My phone was stolen

[Anonymous]

My iphone 5 was stolen on 12th of November at 8:25pm. I reported this to police straightaway in nearest police station at Stratford. I was travelling that night to Edinburgh and because I didn't have any phone or any contacts of o2 I couldn't call them to let them know that my phone was stolen. So when I arrived Edinburgh I called o2 next day morning at 8:50am and found out that, thief made so many international calls and bill came near about £300. I explained to o2 everything and they said they only liable for any cost which comes after customer report their stolen phone before that I am liable for all costs and it's under their T&C, that means I have to pay all this money. I was already upset and my mind wasn't working at that time due to my loss and stress I was going through. I decided not to argue any more at that time with o2 so I just blocked my sim and requested a new sim to my home address.

I am with o2 for almost 5 years now and if they go through my previous activities any extra bills made by me previously I did paid everything in one go. However, this time it's not my fault and I don't want to pay this extra charges.

For your information here is my Crime Ref XXXXX. I would be really grateful if o2 can take this as special consideration please. I am not in a position to pay this huge bill at all. Or I would like to make a formal complain to o2 if they require I will provide police report.

Kind Regards

M Hanif

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

Complaints

Good luck

[jonsie]

They have set processes. Try the complaint route and let us know how you get on.

[Bambino]

This is a customer to customer forum. Please use the link that MI5 has provided. Having the crime number should help, but the decision will remain with O2. Hopefully they will offer you a solution. 

[Anonymous]

What an awful situation.

Hope you get a reasonable outcome.

[perksie]

You can make a complaint but I don't know if it will work.

Look at this from another point of view, suppose someone wants to steal some expensive phone calls from O2 and they have a contract phone, all they have to do is make the calls and then report the phone as stolen after a long delay, expecting O2 to absorb the cost.

A contract mobile phone is as good as cash when either stolen or used fraudulently and you have a clear responsibility to report any loss or theft to them as a matter of urgency, the police come second.

It would appear that you had no lock in place on the phone to stop unauthorised use by another person, you could have taken a few simple precautions to prevent this from happening.

This is their difficulty and why you may end up having to pay for these calls, it's like losing a credit card and not bothering to inform the bank immediately as everyone knows you must and expecting the bank to cover any loss.

[adamtemp64]

This is why I ensure I have both a pass code lock and sim pin enabled with the minimum time to auto lock set to prevent this in the case of loss / theft.

[Anonymous]

I did have password on my phone that's why it never came to my mind that they can actually use my phone, probably they took the sim off and used it in another phone.

[perksie]

You did not cancel the sim which was the first thing you should have done.

Making excuses here won't help, it's not the forum you have to convince and you created the conditions that enabled these calls to be made.

We can offer sympathy here but nothing else I'm afraid.

[adamtemp64]

The could only use it in another phone if you had not activated a sim pin as well.

So you must have only had  a phone pass code set.

When you get the replacement sim and phone enable both to prevent this happening again. (o2 default sim pin is 0000)