£8,000 mobile phone bill

[Geoff]

A couple have been told they must pay a bill of more than £8,000 run up by thieves after their mobile phone was stolen in South Africa. Zyg and Rosemary Gregorek, who own a fishing complex at Halwill near Holsworthy, Devon, were on holiday when the phone was stolen in Johannesburg. They only realised it was missing when they got back to Britain.

 

T-Mobile says it is extremely unlikely to waive the bill which shows the phone was used non-stop every minute for a week, with calls to countries such as Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal and Ethiopia. T-Mobile initially sent the couple a bill for £1,300, but that increased to £8,115.29 when the firm included the full list sent from South Africa.

 

Patrick Barrow, head of external communications at T-Mobile, said: "The contracts are very, very clear that up to and until the point where a customer reports the phone stolen, they are liable for any expenditure run up," he said.

 

"We stand by the fact that this couple have to pay. We will look at the best way to approach this, but we won't waive the bill."

- read more

 

Great bit of publicity for T-Mobile there, but then again, this couple must have requested their phone to be unlocked before going to South Africa. You would have thought that with something as important as a phone, you might have noticed it going missing sooner (by all accounts it was easily over a week).

 

So who's in the wrong? T-Mobile for not waiving the bill? or the couple?

[Lickszz]

I personally don't think that the couple should be made to pay that bill.

[Tony]

But the T Mobile still have to pay the charges incurred with the foreign networks, so why should they pay?

[Sidla]

What are you talking about? The thieves should be made to pay the bill.

[garrence]

Sounds like the phone has been used in a call bureaux (without the customers of the call bureaux realising), which is a fairly common trick. If you could report a phone stolen and get all the calls for the previous week wiped off, then you could go abroad, lend your phone to a bureaux for a week (and some money) then get the charges written off. That's why you must report the theft to the network operator as soon as practicable.

 

The customer had signed a contract stating they would look after the equipment and report any theft immediately, which they failed to do. T-Mobile will have to pay the South African phone company a share of the revenue, so have a moral case for holding the customer to the contract. If the phone was genuinely stolen and if money is recouped from the thieves, a refund could then be made to the customer.

 

Harsh, but letting them off would open the gates for scammers.

[Mosherchik]

Possibly a very flippant response but according to news it took them a week to realise the phone had been stolen! Unless Im a very obssessive mobile phone user I would have realised mine had been stolen in a matter of hours!

 

I have had my mobile stolen before and never got it back, but I made the necessary precautions, I had a key lock on and a pin code. So when the thief swicthed my phone off they couldnt get it to work once they'd switched it back on again HA HA!

 

Phoned Orange and I had my handset locked and sim card blocked or whatever it is they do.

 

Its oddly devestaing to lose or have mobile stolen, so I make damn sure I have mobile somewhere safe at all times. Rarely leave my phone out in public places and tend not to flash it about.

Basic common sense where valuables are concerned!

 

xx

[Geoff]

Just heard on the radio that T-Mobile has backed down. Brian McBride (MD from T-Mobile) said he wasn't in the office yesterday and therefore didn't have a chance to deal with this until now. However, the bill was issued before Christmas so I get the impression his sudden change of heart was caused more by the negative PR than a lack of free time