Student Threatened with Debt Collectors Over Phone Bill for Calls Made by Thief

by Charlotte Cardingham
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Published on 2 December 2008
Related:
Student Threatened with Debt Collectors Over Bill for Calls Made by Thief

A medical student is being chased for payment by phone company 3 after a thief stole his mobile and racked up £1,500 worth of calls.

A medical student from Cardiff faced a visit from the debt collectors after a thief stole his mobile phone and ran up a £1,500 bill while he was out of the country on a charity placement in South Africa.

Trainee doctor Michael Barker was doing voluntary work in a hospital in Lesotho, an AIDS stricken area of South Africa, when his mobile phone was taken and his agreed credit limit exceeded by a massive £1,425.

However, despite Barker reporting his phone stolen as soon as he returned to the UK, mobile provider 3 are chasing him for full payment.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper Barker said: "I simply don't have £1,500 to pay 3. In the past I have never been over my credit limit of £75 - yet suddenly loads of calls are made in a very short period, but this doesn't alert 3 to the fact that something is wrong.

"You would have thought that once the bill reached £75 they would have contacted me and said, 'Is it you making these calls', but nothing. I'm going to do everything I can to fight this."

Barker maintains that the last he saw of his 3 mobile was when he stored it at the bottom of his rucksack at the start of his month long African ‘adventure’. Despite keeping his bags in locked accommodation for the duration of his hospital placement, someone managed to access his belongings and stole his mobile phone.

Before he noticed it was missing, the thief managed to rack up £1,500 worth of calls on Barker’s account, including several lengthily calls to 3’s customer service centre.

Despite the fact that the thief exceeded Barker's agreed £75 credit limit many times over, the network provider still held him responsible for the bill and threatened a visit from debt collectors if he didn't pay.

At the present time customers are held fully responsible for any calls made on their mobile phone up to the point that they are reported stolen. It is this clause of ‘unlimited liability’ in the terms and conditions of 3’s mobile contract that allows them to hold Barker fully accountable for the cost of the calls a thief made.

While this seemingly unjust condition has caught many an unsuspecting traveller unawares, its fairness has not yet been tested in court. However, after an appeal by the Guardian newspaper, communications regulator Ofcom are now looking into a number of similar incidents to determine whether official intervention is needed.

Despite initially maintaining their stance, 3 have now agreed to reconsider Barker's situation after repeated appeals from the newspaper.

Source

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Comments (9)

ann
The same thing happened to my son with o2. He also could prove he was out of the country at the time the calls were made. o2 knew exactly where the calls were made to, when and where the phone was turned on and off. But they still are trying to get my son - who was also a student at the time of the theft to pay a bill of £2800.00. You would think a large company would see that bills of this sort should not be pursued when evidence of the parties innocence can be shown. They are effecting my son's life in a very dramatic way, he cannot get any credit now through no fault of his own He has always paid his bills. What can we do to help these innocent people? Sonething needs to be done NOW.
9 Nov 2009 22:00
 
Lindsey
Im glad I dont live in the UK. Rules are weird over there.
3 Dec 2008 20:01
 
lsvgsmanfred@aol.com
From the Misery Loves Company Dept: nice to know folks across the ditch are just as screwed by their phone companies as we are by ours. . .
3 Dec 2008 18:38
 
David
6.17 As described in Section 6.14 above, we will send you a bill on a periodic basis, which will usually be monthly. The bill will state the amount of the Charges due from you and the due date by which you must make payment. If you fail to pay your account on time, you will be breaking your agreement and we may Suspend or Disconnect you. In this case, you will have to pay any outstanding Charges. We may set a credit limit on your account until you have established a good payment history with us or if you fail to pay your account on time. We will let you know the applicable credit limit which we may increase or remove without notice. If you exceed the credit limit we set, we may Suspend any or all of the 3 Services you use until you have made a payment to your account. You should not use the credit limit for budgeting as the amount you owe is not capped or limited by any credit limit we set. Basically it means that 3 does not provide pay-monthly service with EXACT credit limit.
3 Dec 2008 18:22
 
jongils
As usual a large corporation is being relentless with collection from a victim of phone theft. I agree that you should immediately notify your cel phone service provider of your loss. I think it is also the responsibility of the cel phone service provider to recognize unusual activity on a customers phone account. There was a preset limit. Why was the service not interrupted when the usage reached it's limit? Credit card companies are quick to call you with unusual activity. The phone companies have grown so big, so fast that they cannot or do not want to monitor cel phone use. This is just another case of greed and mistrust.
3 Dec 2008 17:35
 
Texjaycee@aol.com
Mobile phone companies have NO PROBLEM shutting your service down for the non payment on a month contract... They give you a PRESET limit on what you can use and in some instances shut you dont when that is reached. IT is totally criminal on the cell phone companys behalf to NOT HAVE cut the phone off when he went over his limit MANY TIMES over..... If anyone is to blame....If anyone needs to pay, maybe they should foot the whole bill for being so absurdly fulla SHIT
3 Dec 2008 16:56
 
Jennifer Mims
I never leave comments on these, but I would like to say incase anyone reads what I think. That I am sure the phone was not on his mind, going on a missions trip can be a very exciting thing and he just wasn't really paying attention to losing his phone... Or judging by what he said he thought it would stop at the 75.00 anyway so he just didn't report it yet.. Not sure . We always jump to tell people off in America anymore, no one belives anyone.. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.... JMO.... Have a Blessed day..
3 Dec 2008 15:35
 
bigo
why would he know his phone is missing from the bottom of the bag. his laptop shown can email anywhere in the world. odds are a medical trainee in africa would not have the funds to use his phone.
3 Dec 2008 12:15
 
Phil E. Drifter
This guy is an idiot. If your phone gets stolen, you report it stolen, THEN you're not liable for any incurred charges.
2 Dec 2008 23:14
 

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