Page 1 of Mobile blues :-(

Hiya..
Just wanted to share with you all what`s happened today....
On 2/6/2003, my mobile (which my eldest lad had borrowed) went missing (The phone was on contract,through cellular opps)...None of us realised the phone was not in the house (i thought he had it,he thought i had it etc etc...).we now know that the phone was either lost or stolen at about 6:30 on 2/6/03,but phoned the company to block the phone at 15:55 on the 3/6/03...
We`ve had the bill today....(itemised)
The scum who had taken or found the phone started at 19:29...was continually on it untill 3:30! in the morning (loads of long numbers..chatlines?) and loads of other mobiles.
Now,bear in mind,over the last 12 months,my bill has never been over £30.....The bill i recieved today was for £331.66!!!
Cellular opps won`t budge (they say because we left it too late to stop the phone...but come on...how many of us have not realised straight away when something is missing...Vodaphone don`t want to know...But the police are saying that they are treating it as theft..(they`re say something about obtaining calls by deception)).
So..If you think you`ve had a bad day!!
Any help on this one would be so appreciated!
(But i do feel a little better sharing this with you all!)
If anyones interested,ill let you know how i go on.
Cheers,
Mark.

Forgot to say..when he stopped at 3:30 am...next day he started at 9:30 and continued up untill the sim card was blocked at 15:53!

I doubt you`ll get anywhere with the phone company - I`m sure they will refuse to be liable for calls made before it was reported. Did you have insurance?

No insurance...The tarrif was 9.99 a month & they wanted 4.50 for insurance....Hindsight is a wonderful thing :-)

Bad luck...
Must admit I never used to bother, but was then offered it at £2.49 a month, so took it - never had to use it though....

Guy at our work got mugged last night and they nicked his phone - which work pays for. He phoned in this morning at 9:30 to say he wouldn`t be in, and that the phone was gone. He`s a bit beaten up, and sore - should hopefully be back tomorrow.

Anyway we cancelled the phone this morning, but I hate to think how bad the bill will be.

Check your terms and conditions, and the opriginal bumph you signed. Some operator impose a £100 (or whatever) credit limit, but they don`t always stick to it. If that`s the case, you can at least claim you should only pay the £100.

Mobile companies can easily tell when a phone goes out of its normal pattern of use, and put a hold on calls until its checked, ( I know as several years ago they cut off my mobile in the middle of a very hectic business day ) but most will not stop the calls because the thief is generating extra profit for them.

My sympathies, I really hope you can sort something out.

P.

Most companies including Vodafone have a Fraud Dection System in place which allows then to be able to see instantly when there is unusually high use of the phone. In this case it`s pretty blindingly obvious that something was wrong and they`ve no excuse for not stopping it to be honest.

P.S. I`m actually an Analyst/Programmer that works on mobile phone billing systems (though not for Vodafone, they use a competitor, pffft!)

---

Steven Wemyss

Site Reviewer - www.DVDReviewer.co.uk

"Computer games don`t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we`d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc, 1989

Many thanks for all your replys (i appreciate it)
I`m going to get back in touch with cellular opps & give them hell!
Every one i`ve spoken to has said the same thing about their phones being blocked when they`ve used them more than normal,,,
One thing i`m going to ask them is "How long would they have let the scum carry on using the phone if we hadn`t realised that it was missing after a day??"
We could have been talking thousands.
This is one company i`ll never deal with again.
They`ve been nothing but abrupt & unhelpful.
Also going to call different companys from the back of The Sun newspaper & make out that i`m thinking of going on contract,but am worried that if i lost the phone & didn`t realise straight away,If THEY opperate a cut-off point?
Should be interesting...
Once again,thanks for all the post`s..it really has made me feel (a little) better!
Cheers,
Mark :-)