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. 

[Dimples]

I'm currently experiencing this issue with no resolution.

I'm at a dead end and distressed that Three won't do anything about these transactions.

[JonathanB]

Hi @Dimples,

I'm really sorry to hear this, just to clarify you've had charges following the theft of your phone, and this is continuing after replacing your SIM? I'll do my best to help, but can you walk us through what happened in a bit more detail. When did this start, and did you report the theft to the police at the time?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Musoman]

This has happened to me. Did it get resolved?

[LJ1]

This happened to me after having my phone snatched in London in October 2024. After many many frustrating hours on the phone Three customer service, the only solution in the end was to email the CEO (the exec team will pick it up for you). Insist that your credit limit on ThreePay is reduced to £0. And ask for a refund of the amount which you've lost from fraud. 

Sorry you're going through this - it's really stressful.

[CristinaLuna002]

hi, I am sorry you are going through this. I went through it myself and it is very anxiety provoking…

I am pasting here the response I posted on the thread back in the days with how I resolved it, but basically I ended up emailing their CEO and it was only after that when things got moving. They refunded me with all the fraudulent charges, let me break my contract without any cancellation fees and gave me £75 as an apology… which wasn’t much . 
Pasting here what I did answer on a previous thread 

I felt the need to come back here to share how my case was resolved. The past two months have been incredibly stressful since this incident occurred.
I was charged multiple times through Google Pay (via an app called Poppo Live), with the total bill amounting to over £350.
The most anxiety-inducing part was the unpredictability of the charges—they could appear at any time, even after I set a £0 credit limit on my account.

I contacted numerous operators through 333, raised the issue with the Three complaint team via phone call (3 unresolved complaints), and submitted two claims to Google.

Unfortunately, Google is impossible to contact (there is no contact number anywhere - despite the operators at Three provided me with 3 different contact numbers for Google that would not work!). After 2 claims to Google, they informed me that I needed to deal with my phone provider as they didn’t have enough information about the charges.
Out of desperation, I sent an email to Robert Finnegan, the CEO of Three, and his executive team. It wasn’t until then that things finally started to move forward.

In my email, I requested the following:

• A refund of the fraudulent charges that had already been debited from my bank account.
• The cancellation of pending charges still associated with my account.
• The ability to terminate my two-year contract (which was set to run until January 2026) without paying the £240 early cancellation fee.
• Assurance that no further third-party charges would be applied to my account in the meantime.

All of these requests were accepted. I am currently awaiting the refund to my bank account, the pending charges have been cancelled, and I have received confirmation that I can terminate my contract with Three without incurring any penalties, as I no longer trust this provider (I am waiting for these to be actioned but I have received a confirmation stating that that will be the case)

It’s deeply frustrating that a situation that should have been resolved promptly dragged on for over two months, severely impacting my mental health and causing significant anxiety. Ultimately, the issue only started to be addressed after myself, a customer who had been a victim of fraud, escalated it personally to the CEO.

This is shocking and I never thought that I would do so but I didn’t have any choice.

My willingness to come back and post the resolution here is just an attempt to help and offer my experience to other victims that are also suffering out there. I did made the executive team aware of the existence of these conversations in this forum. I hope they will make some changes.

In the meantime I had to post here out of empathy. As I have been in this situation and it is really frustrating, difficult and you feel very lonely and helpless. 

My wish is that every single person here is supported and protected by Three. I hope my experience is of help and can give you some ideas if after many escalations/complaints the issue is not solved. It is not ideal but after 2 months is the only thing that worked for me.

On another note, the social media team was helpful throughout the process, I would’ve appreciated this help after the theft happened, instead of 2 months after a some many nights struggling to sleep..

they refunded me all the fraudulent charges and let me go and change provider without paying an early cancellation fee. 
they also sent me £75 as an apology.

so there is hope, but my only option was to email their CEO directly…
best of luck if you also going through this.

[MissPB]

Can anyone help with stopping third party charges on Three or even say what they are? My phone has not worked since before Christmas I've contacted Three and received a new sim. Today I've managed to get the phone working again. I immediately checked my bill to find the best part of £50 added in Third Party Charges including Three Pay which I have no clue what this is! How do I get this removed and block any further transactions. Is this a case of fraud? I have so many questions and no way of finding the answers or stopping this. It's really upsetting and frustrating. 

This happened again a few months ago, I just paid the bill (DD) and didn't even think to check until now when I noticed this large bill. Three has to do better to safeguard their customers there has been no receipts or messages to say additional payments are being taken. I will be leaving Three ASAP and stopping my direct debit! 

[JonathanB]

Hi @MissPB,

I'm sorry to hear that you've had unexpected charges.

In the case of the other Community members posting on this topic, they've described a loss or theft of their phone. It shouldn't be possible for Three Pay transactions to have been set up without a two factor authentication, usually this requires a text to be sent to your SIM, and the code from the text is entered on the relevant app or browser page. In cases of theft, the thief may have had the opportunity to insert the SIM in a different phone to do this before it was blocked.

