Thanks Buzby.. When your name has been defaulted - can this be undone by payment? I am looking to move house in the near future, so it may be necessary to pay to avoid being defaulted..

Thanks PrettyPaula I did contact the insurance company as soon as I found out and then again on later occasions. Unfortunately, they assured me that I would not be covered as it was not until three weeks later (when I was billed by Vodafone) that I realised my SIM card was missing.

Can anybody help with a further query?... How will I know if I have been 'defaulted' and how exactly would that affect me?

I wonder how much profit Vodafone stand to make on this bill?

I agree that they probably wouldn't know anyone in England, but the calls were not made to England. They were made to Dominican numbers - I found this out when I finally received a copy of the 10 page itemised bill. I also understand how outrageous this bill is and believe me, I really didn't want to pay a thing! However, if I am liable, where can I go from here?

It was likely stolen by a cleaner who was recommended to me by the company I work for here. Nigh on impossible to retreive any money by going down this route. Vodafone acknowledged that I had not run up this bill myself, put pressed that I was still liable. Surely they are the real culprits?

I have paid so far because I thought I had no further alternative after going through Otelo. Apparently as the card was stolen from my apartment here in the Dominican Republic I was liable for charges run up during this week. There is still 1200 to pay..

Thankyou for your reply. Any help would be greaty appreciated. The bill was run up during one week before Vodafone put a block on my account. They said they could not block it earlier because of the time taken for details of the call to reach them as calls were made in the Dominican Republic.

At the end of March last year, I received a bill of £4175.37 from Vodafone. I am currently living and working in the Dominican Republic and as far as I was aware at the time, my english SIM card was stored in a cupboard next to my bed. It turned out that it had been stolen some weeks previously. My intial bill of £770.02 had caught me unaware and then had further grown to £4175.37 some weeks later. When I eventually recieved the call charge breakdown, I found out that Vodafone had allowed these charges to run up over the course of a week before they put a block on my account. It was unbelievable that a week's worth of local Dominican calls could cost so much. To make maters worse, even though I paid for a monthly insurance with this phone, the insurance was not valid because Vodafone were not notified within 48 hours of the theft. After lengthy complaints to Vodafone customer services and a complaint to Otelo, the Ombudsman, I was granted a 25% discount on my bill and instucted to pay the remaining £3131.53 in a series of installments over the following months. My salary as a teacher here is much lower than the salary I was previously earning whilst teaching in London. I am currently paying over a third of my year's salary in installments to Vodafone. There is a remaining £1200 still to pay. The remaining £1200 was due in December and I have ot been anle to afford to pay it. Vodafone has now informed me that my details have now been referred to an external collection agency called Credit Solutions. Is there anywhere I can go from here?