Sim used

Cat_Loving_Lady

My Mom who is in her 70's threw an unused mobile in the bin 2 weeks ago. She had forgot all about it thinking it was a smiple PAYG. Unfortunately she had left the sim in and no lock code.

Yesterday she had a text on her other mobile saying she had high usage and she contacted ee who tole her that the phone has been used in the last 2 weeks to call Romania and the bill is £1300. They told her as she threw the mobile away she is liable.
Is there anything we can do for her ? Obviously it can't have been a PAYG and she was mistaken.
It is theft however you look at it.
I have 2 questions firsty why did ee allow the bill to become so excessive without any warning until yesterday (surely this must have exceeded a credit limit) and secondly I thought you had to call ee to allow international calls. This was a phone she had never used so she hadn't done this.
Any help would be appreciated, she's very upset and not very tech savvy.
You don't expect people to rummage through your bins or on refuse sites.

keith1950

What you have to remember is that where a call goes through a foreign network EE have to pay the network for that usage.
Please don't try to divert blame by suggesting EE should have been monitoring the account. Your best hope is to ( very nicely) ask EE for a goodwill gesture but be prepared to pay at least half the bill.

Cat_Loving_Lady

Hi wasn't trying to blame ee just suggesting that I thought most contracts had a credit limit which should have triggered an alert earlier.

grumbler

>> £100 cap announced for mobile phone theft victims

Cat_Loving_Lady wrote: »

Hi wasn't trying to blame ee just suggesting that I thought most contracts had a credit limit which should have triggered an alert earlier.

So called (soft) "credit limits", unlike hard "caps", are in place to protect the providers, not customers. They work like credit card limits that can be easily exceeded.

It is theft however you look at it.

I don't see how this can be "theft" if she simply threw it away, but if she hasn't reported it as lost yet, she can report it as stolen.

And no, you don't have to call your provider to enable calls abroad. Possibly, you can call and disable them if you wish.

And, unless your mother has some mental problems, in her 70s she still has to be able to check her bank statements and to notice a monthly charge for a pay monthly sim instead of thinking that it's PAYG.

Cat_Loving_Lady

When I said theft I meant finding a phone and using it to call abroad. To me that is theft you are knowingly running someone elses bill up. If you find a lottery ticket and claim the winnings that is classed as theft. Same here I feel.
She does not have mental problems but has a terminally ill husband so has other priorities and he has always handled all financial issues. As she has another ee mobile she could have simply confused the two.

grumbler

Cat_Loving_Lady wrote: »

When I said theft I meant finding a phone and using it to call abroad. To me that is theft you are knowingly running someone elses bill up.

I disagree.

I throw away my wallet with £100. Someone finds it and spends money. Is it theft?

I throw away my PAYG phone with £100 credit. Someone picks it up and uses the credit. Is it theft?

I throw away my contract phone....

Cat_Loving_Lady

All of the above are certainly dishonest.

You find someones debit card and use it...is that theft ? I think banks may feel it is, certainly fraudulent. Spending money that is not yours from someones account is theft plain and simple.

J_B

Cat_Loving_Lady wrote: »

All of the above are certainly dishonest.

You find someones debit card and use it...is that theft ? I think banks may feel it is, certainly fraudulent. Spending money that is not yours from someones account is theft plain and simple.

I'm sure that it's certainly dishonest to the likes of you and me and therefore theft.
However in the eyes of the law ..........

System

Unless it's roaming, its largely just termination charges which will be a fraction of the billed rate.

Their standard charge is £1 per minute - their strange (free) opt in reduces this to 5p or 15p per minute. At the very least, I'd expect them to reduce the charges to the opt in rates.

keith1950 wrote: »

What you have to remember is that where a call goes through a foreign network EE have to pay the network for that usage.
Please don't try to divert blame by suggesting EE should have been monitoring the account. Your best hope is to ( very nicely) ask EE for a goodwill gesture but be prepared to pay at least half the bill.

macman

To state the obvious, setting a PIN lock on the SIM would have prevented this.
In the case of loss of handset, the account holder is responsible for any charges run up, fraudulent or otherwise, until the loss is reported. Theft is not the issue.