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A trainee doctor who spent two weeks helping out in an Aids-devastated area of Africa has been threatened with debt collectors by phone company 3 after his mobile was stolen and the thief racked up a bill of £1,500 - despite the phone having a £75 credit limit.
Michael Barker, in his fourth year of medical training in Cardiff, is the latest victim of a worrying trend among British mobile networks to chase customers for thousands of pounds after a phone is stolen, even if they have insurance and credit limits.
Barker - a regular traveller on charity projects - spent a month in southern Africa this summer including a voluntary stint helping out at a hospital in Lesotho.
He had put his 3 mobile at the bottom of his rucksack and used an old phone with a local SIM card during the trip. His bags were locked at all times during the hospital work, which was part funded by a charity. Only after he got back to the UK did he discover the 3 phone was missing.
When he rang the company to put a block on the phone and to ask for a replacement, he was shocked to discover the thief had made £1,500-worth of calls. Despite pleas of protest that the bill is way over his £75 credit limit, 3 insisted he pay for the calls. It threatened him with debt collectors.
Unlike credit cards, where customers are only liable for the first £100 if their plastic is stolen, mobile phone companies can recover unlimited losses racked up by thieves.
In parts of the developing world groups now target foreigners' mobiles which are then used relentlessly.
In March, Guardian Money featured the case of Johan Potgieter who was chased for £9,000-worth of calls made after his Orange phone was stolen in South Africa.
We have featured a number of other cases, and regularly hear of fresh victims. In each case, the mobile phone company demands the owner of the phone pay up - it claims its terms and conditions stipulate that the owner is responsible for all calls until the phone is recorded as stolen.
The problem is, this stance has never been tested in court. Senior lawyer at Which? Legal Services, Pete McCarthy, told Guardian Money that, in theory, victims could argue that under the Supply of Goods and Services Act, the mobile phone company had failed to apply "reasonable care and skill" when supplying the service.
Interestingly, when Barker looked at his call record, it showed the thief had rung 3's customer services in the UK including one call that lasted more than five minutes.
Barker is now looking at a possible court challenge. "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."
A spokeswoman for 3 declined to tell Guardian Money how much of Barker's bill was pure profit - roaming charges generate huge profits for the mobile companies. It also, initially, stuck to the line that he would have to pay the bill. "We've taken a very thorough look at this case and, whilst we are very sorry about the distress Mr Barker has experienced, there is nothing that we can do to reduce the cost of his bill. It is made clear to the customer that if their phone is stolen they must call to alert 3 to the problem so that the phone can be cut off." However, after many calls to the company's PR team, 3 finally softened its stance. "Now that we have established beyond all doubt that he was not responsible for the calls we are prepared to come to an amicable agreement over the calls and I gather Mr Barker is now happy."
'A bank would have frozen my account'
When Guardian Money first highlighted the "unlimited liability" mobile users risk when they take their phones abroad, Orange said it was introducing measures to stop thieves running up massive bills.
So what have they done? Not enough, as the case of Jonathan Roiser shows. The academic, who works for UCL, was trekking in Peru earlier this year when, eight hours from the nearest town, he discovered his phone had been stolen. He says there was a delay of several days before he was able to report the handset missing. Despite several calls to Orange, the first he knew that he had been a victim of airtime abuse was when a bill for £1,000 arrived at his London home.
He argued that it simply wasn't possible for him to report the phone stolen, and the network agreed to halve the bill. "I find it shocking Orange could allow this huge bill, more than 50 times my normal monthly spending, to have accumulated," he says. "Compare this service to that of any UK bank, who, on noticing a large foreign transaction on a debit card, would immediately put a freeze on that card and contact the customer for authorisation."
A spokeswoman for the company said Roiser was charged for half the calls because it had taken him 16 days to report the theft. "We advise customers to treat their phones like they would their wallets and to make full use of the phone security PIN on their handset to protect their personal information and help prevent unauthorised use. We are currently improving our usage monitoring systems, and have started a trial which we believe will have a positive impact in alerting us to high usage patterns."
Meanwhile, victims are asking what steps the phone regulator Ofcom has taken to help consumers caught in this way.
The answer is very little. A spokeswoman said this week it is currently "looking into this area to examine the extent of the problem" and would consider whether there is a case for Ofcom intervention.
m.brignall@guardian.co.uk
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