Stolen phone abroad: CHARGES

RLM_2

I recently had my phone stolen in Barcelona. When I realised that this was the case whilst I was abroad, I tried to contact O2, and had difficulty getting through to block my phone. After numerous attempts, I finally got through on the evening the following day, as soon as I got home, and I was told that my SIM had been blocked, but that they couldn't verify that any calls had been made.

Two days later, when I called to order a new SIM, I was still told that no calls had been made from my phone.

Since then, I have been notified that I now face a bill of over £6,000, and that I am liable to pay for these charges. Obviously, it's evident that the calls were not made by myself, and yet O2 are adamant that I have still have to pay.

I've looked on many forums, and this seems to be a very common problem, and still these phone companies seem to profit from theft.

Please could you advise me asap on what you think I should do next.

Thanks,
RLM

MaggotAJ

£6,000! My God, that is a lot of calls. I think that you need to make a big song and dance about the fact that you were unable to get through to O2 for such a long period of time. Was it their service/lack of that stopped you from being bale to contact them sooner? More information would give us a better idea of the course of action to take. Also, when you were trying to contact them to inform them of the theft, where were you calling from? I am just wondering if it possible to obtain records of the calls you made to strengthen your case? If you believe that it was O2's service that held you up being able to report the theft then I would try to build a case showing that. I would also write a well constructed letter and send it to their high level complaints department. Although I believe that you first have to make a complaint through the normal channels before it can be escalated. If that fails then give the CEO a try: [EMAIL="Matthew.Key@o2.co.uk"]Matthew.Key@o2.co.uk[/EMAIL]

In fact I might be tempted to go straight to the CEO. If you have been a customer for a long time then stress this! Try to be polite but let him know you are upset with the service and annoyed that whilst you were trying in vain to get through to report the theft someone was running up a massive bill on your phone.

grumbler

It is hard to believe and will be very difficult to prove that you did try to contact them for more than 24 hours, but was unable to get through because of their fault.

Also, it would be wise to have your sim protected with the password, especially abroad where it can be that costly for you to have it stolen.

RLM_2

Thanks for the good advice and the helpful link to the CEO. My first call to O2 was treated very insensitively and resulted in them telling me I had no option but to pay the outstanding balance on my current bill. It's obvious that I haven't made these call; according to my bill I have made 300 hours' worth of call in a 24-hour period! How does that figure and how did they not notice such a huge increase in my personal usage? Since then I have been in the process of building a case, showing proof that I did try to contact them from a friend's phone abroad. It looks like I'm going to have to fight this all the way...
Thanks again. It's good to have the support.

gjchester

RLM wrote: »

It's obvious that I haven't made these call; according to my bill I have made 300 hours' worth of call in a 24-hour period! How does that figure and how did they not notice such a huge increase in my personal usage? .

Actually it's not obvious. The reason the mobile companies make it so your liable until they are informed (like credit cards) is otherwise you could run up a huge bill then claim it was stolen to try and avoid having to pay.

Did you get a crime ref no (or whatever they call them in Spain) where it was reported to the police. You may need this to claim on any travel insurance you have.

Check it carefully, it may be the charges were only reported back from the foreign network and applied at a set time, not that you made them in that timeframe.

Worst case is you had it stolen at 12-01 one morning, and realised the next evening, so probably 48 hours max of use.

48*60 = 2880 minutes of calls if used non stop, and with a £6k bill thats £2.08 a minute. Calls from Spain to any non western Europe country cost £1.99 a min ex VAT so the bill looks about right if it was hammered.

I know it's after the horse has bolted but again an example why people NEED to use Phone PINS and SIM locks when travelling. If you had a SIM lock the sim could not have been used without the PIN code and the bill not happened.

RLM wrote: »

Since then I have been in the process of building a case, showing proof that I did try to contact them from a friend's phone abroad. It looks like I'm going to have to fight this all the way...
Thanks again. It's good to have the support.

Good luck but I'm not sure how that will help.

The onus is on you to call them, not try and call them, until you do it's your risk (and laibaility). This is a risk you could have insured against both by phone and travel insurance, and you may or may not have insurance cover in place to cover it.

