Crazy Phone Bill...Cancelling Direct Debit??

Discodog

Former Former wrote: »

Banks will refund you if you've taken all reasonable steps to guard against fraud and you inform them asap of the theft.

You have a 36 hour gap that you can't really account for. You simply didn't hold up your end of the bargain.

I see someone above is saying boards should only be for friendly advice, so I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but it's exactly what Vodafone will tell you and if it eventually ends up in court, it's the first question you'll be asked.

The OP's explanation seems very typical of what the average person would do.

ForstalDave

Discodog wrote: »

Your interpretation of negligent is very different to mine. The Courts may well define it as failing to take the care that a normal person might take. Show me a case where a phone company has successfully sued someone in such an instance ?

If i was out and lost my phone iv rind to cancel it straight away, i think most normal people would, same if i lost my bank card, i certainly wouldn't think ah it will be grand, also was there not a pin code on the phone?

Discodog

CeilingFly wrote: »

Post #1

24 calls in 12 hours each lasting over an hour? Hmmm...

You're all being trolled.

He is saying that is what Vodafone are claiming. Vodafone have lied to me before so I am sure they can do it to others.

Discodog

ForstalDave wrote: »

If i was out and lost my phone iv rind to cancel it straight away, i think most normal people would, same if i lost my bank card, i certainly wouldn't think ah it will be grand, also was there not a pin code on the phone?

Well that would be for a Court to decide but it won't go to Court. Vodafone will bully, intimidate, threat & then give up

ForstalDave

Discodog wrote: »

Well that would be for a Court to decide but it won't go to Court. Vodafone will bully, intimidate, threat & then give up

Dont know why vodaphone is the bad guy here, what is your thought on not pin protecting the phone which most likly would have negated the issue here

Valuable lesson for people whether true or not. Always lock your SIM with a PIN. Even if your actual phone has security in place.

njs030

Discodog wrote: »

Your interpretation of negligent is very different to mine. The Courts may well define it as failing to take the care that a normal person might take. Show me a case where a phone company has successfully sued someone in such an instance ?

That's what I thought. You can't.

Discodog

ForstalDave wrote: »

Dont know why vodaphone is the bad guy here, what is your thought on not pin protecting the phone which most likly would have negated the issue here

We all do things that, in hindsight, might of been better choices. Whether Vodafone are good or bad depends on their choices.

jimmycrackcorm

SB1988 wrote:

Yes my phone had a thumb print for access, and failing that it had a 4 digit pin. I also brought this up with them but they had no answer...

Factory reset phone.

dudara wrote:

Ok - that's very odd. They might have swapped the SIM into another phone and thus bypassed the lock on your phone

The easiest option.

Discodog

notjustsweet wrote: »

That's what I thought. You can't.

I can't be arsed. What's your excuse for not providing links to successful prosecutions ?

Discodog

SB1988 wrote: »

What are you talking about? I didn't realise I had to pass a test to start a thread!

And my replies are to quick for you? Technology has moved on a lot in recent years if you're not aware of that...

Boards will be asking why new people aren't joining yet this happens all the time. A new person joins Boards, gets slagged & doesn't bother coming back.

njs030

Discodog wrote: »

I can't be arsed. What's your excuse for not providing links to successful prosecutions ?

You insisted everyone was wrong and this was a situation that would exist.
If that's the case then prove it's happened before?
You can't so on your way.

There's no need to prove people pay their phone bills it's a pretty ridiculous question to ask!!

turbot

IMO, you have a couple of options:

Just trying not to pay is a bad move

However, Vodafone, billion dollar global company, should be expert in predicting such risks and managing them as only they can.

E.g. if your calls hit outlier thresholds while being made to new places, they have the data to predict / determine fraud.

For example, if your average monthly bill is 50 and when travelling up to 150, if you suddenly make 1000 worth of calls to an African number never called before, they have the data to determine with 99% probability this phone has been stolen. That they haven't utilised this data to drive fraud prevention is part of their systems design and one could argue, they have shared responsibility in such a scenario as the calls are being made through their network.

Arguably, they haven't sufficiently educated about this risks, or what to do to handle them. For most families etc, a bill of over €3000 is way beyond their means to pay. Losing your phone is bad enough but being faced with such a bill is much worse. So you should write some smart letters to them asap and quote anything on their website that hints at best network etc and compare this with any other networks policies of managing such risks.

Good luck!

njs030

SB1988 wrote: »

Yes I have called them, numerous times! And as I said they're having none of it, I have no intention of going in all guns blazing. But I am not willing to let the terms of a contract dictate whether or not I pay the bill for a crime against me. Yes I could have reported it earlier, but technology is not that slow throughout Europe that they couldn't have picked this up sooner...

