand hold them through life, especially when there are methods in place (pin no's) to prevent this, people are jsut too lazy to set them up and use them.

nickmack

Hauptmann wrote: »

2. Use software to detect unusual usage patterns. Energy companies already do this (to help detect fraud), as do credit card companies. The software flags unusual usage and the company contacts you to veryify your identity. A telephone account suddenly going from short domestic calls to lenghty international calls would raise a flag. Its not difficult to implement.

The account holder can block all international calls and premium rate numbers themselves if they're not used.

The problem implementing software to do this, is it risks alot of frustration when patterns genuinely change.

Imagine you move house or jobs, use your phone much more or start making calls you never used to and your phone suddenly gets blocked. Such a system is never going to be perfect and as I said before there are other easier ways to help protect yourself.

Not having PIN protection on your lost phone is comparable to leaving your car in a public place with the keys in.

Hauptmann

gjchester wrote: »

One problem.


If this came in then what happens with phones where they are given to a child. Said child runs up £100 bill and Mum/Dad can't contact him not cna he phone them. They'll scream blue murder at the phone company, phone compnay will be natianally pillarised and the system will be quickly removed.

The Three network have had this system since inception and they've not been 'nationally pilloried', nor has the system been removed. In fact many people (myself included) see it as a valuable feature and its one of the reasons I use Three for the children's phones. In a real emergency they can still make calls to police etc. And of course I can still call them (incoming calls are not inhibited).

Hauptmann

nickmack wrote: »

The problem implementing software to do this, is it risks alot of frustration when patterns genuinely change.

Imagine you move house or jobs, use your phone much more or start making calls you never used to and your phone suddenly gets blocked. Such a system is never going to be perfect and as I said before there are other easier ways to help protect yourself.

The phone doesn't get 'blocked'. They call you and do a quick ID check. Similar systems operate in other countries and don't seem to cause a problem. Remember we are talking about the sudden gross increase in airtime use (e.g. an average customer spending £30 month suddenly spends £100 in one day).
Billing pattern monitoring is routinely used in many industries (e.g. in the electricity companies for revenue protection - something I worked on in the past).

gjchester

Hauptmann wrote: »

The Three network have had this system since inception and they've not been 'nationally pilloried', nor has the system been removed. In fact many people (myself included) see it as a valuable feature and its one of the reasons I use Three for the children's phones. In a real emergency they can still make calls to police etc. And of course I can still call them (incoming calls are not inhibited).

Three also state it's not to be relied on and if you go over this they will still charge you. The same problem applies though.

If you go to say France and make calls you can easily run up a bill over this £100 limit before the system updates later on that day or night to send billing data back to Three. Now if you've made £200 worth of calls what happens? Would Three say, Sorry we let you go over we'll take the hit, or will they charge you £200.

You'll have a £200 bill regardless of your limit.

Hauptmann

gjchester wrote: »

Three also state it's not to be relied on and if you go over this they will still charge you. The same problem applies though.

If you go to say France and make calls you can easily run up a bill over this £100 limit before the system updates later on that day or night to send billing data back to Three. Now if you've made £200 worth of calls what happens? Would Three say, Sorry we let you go over we'll take the hit, or will they charge you £200.

You'll have a £200 bill regardless of your limit.

Its true that its not a perfect system, but I would still rather have it than not. I suspect that most stolen mobiles are used (at least initially) to make international calls from the UK and these would be picked up reasonably quickly by Three. You certainly wouldn't be in the situation where a phone was used for several days and a four-figure bill racked up.

drbesty

The cost to implement such a system would be huge, then you'd have to pay staff to monitor it, make the outbound calls etc, who would pay for this? We all would with higher mobile bills, the phone and how its used is the owners responsibility and it shouldn't be down to any mobile network to police usage