Any Advice in a Desperate Situation

oopsadaisydoddle

I have to say I don't believe at all that they wouldn't deal with your son. When I worked there, ANYONE could report the phone as lost or stolen because you weren't breaking DPA. They couldn't process a claim or order a replacement SIM unless your son had his own password on the account, but they could, most definitely apply a bar to stop calls being made.

oopsadaisydoddle

And there is nothing set to flag up high spending so they wouldn't know. If anything ever gets flagged it is done randomly and this is mainly on new accounts where there is no payment history.

mobilejunkie

On most phones youcan set a security code so it doesn't work unless you put the correct code in when switched on. Similarly, you can set a code on all sims; I do both the minute I get a new contract. If you don't, it's your risk.

Herongull

If the contract was in the OP's name then it is her phone not her son's

She effectively lends the phone to son for his use.

The son appears to be less than responsible. He loses phone, tries to report it to Orange, but when they don't accept a report from him, waits a week before mentioning it to his mother so she get it blocked.

Just as well he didn't wait two weeks or a month - the bill could have been tens of thousands of £:eek:

Why on earth do people give uncapped contract phones to family members who are not mature enough take proper care of them?

This problem keeps recurring on this board and the only solution is never ever let a teen or child have unsupervised access to a contract phone, especially an uncapped one.

If he'd had a PAYG phone, then the maximum loss is the value of the phone and whatever credit was on it.

spokeswoman

oopsadaisydoddle wrote: »

I have to say I don't believe at all that they wouldn't deal with your son. When I worked there, ANYONE could report the phone as lost or stolen because you weren't breaking DPA. They couldn't process a claim or order a replacement SIM unless your son had his own password on the account, but they could, most definitely apply a bar to stop calls being made.

My son went to the Orange shop and was told unequivocally that they could only deal with the account holder which was further backed up by the fact that when he went to activate the sim the staff at Orange phoned me for verification.

in_the_Cotswolds

oopsadaisydoddle wrote: »

When I worked there, ANYONE could report the phone as lost or stolen because you weren't breaking DPA. They couldn't process a claim or order a replacement SIM unless your son had his own password on the account, but they could, most definitely apply a bar to stop calls being made.

Same happened to my daughter. Her phone went missing she borrowed her friends and I reported it stolen/missing for her.

This was O2, at first they didn't want to speak to me because it was my daughters account, but as soon as I said her phone has possibly been stolen they immediately barred it. Their words were "anyone can report a stolen/missing phone".

ZhugeEX

spokeswoman wrote: »

My son went to the Orange shop and was told unequivocally that they could only deal with the account holder which was further backed up by the fact that when he went to activate the sim the staff at Orange phoned me for verification.

Thats the Orange store.

The guys on the phone will accept anyone (and i mean anyone) ringing up and reporting the phone as lost.

The orange store can't give him a sim card for YOUR account. But the customer service can block any phone.

This is entirely your son/your fault for not reporting this ASAP. Don't blame others.

Sorry.

oopsadaisydoddle

spokeswoman wrote: »

My son went to the Orange shop and was told unequivocally that they could only deal with the account holder which was further backed up by the fact that when he went to activate the sim the staff at Orange phoned me for verification.

Like I said, they will not deal with anyone other than the account holder (or third party password holder) for anything other than placing a bar on the account. That is why they checked with you before registering the new SIM.

I worked there for a while and worked in the insurance (amongst others) department. Like I said, as soon as anyone mentioned loss or theft of a phone, a bar went on. No questions asked.

It's not like people phone up and report phones lost or stolen for fun (although there probably will be some than do, I'm sure) - even if that happened, then it is no problem to remove the bar on verification of the account/password holder.

macman

If you son is an adult (student or not), then why is the contract still in your name? If he's not paying the bill, he has not got any incentive to take the most basic security precautions such as as SIM-locking it. What did he think was going to happen to the phone or SIM during that week?
They've offered to halve the bill, so I'd accept that.
At £5 a week it will take nearly 10 years to pay it off, no way will they give you that long. I'd have thought 12m or the length still on the minimum term.

sharp910sh

There is a god?