Fraudulent Third Party Charges Made Through my Phone Bill After Phone Was Stolen

[Anto]

This is a copy of a complaint I sent via a complain form. A similar email was sent to your CEO, Robert Finnegan. I will start using social media as early as tomorrow. 

I'm making a complaint as, after numerous calls to your escalation team which has led to a resolution not to be charged from fraudulent third party charges of £148.27 made on my phone after it was stolen, I've just received the bill with the third party charges in question. The escalation team had assured me these charges would not appear on my bill.

My iPhone 13 was stolen on 14 August and I went to ask for a replacement card to a Three Mobile Store which I'm using on an Android phone at the moment. I immediately saw text messages with the third party charges. I complained and escalated the complaint to the escalation team who assured me that I was not going to be charged for these charges.

I received two further third party charges on 28 August and your customer service team had to change my number. They guaranteed me that I was not going to be charged for these last two charges.

I would like to stress that you should not allow third party charges on my bill unless I gave consent which I haven't. Furthermore, third party charges on a phone bill are the most unsecured type of transactions and you should not allow them under any circumstance, particularly if you do not take responsibility when the transactions are fraudulent. No customers have interest in allowing third party charges as they can pay via credit cards where transactions are insured. The only reasons you allow third party charges on your phone bills is, therefore, for the economic interest of your business.

I will give you 48 hours to resolve this matter after  which time I will make a complaint to the Ombudsman, contact the press and television and send them a copy of the email I've sent to your CEO, Robert Finnegan, and I will leave Three Mobile for another provider.

In the meantime, I have cancelled my direct debit with Three Mobile and I'll pay the bill only when this is rectified. 

[CristinaLuna002]

Hi Clarker,

I have exactly the same experience in central London on the same date as you, the 30th of November. I cancelled my SIM the following date in the store and they assured me that all was deactivated and that they would be unable to get to my information. 
However I have already received 2 bills via three with Apple Play charges (via an app called Poppo live which I never heard of). The charges are over 300 pounds. 

I raised the scam to Three SEVERAL TIMES. Spoke to many different operators and the Complaint team on many occasions. It was useless. They only said to claim it via Google. I put two claims to Google with the correlation ID and the Crime number. Still useless. They closed the complaint. 

I spoke several time to three. All operators said different information, there was not a clear narrative and it was very time consuming and exhausting. The last operator from the complaint department said that even if i set the credit limit to zero, they can't ensure that the charges won't continue to come through in the next months...

At this point I am not sure what else to do. It feels completely unsafe and of course I will be terminating my contract with Three as this absolutely ridiculous and I it is Three the one that is stealing my money by not establishing measurements as well as not taking responsability for the fraud (which they are allowing)

I am just unsure whether if I go to a different phone provider, I will also need to change number for the charges to stop. Does anyone know please? This is my main priority now and will need to terminate the contract asap, but need to know whether to change number which will be way more tedious or keep the one I currently have...

Could anyone advise?

[JonathanB]

Hi @ClarkePJ,

I'm really sorry to hear about your experiences, firstly of your phone being stolen, but worse that you've incurred ongoing charges as a result. I hope that we're able to help resolve this swiftly for you. It's my understanding that your complaint is being addressed by the appropriate department, and that you're receiving ongoing updates from them?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[CristinaLuna002]

Also Jonathan, you could do something about it instead of replying to comments with information that has already been discussed in the thread. You are the representation of Three here and honestly you are not adding anything of value to the conversation.
As you can tell there are many of us in the same situation, and three are not putting any security measures or investigating it further. This is very nerve raking and time consuming for all the customers going through it.

You are the "community mediator", are you passing this information to your team? what has been done to stop this scam and increase security measure since you are aware of this?