Oh I see.
So if Vodafone broke those terms and bumped your price plan by 50% without notice that would be OK? Or is it only you who can break the terms of the agreed contract?

Dr Turk Turkelton

SB1988 wrote: »

What are you talking about? I didn't realise I had to pass a test to start a thread!

And my replies are to quick for you? Technology has moved on a lot in recent years if you're not aware of that...

Op don't mind the sanctimonious pricks that frequent this forum giving "advice".
Other properly helpful posters that may have been through this sort of thing before might be able to give you advice but I can't.

I know one thing for sure is that I would be cancelling the direct debit and see what unfolds after that but there is no way I would be taking a 3k hit.

L1011

Dr Turk Turkelton wrote: »

Op don't mind the sanctimonious pricks that frequent this forum giving "advice".
Other properly helpful posters that may have been through this sort of thing before might be able to give you advice but I can't.

I know one thing for sure is that I would be cancelling the direct debit and see what unfolds after that but there is no way I would be taking a 3k hit.

Report such posts if you see them. Attacking other posters in not acceptable.

L1011

SB1988 wrote: »

But it is okay for them to let a phone bill skyrocket in a number of hours and not take appropriate actions to ensure fraud has not taken place?

They would not get live data from every network, as explained already

njs030

SB1988 wrote: »

But it is okay for them to let a phone bill skyrocket in a number of hours and not take appropriate actions to ensure fraud has not taken place?

It's been explained to you that
A. You agreed to tell them when you lost your phone and decided not to do this.
No one to blame but yourself.
B. Call charges run hours behind even when it's in this country, I dont know how long it takes to get up dates from Vodafone spain to Vodafone Ireland but it's certainly not instantaneous.

You shouldn't have signed a contract you weren't happy with!!!

njs030

SB1988 wrote: »

I'd say your great craic all together...:cool:

Oh look insulting people who try to help you. Idiot
I'm out

L1011

Explaining contract terms that are critical to what is likely to happen is valid advice; but the level of aggression from all parties in doing so and responding to it is not useful.

dbagman

SB1988 wrote:

The point of this thread was to see has anyone experienced this before, or how far would it go. All you kept staying was how wrong I am. I understand that you think I'm in the wrong, I on the other hand think that a company the size of Vodafone should be able to a better job at protecting its customers considering we pay a small fortune to use their service and lock ourselves into long term contracts.

Had a similar experience with meteor years ago. Phone went missing in Thailand. 800 quid + bill. I was en route to Australia for a year and it should of been cancelled so I ignored it. (Not hard given letters were being sent to my mum's back here). Long story short by time they chased me and went all the legal routes it only came off my ICB last year. It held me up for over a year in trying to get a mortgage. Not to mention not being able to get a loan for so much as a fiver since I came back in 2010. Plead innocence with Vodafone. They might meet you halfway. Whatever the outcome it's not worth the hassle for a grand. You could end up with a bad credit rating that you'd pay twice the original debt to get rid of.

dubrov

They might sell the debt to a debt collector but there is zero chance of it going to court..
The mobile companies do not want to have to justify the massive costs in court (as they can't).
A judge wouldn't rule in their favour anyway, particularly as you didn't actually make the calls.

T&Cs are irrelevant if they can be proven to be unreasonable.

Phone companies will write off 90% of the cost pretty easily.
Personally, I wouldn't pay more than €50 and insist than any settlement will not affect your credit rating.

dbagman

dubrov wrote:

Phone companies will write off 90% of the cost pretty easily. Personally, I wouldn't pay more than €50 and insist than any settlement will not affect your credit rating.

If only it were as easy an insisting something relating to reneging on a contract payment doesnt impact your credit rating.

Pelvis

notjustsweet wrote: »

B. Call charges run hours behind even when it's in this country, I dont know how long it takes to get up dates from Vodafone spain to Vodafone Ireland but it's certainly not instantaneous

They do not run hours behind in this country, and how long it takes for Vodafone Spain to update Vodafone Ireland is Vodafone's issue, what with it being the same company and all.

hognef

L1011 wrote: »

They would not get live data from every network, as explained already

If the OP were on PAYG, would Vodafone therefore still allow thousands of euro worth of calls without detecting it? If so, this would be an incredibly easy way to scam the phone company. Without a contract in place, how will they reclaim their losses from the customer, who should surely be entitled to assume the no further calls can be made once credit runs out?

hognef

The OP should definitely question the 24 hours' worth of calls in a 12 hour window. If these did indeed all take place, then anything above 12 hours' worth of calls, must be the responsibility of Vodafone, as it would be physically impossible for the customer to make all of those calls in that period. Is it possible to use a cloned SIM concurrently with the original?

Either way, Vodafone would need to prove that the calls took place. They're not exactly on to a winner by claiming multiple calls happened concurrently.

