http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2298750/Recruitment-worker-23-left-21-000-phone-thief-uses-stolen-mobile-premium-rate-spending-spree.html

 

25 March 2013

 

A recruitment worker whose phone was stolen while she was on holiday is facing a £21,000 bill.

 

Vodafone initially offered to reduce Miss Harris' bill by £1,500 as a ‘goodwill gesture’

 

The 23-year-old realised her phone had been taken when she arrived back in Britain after a trip to Barcelona.

 

Records show the thief had used the phone for several conference calls to premium rate international numbers from 7.52am on the day it was lost.

 

A spokesman said: ‘This is a very unusual case

 

‘However, this phone seems to have been used as part of a deliberate and organised crime which we will be investigating.

‘In this case, we will waive all of the charges raised by this fraud.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/10146634/My-1000-Vodafone-bill-for-a-lost-mobile.html

 

'A £1000 Vodafone bill when I lost my mobile'

28 6 13

 

One reader was told to foot the bill when fraudsters got hold of his Sim. took on the telecoms giant. When Jon Barrett lost his uninsured iPhone on holiday in Barcelona,

 

"We make it clear in our terms and conditions that the customer is responsible for all charges on a lost or stolen phone up to the point that he or she reports it to us."

 

A spokesman said: "We've looked again at Mr Barrett's case and it seems that, rather than a straightforward case of fraudulent usage, this could be part of an organised [problem]. On that basis, we've waived all the charges. We're sorry that we missed this initially, but it is an extremely rare occurrence."

So my advice would be to properly dispute these bills in writing and if necessary to contact your MP and the Press

This is how it works.

Fraudsters obtain International Revenue Share Numbers (IRSN). They are normal international numbers that are used in the same way as UK 09 numbers are used.

They then steal phones and use the SIM's to to call their IRSN's. Very often to maximize the revenue from the fraud window they will use the SIM to make 'conference' calls to several IRSN's simultaneously.

The following article explains how the fraud works with SIM's that are stolen in the UK and taken abroad and what the Networks are (not) doing to combat it.

http://bswan.org/revenue_share_fraud.asp#.UdcWaju-pcb