Am I wrong to fight this?

gjchester

19lottie82 wrote: »

A BB Bold isn't really an "expensive phone" or a target for muggers, when compared to newer, top of the range handsets.

My OH's daughter is 13 and has a Galaxy S2 on contract. She is very mature / sensible and we trust her to have it,!

This isn't in topic but the issue is not her use it's if it's lost or stolen.

Typically phones are stolen to use or sell on. Chances are any thief will just want whatever they can get, not caring exactly what as long as they get something. CEX will pay around £120 for the bold or the s2.

Often a phone is stolen and used to call premium number or international numbers. At anything from 35p for 0844/0845 numbers to £2.10 for premium rate numbers a minute, if a phone goes missing and it's a few hours until it's loss is noticed that could be a big bill that appears.

There are ways to prevent this ie capped contract on some networks to stop overspend or putting a phone and sim PIN so the phone can't be used without a pin nor can the sim be moved into another phone, or PAYG cards but often it's after the event that the person realises.

None of these measures stop the risk of loss or theft, the phone will be gone but they will delay or stop any theft running up a large bill.

19lottie82

Gjchester, yes I'm well aware of that but this doesn't just apply to under 18s you know and also, And we have the relevant insurance in place should this happen. Surely that's just common sense?

And I take it if you report lost stolen phones they will flag up if anyone tries to sell them to these companies?
In terms of the s2 if it is reported lost or stolen to the provider it is locked and instantly unusable hence unsellable

gjchester

19lottie82 wrote: »

Gjchester, yes I'm well aware of that but this doesn't just apply to under 18s you know

Sorry didn't wish to imply it did, A thief won't care who's the handset is. However a grab & run theft is probably easier on a child who may put up less of a defence, or has to put a lock a phone away out of sire for a long period.

19lottie82 wrote: »

And we have the relevant insurance in place should this happen. Surely that's just common sense?

Insurance won't cover theft where reasonable precautions are not taken, but your right it's common sense, unfortunately its sometimes in short supply with many people when it comes to phones. You've thought about it, others have not, how many times do you see young kids with the latest iPhone showing them to all and sundry and inviting a snatch and grab theft?

19lottie82 wrote: »

And I take it if you report lost stolen phones they will flag up if anyone tries to sell them to these companies?

They should, but depends how much effort these companies take, big companies will, but smaller less scrupulous merchants may not care, and in any case it's irrelevant if they are sold overseas as phones are only blocked in the UK.

My point was more you may think it's not expensive or a target phone, but a thief may be seeing it as a pack of fags, bottle of booze or their next fix. They'd take first and think later, not caring if it makes £10 or £100 as long as its gets there next addiction fix.

d123

19lottie82 wrote: »

And I take it if you report lost stolen phones they will flag up if anyone tries to sell them to these companies?
In terms of the s2 if it is reported lost or stolen to the provider it is locked and instantly unusable hence unsellable

If anything (from anecdotal evidence of people in the trade) the whole trade in stolen phones has intensified and become more organised since the unified blocking began.

There are now organised gangs who deal in them on a large scale, they can buy them cheap in the UK (as many perceive them as valueless) and then bulk ship them out, I've heard of it being done to the Indian subcontinent, Turkey and many African countries.

Look on eBay, you'll see all the "no signal" fault phones being offered and even wanted ads for them on sites like Gumtree.