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4 hours ago
1
In March my daughter’s phone was stolen at a tube station. She went straight to a friend’s flat and called EE to cancel the sim and Apple to block the phone. The next day she bought a new handset and obtained a replacement sim.
I pay the bill and since the theft I have been charged for almost £1,000 worth of Google Play costs over the four months from March to June. Neither my daughter nor I have an account.
I did not notice these payments until June because my wife had a serious accident in February and I have been caring for her. I was also in the middle of switching banks.
Once I discovered the fraud, I immediately called EE. It put a restriction on the account so no further charges could be billed. I was able to reverse the direct debits for April and May, but not March as I had switched banks.
Frustratingly, a further £240 was spent in June despite the restrictions.
As a result, there are about £720 worth of outstanding fraud charges on my daughter’s EE account. I have been passed through four different layers of people in EE’s credit control and customer complaints departments, but it is only offering to refund half of this amount, which I don’t think is fair.
GD, London
With mobile phone theft rife in the UK it is terrifying to hear stories such as this that expose financial vulnerability beyond the loss of the phone itself.
“Charge to bill” is a way of paying for apps, music and games, without inputting your card details. On EE there’s a limit of £240 a month, which these fraudsters maxed out on Google Play. It is unclear how they managed to do this.
I asked EE to explain its decision to not refund you in full and it says: “It is our process that if a customer notices ‘charge to bill’ payments that they do not recognise, they should contact us immediately. As it took three months for GD’s charges to be queried, we have been unable to reimburse him the full amount. GD has accepted our offer, and we have provided him with information on how he can take it further should he wish to.”
After several months of to-ing and fro-ing, you accepted EE’s offer and paid the outstanding sum, as your daughter was concerned about losing her number.
However, you intend to pursue a full refund via the Communications Ombudsman.
If your phone is stolen, use another device, even a friend’s phone, to try to access it remotely. This will allow you to lock or erase the data on it if it is still online. When you speak to your network, ask about any new “charge to bill” payments and for the facility to be blocked. If your account has multiple numbers you could ask for a bar on this feature for safekeeping. Also ask your bank or credit card firm to cancel your cards and disable payment methods such as Apple Pay or Google Wallet.
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at [email protected] or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions.
