Call charges on lost mobile phone

DUTR

JODEKETI wrote: »

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.

The only thing I can suggest is to pay up and shut up, give your lad a clip around the ear for being careless, and put all of this sorry episode down to experience, the consequences from a poor credit history may far outweigh the £700 they are asking.

MrRincewind

i think the best plan would be to bring in a method, where people call to cancel their phones as soon as they think they have left them at peoples houses or think they have lost them (but may turn up later). Oh wait, they do have that method already, but people don`t bother to do it.

i`d much rather have a pin on my phone & sim, so i know only i can use it or someone i give the pin to, rather than be in desperate need to use my phone abroad etc, but unable to, because i`m waiting for the network to call me to check its me using the phone.

These cases that pop on here are mostly people who sit around waiting for the phone to turn up, then complain when its been used to vote on Chinas got talent or for someone to ring their Uncle in India etc.

JODEKETI

My Thanks to everyone who took the time and trouble to reply to my question.

3400581

Does anyone have a view as to whether or not these charges applied by the Mobiles Companies are legal? They apply call charges at their standard rate for whichever country is called as opposed to their actual losses but we all know that they actually buy their airtime in packages at a fraction of that cost. As these calls are as a result of an act of theft if the Mobile companies apply a profit element to these calls they are actually intentionally profiteering from criminal activity. Are they therefore liable to prosecution for theft themselves? How can I ask the CPS to review this?

Jon_01

If you report your phone lost then you'll get no charges. The network will block the sim and that's that.

The T&C's clearly stated that you're liable for all cost until you report the phone lost, it's not hard to avoid a lost phone costing you anything.

The CPS has no remit to cover contracts or interfere in contract law.

gjchester

3400581 wrote: »

Does anyone have a view as to whether or not these charges applied by the Mobiles Companies are legal? They apply call charges at their standard rate for whichever country is called as opposed to their actual losses but we all know that they actually buy their airtime in packages at a fraction of that cost. As these calls are as a result of an act of theft if the Mobile companies apply a profit element to these calls they are actually intentionally profiteering from criminal activity. Are they therefore liable to prosecution for theft themselves? How can I ask the CPS to review this?

HUH?

Once the phone is reported as stolen then it's blocked and the network bears the charges, until then how do they know if it's a stolen phone or you calling a foreign county.

Untill the theft is notified how can anyone exect to know the phones been stolen. They may be acidentally profiteering from a criminal action but not intentiaonally.