Vodafone has warned mobile phone users to "think of their phone and SIM as a wallet", after a customer whose SIM was stolen overseas was stung with an £850 bill.
Stephen Tracey told ZDNet UK he received the bill after his SIM card went missing in South Africa.
"I had changed my SIM card over to a local one to avoid expensive call charges, however my UK card was stolen from a hotel without my knowledge and used for 10 days," he said.
He subsequently called Vodafone and the SIM was cancelled, but when he returned home he was hit with the £850 bill, as nearly 100 calls had been made per day for the 10-day period.
Tracey believes that Vodafone should have spotted the sudden increase in activity on his SIM card and taken action, in the same way that banks can detect unusual account behaviour. He entered into a dialogue with Vodafone, and claims they responded aggressively when he said he should not be liable for the bill.
"We argued for a long time," he told ZDNet UK on Tuesday. Referring to the 50 percent discount they eventually offered him, he said: "They phrased it as a goodwill gesture".
"It went from 10 percent to 20 percent to 25 to 30 to 50, and each time I refused it. But then it reached the point where I had to pay the next bill — which I couldn't afford — or take the offer.
"What got me was that it was a Vodafone SIM card and all the calls were made to Vodacom, which is in the same group. They're just passing the buck internally," he said.
Vodafone's spokesperson confirmed to ZDNet UK that the company had immediately barred Tracey's SIM when it was reported stolen, and said splitting the bill was "as far as we were able to go".
"Obviously we've taken it on trust that all the calls made in South Africa were made fraudulently," she said. "Unfortunately he is liable for use of the SIM, and that would be stated in his contract."
She urged mobile phone users to see their phones and SIMs as "like a wallet with live money in it", suggesting, "if he were to try and make an insurance claim, they might have some serious questions to ask him about where it was and how he was looking after it."
She also claimed there were inaccuracies in other recent stories which involved stolen Vodafone phones leading to massive bills.
A story reported last week regarding a charity worker who was hit with a £2,800 bill after his phone was stolen in Borneo failed to mention that the phone was not reported stolen for six months, she alleged.
Talkback
Why can't Vodafone keep track of calling habits like credit card companies do with spending habits? My credit card company check up on me on the same day or day after if i make several big purchases. Not noticing a massive increase in calls for 10 days seems like really bad security.
Drawing comparisons with a 'live wallet' is not really relevant. Who would carry £850 around in their wallet?? When a credit card is stolen from a wallet the end user is liable only for the first £50. Isn't a mobile phone account another line of credit?
Since all of these calls are within the Vodafone global network, surely this means the costs of the calls are nearly pure profit. If I owned a company I would not wish to be associated with profiting from a crime, especially at my customers expense.
I think it's high time that mobile operators were regulated under the same laws as credit card companies. Maybe then they would take the security of their customers accounts more seriously.
What a muppet. Probably most of the calls were to Miss Piggy.
I do have some compassion for Mr Tracey as I have suffered at the hands of a (telecoms) giant in my life too. But that's another story best told around a large, open fire with a cup of cocoa and the children sitting on my knee. What's that grandfather? It's nothing, child, just a bad dream.
As a Vodafone customer, I think it is outrageous and extremely worrying that Vodafone did not notice 'unusual activity' on the account and the customer was liable for such a large sum of fraudulent phonecalls. I would have imagined that a phone company, such as Vodafone, would have better security provisions - as credit card companies do.
I'll definitely stick with Pay-as-you-go then...
While I can see that point that large changes in usage should ring alarm bells with the network, if you go abroad, you're highly likely to have a large change anyway. Do we want everyone that uses their phone abroad to have their line barred within a couple of days.
....and a point everyone seems to have missed. Why didn't the retard use a PIN code ???
Surely, in this day and age, one uses a PIN number on a SIM card. Then, provided you don't lose a SIM in a phone which is already logged into the network, you are at little risk of anyone running up bills on the account if the SIM is stolen.
If you lost your wallet with £850 in it, who would you try and get the money back from??? Use a Pin code, stop being a Baby and take responsability of your own belongings!
I am in the same dispute with Vodafone.Except my bill is £2,900!!! I have gone as far as Otello who so far have taken the side of Vodafone. Vodafone have only offered me the VAT. They failed to give me the information requested on three ocassions to pass on to the police. Any advice as to what I can do now????
Christpher Mundt