Being charged 800 quid for fraudulent calls?!?! Help!

shannalicious

Hi I'm asking this on behalf of a friend, she has a pay monthly contract with Orange and has been having trouble for the past few months.
Every few weeks her SIM becomes "Invalid" and when she phones Orange it turns out that someone pretending to be her has called and requested that the number be transferred onto another SIM enabling them to use her contract basically.
Last month it went invalid for a few hours and she thought she'd phoned and had it sorted then a week or so after she got a call from a charity who said she'd donated 5 quid through a text message...she called Orange and they traced this back to the date when her SIM was invalid.
In the past few weeks it's been happening almost every other day and there's calls/texts been made to premium numbers at 10 pounds a time.
There's always been a password on her account which should be asked for everytime she (or whoever) calls up, obviously this hasn't been the case...are they breaching data protection by not asking this?
She's now asked for her contract to be cancelled and is more than willing to pay the remainder of the contract (I think it's 6 months left) but Orange are insistent on billing her for the all the fraudulent activity on her account too. She received a bill today for about 825 pounds, (125 of that is for the remainder of the contract though.)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks!

pc1271

I'm not sure of the legal position, but it sounds to me like Orange are at fault, as they transferred the number to a different SIM without confirming ID properly, and then failing to spot a sudden surge in premium rate calls.

bris

Every time I call cs I have to go through the security checks, sounds like this is close to home.

shannalicious

pc1271 wrote: »

I'm not sure of the legal position, but it sounds to me like Orange are at fault, as they transferred the number to a different SIM without confirming ID properly, and then failing to spot a sudden surge in premium rate calls.

Thank you, exactly what I thought but they're not backing down.

shannalicious

bris wrote: »

Every time I call cs I have to go through the security checks, sounds like this is close to home.

Yeah I'm the same but she hasn't given her password out so don't know how anyone could know it.

patman99

Surely Orange will have a recording of the caller who asked for the number transfer ?.
Also, why did Orange not cancel the SIM & give her a new one along with a new password etc. Smacks of rank incompetence by Orange (although as they are French-owned, that is not a surprise).

Op your friend needs to report this to the Police. It is fraud pure & simple.

shannalicious

patman99 wrote: »

Surely Orange will have a recording of the caller who asked for the number transfer ?.
Also, why did Orange not cancel the SIM & give her a new one along with a new password etc. Smacks of rank incompetence by Orange (although as they are French-owned, that is not a surprise).

Op your friend needs to report this to the Police. It is fraud pure & simple.

I'm not sure if she's legally entitled to recordings but I've gave her a template letter to send to Orange to request the recordings of all the calls. Plus that way she can rule it out being someone she knows and have proof (hopefully) that Orange weren't asking for the password.

She couldn't be bothered with the hassle of getting the police involved before and wanted to resolve things with Orange (she's pregnant and doesn't want to cause anymore stress) but I guess she's not much choice now.

pmduk

shannalicious wrote: »

I'm not sure if she's legally entitled to recordings but I've gave her a template letter to send to Orange to request the recordings of all the calls. Plus that way she can rule it out being someone she knows and have proof (hopefully) that Orange weren't asking for the password.

Either Orange are asserting that she made the call, in which case she is entitled to a copy of the call under the DPA. Their only reason to not provide the recording would be if it was made by someone else, thereby proving her case.

If necessary she can make a subject access request at a cost of £10. Make sure she tells Orange that she'll want that refunded when she's proved them wrong.

pmduk

patman99 wrote: »

Smacks of rank incompetence by Orange (although as they are French-owned, that is not a surprise).

Orange's incompetence and poor customer service dates back to before France Telecom's ownership. They're now part of EE which is 50:50 French/German owned.

shannalicious

pmduk wrote: »

Either Orange are asserting that she made the call, in which case she is entitled to a copy of the call under the DPA. Their only reason to not provide the recording would be if it was made by someone else, thereby proving her case.

If necessary she can make a subject access request at a cost of £10. Make sure she tells Orange that she'll want that refunded when she's proved them wrong.

Brilliant!! I wasn't sure if call recordings would fall under the DPA. It was a template of of subject access request I gave her. Thank you!!

unholyangel

Tbh i'd be pushing for free cancellation due to serious breach by the provider.

Its not like they dont know who this person is, they'll have the details of the account/number he wanted it transferred to. They should also be able to see whether they were registered to the same cell tower or not. They can actually triangulate the position pretty accurately (within a few meters), they just dont like doing this due to the cost involved.

When making your subject access request, also request a copy of the notes on your account. If they have mentioned the problem in the notes then it would help show negligence on their part (thus making it easier to argue against not only the call charges, but the cancellation charge too).

You should also make a complaint that you feel they have breached the DPA (or rather your friend should, you know what i mean ) and if they fail to reply or you arent satisfied with their response, you can then make a complaint to the ICO.