Stolen Orange UK SIM Card - Orange UK expect me to pay them for the costs

Noely

Dear MSE readers, I am posting this to see what advice you might have on this issue and also to make you aware of the practices that Orange have in the case of a stolen SIM (not phone).

I'll give a summary of what has happened:

1. I am from the Uk but moved to Botswana in January 2011.

2. I had an Orange UK SIM card that had roaming capabilities for use when I travel.

3. In early May this year, I recieved a letter to my uk address from Orange UK saying that I owe them over £6,000.

4. On investigating this, I realised that someone had stolen my UK SIM card from my house in Botswana and had since March this year rung up the bill of over £6,000

5. The police in Botswana were immediatley notified and their investigation led to arresting a 20 year old local boy.

6. Orange UK were notified of this but have clearly told me that I am liable for the costs incurred that happened in the period of two months that I was unaware my phone was being used by someone. I have my own local SIM card here in Botswana.

7. After several weeks of emails back and forth to them, they have offered that I only pay half the amount. I myself do not wish to pay a penny as I am innocent in this matter. I have constantly in my communication with Orange remnded them that because of their lack of fraudulent systems/limit of usage , the fact that my monthy average use prior to my SIM being stolen was £50 (over two years) and in the 2 months that this was being used by the criminal went up to over £2,000 a month has meant that I am in the current predicament of possibly having to pay back Orange the money they are requesting me to pay. The 20 year old criminal comes from a destitute family and will take several years before he manages to pay this back. Orange require the £3000 to be paid within a year.

8. The British high commission here in Botswana have been unable to help me and Orange Botswana cannot do anything about this as they say the juristiction is with Orange UK at the moment.

I myself am now at that point where I feel I have hit a small wall and would like to know if anyone has any advice or know of a similar case whereby I can try and take additional actions to get Orange to write off this debt that is currently in my name. I have lodged this issue with Consumer Direct and am about to write to CISAS the ajudication scheme that has Orange as one of its communication companies listed.

I have been the victim of identity theft as well this year with my bank account being used by someone else, but thankfully Lloyds TSB were very quick to deal with the matter as well as the other companies involved and it was resolved within a matter of weeks. This situation with Orange however is not going anywhere after a number of months and has left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth when Orange is mentioned. Your help is appreciated.

I know that if I don't pay, I will have a bad debt on my name and this could be written off after 6 years of returning back to the uk but the point here is that Orange have done nothing to improve their own systems and help customers like other service providers (e.g Banks) and on reading previous similar experiences of ex-orange customers this has been the case since 2008, so nothing has changed in the past 3-4 years and the customer is being made to be the bad guy. It's not acceptable and I am making people aware of Orange's practices in this matter.

custardy

Noely wrote: »

I myself do not wish to pay a penny as I am innocent in this matter.

who was responsible for the care of the SIM?

Noely

Custardy, It was my SIM card but it's not that simple. It is a very small thing to keep notice of and the address it is regestered to in the UK recieved nothing in the form of a letter informing me of the useage in the first month. The only time I realised what was going on was when Orange tried to extract the full amount owed from my UK Bank account. You might be missing the point here, this post is to ensure people are aware of what could happen to them in a similar situation.

custardy

Noely wrote: »

Custardy, It was my SIM card but it's not that simple. It is a very small thing to keep notice of and the address it is regestered to in the UK recieved nothing in the form of a letter informing me of the useage in the first month. The only time I realised what was going on was when Orange tried to extract the full amount owed from my UK Bank account. You might be missing the point here, this post is to ensure people are aware of what could happen to them in a similar situation.

this sort of thing is posted regularly
so why didnt you know about it?
fact is folks need to treat a sim card as access to their account

Guys_Dad

Noely wrote: »

Custardy, It was my SIM card but it's not that simple. It is a very small thing to keep notice of and the address it is regestered to in the UK recieved nothing in the form of a letter informing me of the useage in the first month. The only time I realised what was going on was when Orange tried to extract the full amount owed from my UK Bank account. You might be missing the point here, this post is to ensure people are aware of what could happen to them in a similar situation.

First of all, I want to sympathise with your situation. I would hate to be in that position myself.

However, you made a really silly mistake in not protecting your sim. Mobile networks and phone manufacturers provide sim, pin and phone locks that you can easily set to prevent misuse. It seems that you didn't do that. By simply putting a code on your sim, every time any phone that had that sim in it was switched on, it would ask for a pin number. After 3 wrong attempts, the sim would have been locked.

All networks clearly state that you are responsible for all calls until you notify them of a theft. Now I appreciate in your case you were unaware of the theft, but it is really your fundamental error of not protecting your sim from misuse that has allowed the thief to perpetrate the theft and running up the bill.

Keep on trying to beat Orange down to a lower figure by all means, but please don't count on it being zero.

Edit:- It was considerate of you to warn other MSE members of this danger. Regrettably, the forum has many similar posts of people who have had their phones stolen and are facing big bills. Some have been more successful than others in getting reductions, so do read through other similar threads.

Techhead_2

Noely, the best you can hope for is a reduction. Which you gave already been offered.

This may sound harsh, but the situation is your responsibility for not keeping care of your SIM, not checking your bill, not using SIM security and taking abroad a 'live' SIM you don't use.

spetewu

Unfortunately, I don't think you have much choice here. You may wish to dispute/complain but I think the chances are small. They made an offer for a reduction, which you may wish to haggle down further.

Whatever you decision is, act fast otherwise they will refer it to the debt collector (that's the only thing they are really good at) which would have negative impact on your credit score.

gjchester

Noely wrote: »

I know that if I don't pay, I will have a bad debt on my name and this could be written off after 6 years of returning back to the uk but the point here is that Orange have done nothing to improve their own systems and help customers like other service providers (e.g Banks) and on reading previous similar experiences of ex-orange customers this has been the case since 2008, so nothing has changed in the past 3-4 years and the customer is being made to be the bad guy. It's not acceptable and I am making people aware of Orange's practices in this matter.

Unfortunalty you are liable for all charges until the card is reported as stolen, this is the same on all UK networks. This is done as otherwise someone could run up charges they don't like then claim they had the card stolen, hence the need to report it.

Orange would not know if the card has been stolen or if you were making these calls, as it's not been reported they would assume you still had possestion of it.

There are simple precautions you can take such as a SIM lock that requires you to enter a 4 digit code to unlock and use the SIM, I would assume you have not put that in place,

Sorry this is not better news but you are responsible for the card and it's use up to the time it's reported as stolen.

[Deleted User]

Noely wrote: »

The 20 year old criminal comes from a destitute family and will take several years before he manages to pay this back.

Can't be that destitute, he obviously had a phone to use the sim card in if he only stole the sim from you?

wantmemoney

as per usual all the forum corporate groupies are focusing on the customers responsibility for the SIM and ignoring the Networks responsibility for monitoring and protecting the account that they have loaded with unlimited credit.

Techhead_2

wantmemoney, Its the old disagreement between nanny state and personal responsibility.


Edit, by the way its not unlimited credit. You are assessed for how big a bill they will let you run up. Add in the non-live nature of roaming and someone who doesn't check their bills or notice a bounced direct debit and you can see how a £000 total builds up.