RLM wrote: »

I've looked on many forums, and this seems to be a very common problem, and still these phone companies seem to profit from theft.

Whilst they make something on the calls the bulk of the cost has to be paid to the foriegn networks who handled the calls. Even if they reduce or write it off to you they still have to pay the foriegn networks charges.

Sorry to be do blunt, but why should the phone companies pay because you didn't secure your phone? Or more accuratly why should other customers have to subsidise the fact you lost your phone and didn't have a PIN on it.

Wintermute

You can report your phone lost/stolen to customer services 24 hours a day, while there may be a queue during the day it is very rarely over 5 minutes long, if you go onto higher level complaints/executive complaints and say you tried to report the phone missing on a certain date at a certain time it'll be a trivial matter for them to look at the call volumes then and say exactly how long the queue was. If you're unable to call or unwilling to you can report it lost / stolen via the o2 site too, but it's not processed 24 hours a day.

As gjchester says no matter what O2 do they still have to pay the foriegn network so they're unlikely to write off the entire amount. I hope you setup a PIN lock on your replacement SIM when you get it.

wantmemoney

I realise this thread is nearly 24 months old but I thought this may be of interest to anyone who has the same problem of criminals using stolen phones to obtain money from Network customers.

RLM wrote:

My first call to O2 was treated very insensitively and resulted in them telling me I had no option but to pay the outstanding balance on my current bill.

Well there is another 'option'.
Customers who find themselves in this situation can dispute the bill and put the ball in the Networks court.

If the Network takes the customer to court to re-claim damages they claim they have suffered because one of their SIM's was stolen from that customer they may have to show they took reasonable steps to limit or prevent those damages.

This is a must read.
Serious Organised Crime and petty criminals have been fraudulently obtaining and stealing (from customers) Network SIM's

http://bswan.org/revenue_share_fraud.asp#.UWC0r6K-pcZ

In essence, carriers are bound by international agreements for roaming and interconnect payments. And as you might expect, the terms of these agreements were made long before IRSF came into existence. The basic GSMA roaming agreement for example, which is bilaterally agreed between two operators says that the originating operator must pay for all calls originating from his network — whether it is fraud or not.

In my view, the operator shouldn’t be paying money when they know that at the end of the payment chain, a percentage of this is going to get into the hands of fraudsters. In my view, this money is the proceeds of crime and payment could constitute money laundering.

To my knowledge not a single Network has taken a customer to court over one of these alleged 'debt's.

oopsadaisydoddle

wantmemoney wrote: »

I realise this thread is nearly 24 months old but I thought this may be of interest to anyone who has the same problem of criminals using stolen phones to obtain money from Network customers.

Well there is another 'option'.
Customers who find themselves in this situation can dispute the bill and put the ball in the Networks court.

If the Network takes the customer to court to re-claim damages they claim they have suffered because one of their SIM's was stolen from that customer they may have to show they took reasonable steps to limit or prevent those damages.

This is a must read.
Serious Organised Crime and petty criminals have been fraudulently obtaining and stealing (from customers) Network SIM's

To my knowledge not a single Network has taken a customer to court over one of these alleged 'debt's.

No - they just trash a customer's credit file by sending it to a DCA.

Buzby

No need for court - unless of course they want to pile on the agony. Anyone that does not PIN lock their SIM and phone is being negligent, as this is free, inbuilt and protects the user. Not using one is the difference between a trashed file and a big bill.

Buzby

wantmemoney wrote: »

To my knowledge not a single Network has taken a customer to court over one of these alleged 'debt's.

Firstly, the debt isn't 'alleged' but a proven fact which will be backed by an Invoice. As for taking a customer to court - why? They will have the expense of pursuit and a minimal risk of losing. However, they have been given the right (by the customer) to default them, so there is all the benefit of a virtual CCJ and no cost/expense/risk.

They now sell on be debt for an agreed rate - the more it is, the more they get for it. They take their profit and move on, perhaps to the next fool who cannot be bothered to protect themselves.

There is no mileage to be taken from inferring that no court action somehow means the demand is unjustified, that would be as big a mistake as not using a PIN lock in the first place!

redux

Some networks do have protective measures such as a credit limit, and ought to and probably do also monitor against use in other types of device such as gateways.