Huge T-mobile bill please help

jfgc281

Hi there,

I recently had my phone stolen and on the night it was stolen without my knowledge someone made £530 worth of calls BEFORE I reported it lost/stolen.

I'm an apprentice on a low wage (less in fact in a month then the bill itself), I have high costs of living being from London and really don't know what to do.

I have been offered a 6 month payment plan and that's the only offer I have been given, this entails paying them their money over 6 months (so a £50 deposit followed by monthly payments around the £80 mark) while paying 10 pounds a month on top to go onto their 6 month payment package plan for 150 mins and 300 texts which for one is a rip off.

To put it to scale one 8 second call has cost me £1.50 and there are loads like this. I can't really justify paying that when I earn little over £3 an hour. Does anyone know if there is anything else to do from here, I've tried to kindly ask them if they could reduce the bill at all as honestly it feels ludicrous that they pursue me for this money.

To top it all off they never contacted me to say "hey you've just made 5 and a half hours of calls for £500 quid that doesn't sound right", nor do they forward this onto the police since I have said it is fraudulent calls from my phone.

I guess I could afford the 6 month payment plan (just about) but this option is truly sole destroying given how hard and long I have to work for that sort of money - please any help is much appreciated as the bill is now over a week overdue and I think they may sell it to a debt collectors soon

19lottie82

First off you need to deal with this NOW, as you don't want to trash your credit record for the next six years.

Explain your situation to T-Mobile and ask them if there is anything they can do as a "good will" gesture, but if they have already said no, then you could be stuffed.

If you don't have any luck then I think you'll just have to suck it up and make the monthly payments, because if you don't your credit rating will be trashed and this will bite you in the behind for years to come.

Oh, and next time, get a PAYG or insurance.

Cycrow

19lottie82 wrote: »

Oh, and next time, get a PAYG or insurance.

or pin lock on phone and sim

sourcrates

Try putting in a complaint in writing, be nice, but concise, also address it to the head honcho, not sure who that is but Google is a wonderful tool, explain the situation as clearly as possible emphasising the hardship paying this will cause you, ask for the bill to be waived, or at the very least reduced to a more manageable amount, play on the point that you contacted them to report your phone stolen as soon as you realised it was gone, and that it is unfair for them to expect you to cover there losses for them, given that the abnormally high spend should have started alarm bells ringing, no guarantee of success but it cant hurt, again, send it to the top, bypass customer services as they are useless, good luck with it.

asmwp

Have they provided you with a breakdown of the calls that have been made? Are they by any chance consistently to premium rate numbers? What is your 'normal' phone usage? As the phone was reported stolen you may be able to argue that the calls made are exceptional to your 'normal' usage, in a similar way that a credit card company will block access to your card when an 'abnormal' activity is detected. This is not, as far as I know, a legal stance but may well be a good opening discussion point perhaps?

jfgc281

Hey there,

Thanks, I think I will try righting to head office, and yes all the phone calls were international - I have never called internationally from my mobile in my life.

A pin lock has been put in now to avoid the future problems of this occurring, It's the pure fact that one 8 second call has cost me £1.50 (they have a minimum call charge of 1 min) when I earn little over £3 an hour which is really getting me.

The fact the finance team are telling me there's no reduction is also getting to me, they could at least drop all the charges from calls where its like 1 min 2 secs and they charge me for 2 mins that would help a bit. Or the fact if i go on to their repayment scheme they force me off my contract for 6 months and onto one where they make even more money charging me £10 a month for 150 mins and 300 texts, how can they have the heart to scam me like that after me being scammed... when they offer much better 30 day rolling contracts themselves. Also as the 6 month contract they force me onto if i go with the repayment scheme isn't part of mine I'll be stuck with them for another 6 months after and obviously i want out ASAP

Cycrow

they probably have little power to actually do anything, thats why you need to take it as high as you can.

not only will they have more power, but they are also more willing to do something as a goodwill, as it also makes them look good

lindsloo

[EMAIL="olaf.swantee@ee.co.uk"]olaf.swantee@ee.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Chief Exec for T-mobile

Put a response together and post up here before you email it off. When I made a formal complaint to T-Mobile I found call centre staff very unhelpful and almost rude, I put pen to paper and found complaints dept where brilliant and solved what the call centre refused to.