Question:
i sold a phone on ebay about a month ago and i sold it simfree
i forgot to take my sim out of there, which at the time i believed to be dissconnected. Today i recieved a bill of £400!!!!!!!!
I rang orange and said you were supposed to ring back to confirm termination which you didnt and as far as they concerned they have washed their hands of the matter
i know this is my fault, but do i have any legal redress against the buyer for using the sim when he knew he wasnt meant to or that it wasnt his?
buy the way the guy using it is a 14 year old kid, i rang one of the numbers on the bill and it was his girlfriend who also told me he has given this number to everyone as his own and also the name of his school
in total he as wracked up 2500 mins in 11 days!!
Ive reported it to the police, but i didnt tell them i sent him the sim, just said cant remember what did with it, because at the time i couldnt remember!!
please guys any help would be greatly appreciated, as the stress is killing me especially with my finals around the corner
HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
Answers:
I'm assuming that there is a stop on the SIM now?
Send his parents the bill.
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I agree he/his parents should be sent the bill.
What exactly have you reported to the police. You could in more trouble than £400 worth if you have reported a crime that has not happened and you get found out.
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You need to be careful OP - the boy will have transaction details of obtaining the phone through you. Consult Citizens advice but i would be inclined to go back to the police and tell them you "remembered" that that was the phone you sold. as far as i would see it, a transaction of a contract occurred between you and the boy. he purchased a phone and its contract. the parents/boy should pay. it's an absolute disgrace as i can understand how you feel. just get on to the police and tell orange that the delivery address that the sim is registered to.
i hope it all gets sorted for you
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the guy didnt purchase the contract just the phone
the sim was sent by mistake!!!
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the guy didnt purchase the contract just the phone
the sim was sent by mistake!!!
So what crime have you reported to the police?
You have two different issues to worry about now. He has taken advantage of a mistake you made and that is a civil matter. You have lied to the police, that is a criminal matter.
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i told the police i dint remeber where the sim was and to be honest at the time i didnt!!!!
when you recieve a shock like that your brain stops working!!!
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So what crime have you reported to the police?
You have two different issues to worry about now. He has taken advantage of a mistake you made and that is a civil matter. You have lied to the police, that is a criminal matter.
He did not lie to police, he clearly says he told the police all he could remember.
Now that he remembers or has worked out what has happened, he should inform the police ASAP.
IMO this is a civil matter and it is very complicated, because we are dealing with a purchasing adult who gave it to another adult, who gave it to a child. The child has done what any child would do and thought "great free credit".
Because the child is under 16 they cannot be held liable for costs incurred (imo) the teacher gave it in good faith not knowing what was inside the phone.
Imo the only thing OP can hope for is that the kids parents will be prepared to pay all or part of the amount, maybe the teacher will chip in too. However OP, you should be getting ready to accept the fact that you will be left with the 400 pound bill.
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the guy didnt purchase the contract just the phone
the sim was sent by mistake!!!
A transaction is a contract in itself
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Was it the 14 yr old who bought it from you or his parents?
I'd ring the parents and explain what has happened, if the boy bought it, he shouldn't ben using ebay anyway and if the parents bought it for him, they should have checked the phone before giving it to him as it could have had anything on it (porn pics etc)
Go to the Police, tell them you now know who has the sim and could they possibly do anything because of the call charges.
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new development
the lady that bought the phone from me, bought it for her friend
her friend is a teacher in aschool. she had a 6630 which was knicked while confiscated,.so she told her friend to buy her one from ebay
so she gave the phone i sold to this school kid as the replacement for the one that was stolen from her
she says her friend the teracher will have to talk to her department head before coming back to me
i know have the school name and address and the boys name, which was supplied by his girlfriend age 11, whose number he rang 66 times fom my sim!!
Answers:
This is confusing, let me see if I can make sense of it.
Person A bought your phone.
Person B confiscated a phone from a pupil which was then stolen
Person A advised Person B to purchase a replacement on eBay
Person A purchased your phone and gave it to Person B
Person B gave the phone to Child C
You have now received a large bill. You have informed Person A who has informed Person B who now needs to discuss this with their department head.
OK, first things first. How did you terminate the contract with Orange? Did you receive written notification from them that the contract was terminated? If not, it is your responsibility to make sure the SIM card isn't active regardless of the fact the handset has changed hands.
Your eBay sale didn't include a contract or airtime. Forget Person B. You made the sale to Person A. As an adult they could be expected to realise free calls aren't included. If they gave the phone to someone else it's not your problem. Keep a hard copy of your auction for reference.
Phone Orange. Cancel the SIM. Speak to the police and give them the full story. Explain you were confused and didn't have all the facts before. It isn't theft as theft is the intention to permantly deprive a person of their property. The Child C has done what a kid would and gone nuts on a freebie.
