O2 and Stolen Phone.

[adridude]

Hey,

On the 27th my house was burgled and I immediately reported my phone missing and stolen as it was an O2 XDA IIs. THe person at the time told me it was barred and that it was safe.

When I called up last weekend (2nd), I found out that the phone WAS NOT barred, and nor was the simcard. I dont care about the calls made, as it didnt ring me up a bill. What does bother me is the fact that on the phone were:

1) All of my contacts (business, family and personal)
2) All of my business appointsments, to come, abd the ones in the past.
3) Peronal Documents dating back a year, some of which included personal banking details.

Now what can I do about this? As far as I'm concerned, I acted correctly, reported it missing (I even explained about the eprsonal data), and I was reassured.

They made the mistake, didnt do it and let whoever stole my phone have time to go through all my contacts (lovely hitlist for burglary!)

I've complained and they can't do anything about it, all I get is a mere apology.

I'm livid and spitting nails over this!

Cheers

A

[buzby]

Even if O2 turned off your phone the minute you realised it was stolen, this only prevents the phone from connecting to the UK/European networks. You personal details on the device would be easily accessible by anyone until the battery died. As a PDA it will continue to work happily if they purchase a replacement charger for it.

To protect your data, you need to ensure the XDA is password locked, this is a PDA a function and nothing to do with the phone itself. Once locked, the only way the thief can get it to work is to do a master reset, the phone will default to its factory settings, and all your data will be gone - unless you had some data stored on a memory card, which will now be readable.

On balance, I think you;ll not have much to worry about as the old data has probably been wiped to make the PDA sellable, but if yoiu had bank cards, PINs and the like stored there, I'd chage them immediately.

[adridude]

XDA's lock up entirely when barred at the network, I've checked this. This is why I'm really p*ssed @ all of this

[buzby]

I've had both the original and XDA2 in for repair, the problem was they were blocked on the IMEI register but all functions worked normally. It could be a later firmware change that allowed this 'feature' you describe.

[adridude]

yer, I did a firmware upgrade 2 days before it was nicked. Also I had the XDA IIS (not the XDA2) I should be getting another one soon tho ^^ This time, I'll err, sleep with it under by pillow ><

[buzby]

If you fit it inter-cranially it'll save you having you having look for it....?

[adridude]

inter-cranially ? between brains? Dude(ess); whichever; , you lost me there?

[mrthrifty]

Well how about this for reversal....

I decided to buy an xda2s so I could use windows, a phone, and sat nav in one.

I bought it off ebay and got the imei number before i committed to the purchase.

o2 confirmed that the phone was not lost or stolen. And I did a checkmend report by text which came back clear.

Received the phone and could not connect. Numerous contacts with idiots at o2, most of which did not know anything about unlocking or barring or the difference between the 2.

02 said they could unblock the phone if I took a sim with them which is a monthly contract. I agreed to all their terms on the phone and stated at the end of the conversation that it was on the basis that it would make the phone work.

Chased up the code and was told by another person that the reason it will not work is becuase that it was reported stolen last year, and they will not discuss it any further.

They have copies of all conversation since I was a customer but of course they have no copy of the conversations where they said to me it was not lost or stolen.

Checkmend are still telling me that it is not lost or stolen. 02 don't seem to care about this.

They are now chasing me for £50 for a sim contract that I have not been able to use. I tested the sim in another phone by sending a text message. They would not give a refund because I had used the sim!!! OUT OF 1000 text allowance.

Anyone got any idea of who I should contact on this one. OFCOM will only give adivce, and olotel have got 12 weeks to respond to my complain letter which I am sending today.

[buzby]

Complicated. Checkmend would be my first port of call, as they took your money and gave you misleading information, but only after you verify what's being blocked. Is it the XDA itself (easily fixed with a hard reset) or the radio module, where the IMEI is blacklisted? With Checkmend saying it's not on the blocked list, and O2 concurring, it may simply be Windows providing protection to the PDA functions.

If it turns out it IS IMEI blocked, Checkmend owe you a duty of care and any action should be with them to cover your losses. As to the O2 contract, this could end up as he said, she said - as you're buying network access via their supplied SIM card, if this isn't faulty, you cannot make them responsible. I appreciate your aim was to make connection conditional on having it work with your PDA. but this could be done with a PAYG SIM until you knew everything was OK. You will have Rights of Termination in an early contract, try to invoke these sooner rather than later, and keep us posted!