Cap on stolen phone costs

[jeffkinn]

Good news for us customers - the mobile phone networks have agreed to cap costs at £100 if our phones get stolen.

But remember - you have to notify them of the theft inside 24 hours.

[froggerty]

The £100 cap is still not good enough, that's an awful lot of money to a lot of people. I myself believe that providing the phone is reported stolen within the 24 hours there should be no charge plus Vodafone should log the owners call reporting their handset stolen, time and date, as and when reported, we all know how lax Vodafone is in recording things and fobbing customers off, the customer is expected to go by the book so Vodafone should do the same.

[hrym]

Horror stories of huge bills are relatively rare and some of the reported facts don't always seem to add up.   I suspect that, in some cases (I'm not suggesting all), the loss may not have been reported as soon as is claimed.

As well as putting an unlock code on your phone, you can also put one on your SIM.   This stops the SIM being removed from the (locked) device and used in another one.

If you're reporting a loss by phone, make a note of the location, time and the phone number you're calling from, plus the basic circumstances.  As well as making tracing your call (if necessary) a bit easier, it's called a contemporaneous note and has some force in law.