You need to recover the money (or make an arrangement) with Person A who purchased the phone. Any other arrangement on who currently owns the phone is their business. As far as I can see the department head is nothing to do with it and smacks of delaying tactics.
You may not get any/all of your money back. The police may be able to advise or you may have to see a solicitor.
Good luck with however it turns out.
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As stated above the age of criminal responsibility it 10.
There is no theft of the sim card since they have not dishonestly appropriated it, you sent it to them in error. They have then used it, knowing that it was not theirs to use, this is dishonest and could constitute a criminal offence (similar to abstraction of electricity/copyright – you can steal something you cannot see).
However, I would be very surprised if the police get involved, they will say that it is a civil matter. Your issue is with who ever brought the phone, i.e. who ever controls the EBAY account and paid for the item, however they are not the person who has run up the bill… I think you need to speak to a solicitor!
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I had a mobile with O2 that was stolen out of my house 18 months ago. At the time i was ill and didn't know the phone had gone untill i received a letter from O2 telling me of high call usage to the tune of over £300. As far as O2 were concerned because the police wern't informed within 24 hours of the phone going missing it was my problem, it was also my problem that O2 didnt transfer the insurance over to consumer rates from business rates. I ended up having to pay the bill, O2 did nothing as the bill was in my name i was liable. I wish you the best of luck with this but i wouldn't hold out much hope.
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I had a mobile with O2 that was stolen out of my house 18 months ago. At the time i was ill and didn't know the phone had gone untill i received a letter from O2 telling me of high call usage to the tune of over £300. As far as O2 were concerned because the police wern't informed within 24 hours of the phone going missing it was my problem, it was also my problem that O2 didnt transfer the insurance over to consumer rates from business rates. I ended up having to pay the bill, O2 did nothing as the bill was in my name i was liable. I wish you the best of luck with this but i wouldn't hold out much hope.
You didn't pay it did you?
I had an almost identical situation with T-Mobile, I dropped my phone in the street and didn't realise, some sh!t picked it up and spent £500 ringing Saudi Arabia. When I realised I'd lost my phone a week later the SIM was cancelled, they sent a replacement, etc, carried on using it as normal. Phone bill arrived month later with £500 bill - WTF?!?! It was only at this point I realised the phone had been used and wasn't lost down a sofa somewhere.
We refused point blank to pay, T-Mobile said I should've reported it, cancelled SIM within 24 hours, etc. But they eventually cancelled the bill. When we went to the police, the policewoman's reaction was 'well you're not going to pay it, are you?'
(Our main defence however was that when phoned up to cancel the SIM, we asked if it had been used at all, T-Mobile said no. They later tried to claim that international calls take a few days to show up on their system, but we argued this down as a) there was domestic calls too which they didn't tell us about and b) the guy from NTL told us that was crap - phone companies can see every call you've made straight away)
In fact, six months later, when the contract ran out, we tried to cancel it and T-Mobile said we'd been 'such good customers' that they knocked line rental down to 99p p/m (750 mins and 50 txts)! They obviously don't keep notes on file!!
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Criminal Age of responsibility is 10 not 16 years......Will be very hard to prove a criminal offence on this one!! There are many defences that can be used by the person with the phone....seek advice from CAB and hope......!!!
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Criminal Age of responsibility is 10 not 16 years......Will be very hard to prove a criminal offence on this one!! There are many defences that can be used by the person with the phone....seek advice from CAB and hope......!!!
I wasn't talking about a criminal act, I was talking about an "age of responsibility" which may or may not be defined in law, and if it is, it will be for the purposes of criminal activity.
Let me give an example of where I am coming from (true story), a mobile phone company gave new phones under contract to people under 16, without the parents knowledge, the kids used them, and then the bills came, the parents fought the companies, and although I can't remember how it was resolved, the company did have to forget about it, because it was decided that a court would not rule in the companies favour. It is generally accepted that an under 16 cannot take on a contract.
Therefore in this case there is no contract, but the kid was given a phone which worked, he would not have to IMO pay for the calls if legal action was taken.
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Poor Person A was only trying to help someone out.
I would call the child and say 'I know you have been messing about with your 11 year old gf, I will tell your parents, scare him into parting with his life savings lol
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Am I the only persons whose brain is hurting here ... it is better than an episode of Coronation Street .. can't wait for the next instalment
Ivan
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This running up of a bill, using a sim card not owned by a person is theft. The question is ..........who is the person and what can be done about it.
IN This case its the child, so persue the parents!
Any responsible parent is gonna want to sort this out, without it getting out of hand!
There is no excuse for the childs actions, and if the child will not take responsibility for this, then its the parents duty to.