L1011

hognef wrote: »

If the OP were on PAYG, would Vodafone therefore still allow thousands of euro worth of calls without detecting it? If so, this would be an incredibly easy way to scam the phone company. Without a contract in place, how will they reclaim their losses from the customer, who should surely be entitled to assume the no further calls can be made once credit runs out?

Much more likely that the call class (international premium rate while roaming) would be blocked entirely without a deposit being made.

dudara

CeilingFly wrote: »

Finally one person who realise this is a troll.

Wake up everyone else - this is a troll.

@CeilingFly - I warned you previously in the Hotel Room Damage thread to use Report Post rather than call out suspected trolling on thread. At this stage I'm beginning to suspect that you are the one trolling. Stop this type of posting please

dudara

L1011

CeilingFly wrote: »

Finally one person who realise this is a troll.

Wake up everyone else - this is a troll.

Report people if you think they are trolling.

Any further acting up in this thread is going to cards - there have been sufficient warnings.

hognef

L1011 wrote: »

Much more likely that the call class (international premium rate while roaming) would be blocked entirely without a deposit being made.

Perhaps, but that doesn't answer my question. There's no way they'd ever ask for a deposit of several thousand euro.

And do we even know for sure they were premium numbers? I'm not particularly familiar with Vodafone rates or calling Africa, but I know Meteor charges €1.69/min for calls within the US. 1 hour = €101, 24 hours = €2433. It's not entirely unlikely that the OP's phone/SIM was used to call perfectly normal numbers in Africa.

hognef

SB1988 wrote: »

Again, if I could show ye the call log I would. I quizzed them on it but no answer for me. I can see it all though, the calls overlap so again I have no idea how this stuff works...

No worries, I'm not doubting you, just pointing out that you should have some decent arguments if they keep insisting (via the call logs) the calls happened concurrently.

njs030

Pelvis wrote: »

They do not run hours behind in this country, and how long it takes for Vodafone Spain to update Vodafone Ireland is Vodafone's issue, what with it being the same company and all.

They aren't the same company.
They are two entirely seperate companies that are owned by the same umbrella company.

L1011

hognef wrote: »

Perhaps, but that doesn't answer my question. There's no way they'd ever ask for a deposit of several thousand euro.

And do we even know for sure they were premium numbers? I'm not particularly familiar with Vodafone rates or calling Africa, but I know Meteor charges €1.69/min for calls within the US. 1 hour = €101, 24 hours = €2433. It's not entirely unlikely that the OP's phone/SIM was used to call perfectly normal numbers in Africa.

There's also a likelyhood that the roaming partner is able to query the effective credit on an account before initiating a call. On a billpay that's rather a lot.

njs030

SB1988 wrote: »

Again, if I could show ye the call log I would. I quizzed them on it but no answer for me. I can see it all though, the calls overlap so again I have no idea how this stuff works...

What type of phone is it? Could it have been a multi person call?
Either that or they cloned the card

Bananaleaf

Just wondering how far companies go when pursuing this kind of thing.

Reason I ask is this - Moved into a property about 4years ago and bills kept coming in addressed to a woman who no longer lived here. They were coming from two different phone companies. We kept sending them back "no longer at this address" yet they kept coming and coming. I know I'm not supposed to but one day I just said to myself "feck it, I'm opening it" because I must have sent about 20 of the letters back at this stage so figured that nobody in either phone company was listening to me so I might as well see what it was all about.

It was a notification letter to the woman stating that they had passed her debt over to a debt collection agency. Her bill totalled 6k and this was just one of the companies!!

That was the last letter we ever got from them. Either their letter was just scare tactics and they never pursued further or they finally accepted the fact that she no longer lived here. However, if it was the latter, nobody ever called to the house to check that we were telling the truth or to make sure that in fact I wasn't the woman in question, just sending back the letters, pretending that I had moved.

Never ever brought this up with the landlord, so it is possible that the companies involved could have contacted him as the reg'd owner of house to check if this woman was in fact MIA. But, something to ponder. Do they pursue these things? I don't know, I'm just wondering. 6k is loads of money but it's not 6k of tangible goods. It's not costing Vodafone 6k to replace that 'time' if you know what I mean.

Pelvis

notjustsweet wrote: »

They aren't the same company.
They are two entirely seperate companies that are owned by the same umbrella company.

They are two different companies owned by the same company.

Right so...

hognef

L1011 wrote: »

There's also a likelyhood that the roaming partner is able to query the effective credit on an account before initiating a call. On a billpay that's rather a lot.

If that is true, then wouldn't that be an easy way for the home network to monitor for interesting calling patterns? The amount of credit on an account is meaningless without knowledge of the potential cost of the call (which only the home network would know, and then only if the number about to be called is supplied).

