daughters lost phone and big bill

macman

Emy1501 wrote: »

Even at £2 a min your talking about 8 hours worth of calls here. Do you really believe that delays are that long?

I personally find it stage that mobile providers will allow people who I assume are on benefits to be able to run up bills of nearly a £1000 without any real questions.

I highly doubt a judge would accept the provider was reasonable if the OP took the provider to court.

And how do you think the phone company knows who is 'on benefits'? The OP's daughter might have had every reason to phone Korea legitimately. if phone co's started cutting people off every time they made an 'exceptional' call, there would be an outcry. Do you seriously expect the networks to monitor the call patterns of every subscriber?
She failed to SIM lock the phone, and failed to report it for more than 24 hours, despite knowing it was stolen. What did she think was going to happen?

Silk

Ann_S wrote: »

There is a delay receiving data when calls have been made to an overseas destination. The network would not have had all the information and would have been unaware of the unusual activity on the account.

There could also be further charges still pending.

You are getting confused with situations where the phone is used overseas.
There is a delay with the home network receiving charges whilst roaming in another country. In this case the phone has been used in this country not abroad as far as we know

zagfles

macman wrote: »

And how do you think the phone company knows who is 'on benefits'? The OP's daughter might have had every reason to phone Korea legitimately. if phone co's started cutting people off every time they made an 'exceptional' call, there would be an outcry.

Really? Credit cards do it all the time, don't see much of an outcry.

Do you seriously expect the networks to monitor the call patterns of every subscriber?

It can't be that hard. Set some sort of credit limit, eg £100 a month, something that can set by the user but with a sensible default. Cut the phone off (temporarily at least) if the limit is exceeded. Wonder why the networks don't do that? Don't tell me it's impossible or too hard, they manage real-time usage monitoring perfectly well with PAYG - if I have £100 credit on PAYG the phone will be cut off after using £100 worth of calls.

Herongull

Only people who are fabulously wealthy should even consider having a contract phone.

Everyone else should go PAYG. Phones are very cheap to buy outright. PAYG costs nothing if you go for a provider with generous free bundles. You can also use free WiFi to do instant messaging, access internet etc.

Best of all PAYG is minimal risk. The most you can lose is the value of a (cheap) phone and whatever credit is on the phone.

If a contract phone is lost or stolen: huge bills
If a contract phone outside EU: huge bills
Giving a child a contract phone: huge bills and/or the child is put at risk of being mugged for the phone.

MillicentBystander

macman wrote: »

And how do you think the phone company knows who is 'on benefits'? The OP's daughter might have had every reason to phone Korea legitimately. if phone co's started cutting people off every time they made an 'exceptional' call, there would be an outcry. Do you seriously expect the networks to monitor the call patterns of every subscriber?
She failed to SIM lock the phone, and failed to report it for more than 24 hours, despite knowing it was stolen. What did she think was going to happen?

Are you employed in the mobile industry, macman? Because this is basically industry spin. ANY sort of 'unusual' spending on a credit card, for instance, is flagged up immediately and contact is made with the registered owner of the card. You are trying to tell me that a sudden plethora, £1,000 worth of calls to bl**dy Korea of all places shouldn't be flagged up as in any way unusual? Pull the other one.

macman

She passed the credit check...her employment status is not an issue. Maybe she was still employed when she took out the contract. Who knows?
So you think that people on benefits should have their accounts monitored?

MillicentBystander

I'm in no way defending the OP because what they have done is silly but does anyone think the network would get something like this to stand up in court? Not a chance imo. In fact, they wouldn't even want it going to court. I think the best the OP can do is ask for a LARGE reduction in the bill then if that isn't successful take it to the ombudsman and work from there. The mobile industry is such an arrogant one.

Emy1501

macman wrote: »

And how do you think the phone company knows who is 'on benefits'? The OP's daughter might have had every reason to phone Korea legitimately. if phone co's started cutting people off every time they made an 'exceptional' call, there would be an outcry. Do you seriously expect the networks to monitor the call patterns of every subscriber?
She failed to SIM lock the phone, and failed to report it for more than 24 hours, despite knowing it was stolen. What did she think was going to happen?

Do you really believe that anyone who have never phoned Korea before is all of a sudden going to phone and country and run up a bill of £900+.? Banks refuse transactions if they believe the transaction to be suspect. I have had it done to me on a few occasions.

If a mobile provider is going to allow people to run up large bills on credit like this they need to make sure the person in question is likely to be able to pay and they have done all they can to prevent fraudulent activity.

The days of where companies could turn a blind to customers naivety are long gone and highly unlikely your arguement would stand up in court.

The phone should have been blocked once the calls reached over £100+

macman

MillicentBystander wrote: »

Are you employed in the mobile industry, macman? Because this is basically industry spin. ANY sort of 'unusual' spending on a credit card, for instance, is flagged up immediately and contact is made with the registered owner of the card. You are trying to tell me that a sudden plethora, £1,000 worth of calls to bl**dy Korea of all places shouldn't be flagged up as in any way unusual? Pull the other one.

No-but according to another recent post on here, I am employed by the gas and electricity industry as a stooge, so I really wouldn't have the time to represent the mobile industry as well...
I would totally agree with requiring all the networks to allow users to set a monthly spend limit. However for obvious reasons this would have to be done only at the discretion of the user, and be up to them to initiate-not an arbitrary limit imposed by the network. Do you really think that someone who fails to report a known stolen phone or use their SIM lock is going to bother doing that?
I suggest a possible scenario-user has friend or relative on holiday in Korea/Ulan Bator/Karachi. Friend is robbed or taken seriously ill, that requires the user spending hours on phone calls to assist. An unusual usage pattern results, but the usage is still perfectly legitimate. What network is going to arbitrarily disconnect and risk a potential legal action for damages as a result?

Emy1501

MillicentBystander wrote: »

I'm in no way defending the OP because what they have done is silly but does anyone think the network would get something like this to stand up in court? Not a chance imo. In fact, they wouldn't even want it going to court. I think the best the OP can do is ask for a LARGE reduction in the bill then if that isn't successful take it to the ombudsman and work from there. The mobile industry is such an arrogant one.

Of course they wouldn't let it run to court. They are relying on the fact that most will just pay the bill and accept their error.

Its no different to the people who have had large data charges etc.

Yes these people should pay for their errors but the amounts being charged asre in no way reasonable and I suspect a court would see it that way.