please help!! Lost phone

melb

Bought my son a phone at beginning of Dec for his birthday - guess what he's lost it or had it stolen already. We thought about getting insurance when we bought it but it was 5 or 6 pounds from the shop - Carphone Warehouse and I searched on here for advice and the concensus of opinion seemed to be don't bother. it is a Sony Ericson on a contract with T-Mobile whereby we pay £15 a month and then no more credit. The thing is what to do for the best now. I don't think it will turn up as he's 12 and probably some little scroat (sp) at school has nicked it. Carphonewarehouse say you can take out insurance with them within 28 days of buying it which we could therefore it would cost us 12 x 5 which is effectively £60 to get a replacement phone. Has anyone got any ideas of what would be the best thing to do. I knew this would happen ... we only got him it as he walks home from school and thought hi might need it in an emergency!

espresso

Giving a twelve year old a contract phone! why not a PAYG? Have you reported this to T-Mobile?

simpywimpy

You could always get a cheap replacement for £10 from TJ Hughes for emergencies in the meantime. Whether taking the insurance now is worth it depends on the cost of the phone?

Make sure you put a stop on the phone and disable it from t mobile but if you are going to take the insurance, sort that out first before you report it as missing. You will need a crime reference from the police station as well

melb

Thank you very much for your replies. We considered PAYG but thought £15 per month wasn't out of the way top pay for calls. I just wanted to get him a bog-standard one with no gimmicks (ie not very coveted) but he had in mind exactly what he wanted which was a Sony Ericson W10i which was free with this contract. My partner is going to block the calls but at least (presumably) this couldn't go beyond £15 for this month and apparently it was running out of credit anyway - btw he's made virtually no calls but has downloaded music and used the video at this birthday party and recorded bits of football when he went to watch West Ham - does this run down credit. I hadn't thought of notifying the police. Thanks - any more tips gratefully received.

chris_spackman

I urge you to report the loss to the police and T-mobile. I would aslo advise you to contact your home insurer and see what cover you have in respect of contents cover. The excess may be lower than arranging any cover through the carphone w h. The video and picture he took on the phone will not cost anything. You only pay for videos and pictures if they are downloaded from the t-mobile website from his phone.
When you do get a new phone try these tips.
Ask t-mobile to block international calls.
When he takes any pictures or videos save them on your pc/laptop
Back all his numbers up too. I have done this to my pc so if the phone is lost/stolen i still have everything.

rainbowtrout

First thing to do is to get the old handset barred. do this even if for some reason you still have the SIM (which you probably won't). This will make it much harder for the thief to run up large bills on it. Tell T-mobile to do this straight away and send out a new sim.
Sorry to hear that, I don't think there's anything you can do now except get a new cheap phone (Ebay is quite good for getting unlocked phones cheaply). 60pounds insurance is not worth the money, you can get a good secondhand phone for much less than that.
Taking videos and pictures cost no money, but most (legal) downloads of music, ringtones, wallpaper should cost money (unless he downloaded from computer to his phone, which is different)
I've never trusted these capped contracts as carphonewarehouse messed them up big time a few years ago when parents thought they were on a capped contract in fact had thousands of pounds run up on the handset.

melb

Thanks for your replies. We've put on a stop with T-Mobile - apparently only 2 call attempts were made last night between 8 and 9 pm - neither were successful. I don't know if that means there was no remaining credit or if the other person simply didn't answer the phone. They've given us the numbers that were called (both mobile nos) so, if the phone hasn't been handed in at school (where we're sure it was lost/taken) we're going to ring the police tonight and give them the 2 numbers to see if they might take some action to find out who called them (a long shot I know). I don't understand how we can buy a cheap second-hand phone (although that's all he's getting from now on) because presumably it will have to fit in with our current contract with T-mobile? Excuse my ignorance I don't have amobile myself and don't really understand the workings.

Edinburghlass_2

You need to ask if T-mobile will give you a new sim card linked to your contract with the same number then you should be able to buy any cheap T-mobile and put the sim card into the new one. Alternatively you can buy a cheap Nokia that can be unlocked easily to any network and use the T-mobile sim in that. Probably no need to buy a second hand phone as you can pick up cheap mobiles in any supermarket now, may not have much street cred though

melb

I wouldn't be so presumptuous to think that anybody was worrying about my predicament but am posting this to say thanks to those who took the trouble to reply. guess what? Apparently when my son put his coat on at approx 7.40 am to go to school this morning he felt his phone in his coat pocket - didn't say anything to us - didn't ask to borrow a mobile at school or use the pay-phone to let us know he'd found it, but casually mentioned it when he phoned from a mate's house at 4.30 to see what time to come home for tea. he's 12 - say no more? I'm so relieved as I've been upset and angry all day at the thought of someone having nicked it.

chris_spackman

.......what to do if it is lost or stolen in the future.

rainbowtrout

LOL...did you phone tmobile to debarr it? (Can you even do that btw?)