Also, "rather a lot" shouldn't be as much as several thousand euro.

njs030

Pelvis wrote: »

They are two different companies owned by the same company.

Right so...

Yes that's right.
Vodafone is a huge multinational cooporation made up of hundreds of smaller companies which include Vodafone UK, Spain, Greece, Ireland, US, France, Asia, Iceland and so on.
It's revenue is in the billions and it's one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.
They operate by buying a company and re-branding it as Vodafone 'country'

Peintre Celebre

SB1988 wrote: »

Good point.

Any multinational companies, regardless of them operating as separate entities, will have an internal intranet to work share across their offices. This is how they can share data...

No they won't are you for real?

L1011

hognef wrote: »

If that is true, then wouldn't that be an easy way for the home network to monitor for interesting calling patterns? The amount of credit on an account is meaningless without knowledge of the potential cost of the call (which only the home network would know, and then only if the number about to be called is supplied).

Also, "rather a lot" shouldn't be as much as several thousand euro.

Not if the the remote network knows the charges, which they would.

There is very limited if any ability to try and transfer responsibility to Vodafone here.

Pelvis

notjustsweet wrote: »

Yes that's right.
Vodafone is a huge multinational cooporation made up of hundreds of smaller companies which include Vodafone UK, Spain, Greece, Ireland, US, France, Asia, Iceland and so on.
It's revenue is in the billions and it's one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.
They operate by buying a company and re-branding it as Vodafone 'country'

None of which counters the argument that they are part of the one global company and thus are liable for calls made via their networks.

As you say, their revenue is in the billions, they have the resources to detect fraudulent calls, the fact that they haven't in this case makes them partially responsible for the charges imo.

hognef

L1011 wrote: »

Not if the the remote network knows the charges, which they would.

There is very limited if any ability to try and transfer responsibility to Vodafone here.

If the charges are shared between the networks, I'd be extremely surprised if a cutoff point is not shared too.

Also, what good is 'querying the credit' if that credit is not updated? Even for PAYG, it would always report available credit, therefore allowing the call. Multiple times, well beyond the actual available credit.

L1011

hognef wrote: »

If the charges are shared between the networks, I'd be extremely surprised if a cutoff point is not shared too.

And on billpay, that is going to be lots and lots and lots, as already stated. It isn't a prepay phone.

The core issue here is that the OP waited far too long to report the phone stolen - under the mistaken belief that they didn't take calls for stolen phones overnight, it seems. Trying to transfer blame to Vodafone via each and every edge case you can imagine doesn't correct that.

They need to try negotiate a settlement with Vodafone - not scramble for a reason to blame the phone operator for something they did (well, didn't in this case).

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

SB1988 wrote: »

They won't what?

This

will have an internal intranet to work share across their offices

njs030

Pelvis wrote: »

None of which counters the argument that they are part of the one global company and thus are liable for calls made via their networks.

As you say, their revenue is in the billions, they have the resources to detect fraudulent calls, the fact that they haven't in this case makes them partially responsible for the charges imo.

It's a nonsensical argument.
The op signed an agreement saying he would tell them when his phone was lost or stolen and accepting liability for all call charges up to that point.

To attempt to manipulate the liability onto Vodafone because the op failed to do so is a little bit silly and won't get him far.

L1011

SB1988 wrote: »

Thats a ridiculous point, of course they do. How do you think your phone registers with their network when you arrive in their country? How do you think when you ring the helpline you get an office in a different country and they are able to identify you?

Not using an intranet (between two effectively unrelated divisions of a global holding company), that's for sure.

Your phone would handshake to Telefonica in the same way it does to Vodafone Spain.

njs030

SB1988 wrote: »

Thats a ridiculous point, of course they do. How do you think your phone registers with their network when you arrive in their country? How do you think when you ring the helpline you get an office in a different country and they are able to identify you?

The phone has been told to connect to the vodafone network op.

dudara

SB1988 wrote: »

Good point.

Any multinational companies, regardless of them operating as separate entities, will have an internal intranet to work share across their offices. This is how they can share data...

Not necessarily. In an ideal MNC situation that would exist. However over the years I've worked with many MNCs that were not joined up internally. I wouldn't assume that.

L1011

dudara wrote: »

Not necessarily. In an ideal MNC situation that would exist. However over the years I've worked with many MNCs that were not joined up internally. I wouldn't assume that.

I worked in a MNC and we hadn't got a coherent intranet between us and other firms in the group in other parts of Ireland!

njs030

dudara wrote: »

Not necessarily. In an ideal MNC situation that would exist. However over the years I've worked with many MNCs that were not joined up internally. I wouldn't assume that.

I worked for mobile phone companies (not Vodafone) and couldnt get proper contact with newry let alone Spain!
Infrastructure linking up would be wonderful