Stolen Mobile Phone

eliza2811

Hi,

Yes they are still active on Ebay but don't sell anything on a regular basis. I have a name, email address, their work address and work phone number.

Checkmend shows Everblocked and Stolen. Evidentially it is up to mobile network providers to provide information to Checkmend to update the database.

It is/was a sim free phone and worked on all networks. It was like that when I got it.

Nationwide won't do anything to help purely because it's a stolen item. I will taking advice from the Citizen's Advice Bureau next week about the whole thing. And the police are already aware of it but were sure I could just claim the money back from the seller via Chargeback.

Thanks for your help everyone.

eliza2811

Oh forgot to say that the police have it and now the original owner's (not the guy i got it off) insurance company have the phone so I won't be getting it back. I suspect it was an insurance scam somehow.

dj1471

There's a time limit of 120 days for chargeback. Nationwide have fobbed you off (stolen could come under a few of the different chargeback reasons), but it's a non-starter anyway.

Your best bet is to contact the seller and ask for your money back. If needs be you can commence small claims action using the work address with prior permission from the court (obviously check that they still work there first and send a letter before action).

eliza2811

There's an overall time limit of 540 days from date of purchase.

[Deleted User]

As you don't appear to want to take advice and simply counter any suggestions, I'll leave you to it.

eliza2811

Sorry to offend but if I purchased from a business seller, I would do that. Approach them directly. I already let the private seller I purchased it off know that it was a stolen item, and he treated it as a joke or scam.

Silver-Surfer_2

eliza2811 wrote: »

Oh forgot to say that the police have it and now the original owner's (not the guy i got it off) insurance company have the phone so I won't be getting it back. I suspect it was an insurance scam somehow.

So have you been interviewed by the police about being in possession of stolen property?

eliza2811

It had to be handed to the police as stolen goods. I was asked by the Metropolitan police how I'd got it.

[Deleted User]

I realise this isn't a lot of help but trying to save money by buying a phone from ebay contains risks of this scenario happening. Its just one of those things. You can't prove ownership before buying very easily and as you say, it could have been an insurance scam and of course its very difficult to show fraud or theft and who is the guilty party. You were probably lucky to get 11 months use out of it. Using ebay for this kind of product is a no no.

But hopefully you won't do this again.

robatwork

The original owner has the phone which is OK.
The seller has your money which isn't OK.
This isn't the bank's fault or the owner's or yours. It's the seller's.
So that's who you should be going after - the police won't do anything, unfortunately. So commence a small claim:

https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim-online