From what you've described the phone hasn't been misplaced, is it possible someone else had taken the SIM card out during this period where you say the phone wasn't working?

In the first instance of unexpected charges like this, we'd recommend to check your itemised bill, and you should find more information about the service charged for, and usually contact details so that you can query the transaction further.

Have you been in touch with our customer services team to query the charges further in either instance, if so what happened?

Thanks,
Jonathan

[MarkC5114]

Having a similar issue after my phone was stolen a while ago. It’s been a depressing experience. I’ve sent this to my ongoing complaint.

Good Afternoon,

Regarding my recent bill please see the following comments.

My mobile phone was stolen during a robbery in the early hours of 30th November 2024. I contacted 3 as soon as possible that day to inform them that I had been a victim of crime and that my phone had been stolen. I requested that my SIM card is blocked and was advised to attend a store to get a new sim. I did this on the 30th and also upgraded my plan in the store, following this experience I truly regret this action.

I contacted my insurance company regarding the theft who requested some information. Proof of the phone purchase and a crime reference number. They also requested that I contact my Network provider and get my IMEI black listed. This is were I started to experience a truly shocking and frankly distressing engagement with 3 customer service. I have been with 3 for over 10 years I believe and I intend to leave as soon as practicable.

From memory it took almost two weeks for 3 to block my IMEI. I spoke to probably 5-6 different agents… and all said slightly different things. I was completely flabbergasted when I was being told to provide proof of usage. My own network provider was asking me to provide information that they essentially had. One handler told me I had to contact apple and this was the only way to get the required information. After speaking to the professional staff at apple they assured me that it was my network provider with this information. Shockingly this saga went on for several more days causing increased stress in my life as It was having financial implications.

After this was sorted I then received my 3 account bill. It had £99.96 of charges from third party including Three pay. I had no idea what this was. Concerned that I was now also a victim of Fraud on top of robbery, I contacted 3 immediately. I informed that agent of the back story and told him that I had asked 3 to block my SIM card on the 30th November. After some investigation the call handler informed me that I was responsible for the charges regardless of my phone being stolen and that I had to contact the third party Tick tok. I spoke to a manager who then questioned whether I had made the transactions and started to dispute the timings of my phone being robbed and reporting it to 3.

I have been told to contact the third party to dispute the charges 3 will take 21 days to do this.

The following points make this experience extremely worrying.

Phone theft in London is prevalent. There are hundreds of victims every month. It is extremely a distressing event. As a multinational established company, your customer care and service around this issue has been atrocious. I truly worry for our vulnerable members of society and how this service will affect them in the event they become similar victims of crime and request your assistance.

Taking almost two weeks to block an IMEI is outrageous and puts your customers at an increased risk of personal data compromise, fraud and further stress. This appears to be common with your company.

I have never authorised any payments to a third party. I assume it will have been in some small print in a Terms and conditions I signed. Nonetheless, the fact that a criminal and take my SIM card and use it to then make purchases and commit fraud against me even after I have flagged the incident is just not good enough. No second authentication, no emails or nothing to confirm the movement of funds. 3 has essentially facilitated this further crime against me, even after contacting them ASAP. Telling me that I am responsible and that it is billed to be is just poor, insensitive and wrong.

I am awaiting contact from the complaints department before my bill is taken on the 9th. If these charges are not removed from my bill I will take the next following steps.

I will be requesting a deadlock letter to the Ombudsman/ofcom.

I will send this email and the further impact statement detailing the effect it has had on me and to the BBC watchdog.

These steps will be taken in an attempt to not be a further victim of crime and also to attempt to flag this matter in your company which may safeguard other consumers.

I will await an update on the 6th January 2025.

Kind Regards

[MarkC5114]

My phone was stolen in November and the criminals used my 3 sim to set up a fake Google account. Then then have spent 200 pounds on my 3 bill through google Pay. 

3 have said multiple times that the spend cap will stop this. Goggle say that as it is a fraudulent account I need to contact my payment company to stop the charges. This has been a mind boggling experience. I am being a repeat victim of Fraud with two companies refusing to help. 

We are seeing a massive rise in phone theft across London especially. Now that I have been a victim I can see that three pay and other versions are providing a perfect loop hole/gold mine for criminals. There seems to be no way to stop the charges and the moneys obtained from victims accounts can be easily laundered into cash. Thieves have this extra gain by making unauthorised payments with stolen sim cards, and 3 seem powerless/unwilling to prevent it. Needed no additional verification in this day and age of fraud activity is mind boggling. Even months after a sim card is reported stolen, the charges can continue. The spend/ credit cap is useless and appears to not work, as confirmed 3 Agents, this must be against regulation? There seems to be a combination of 3 and Google refusing to take responsibility for the charges, leaving victims to take the stress and financial burden. There is no telling the effects this would have on our vulnerable members of society. 

I need help with this matter/ or if anyone has had similar and managed to fix it, I see no other option other than contact termination via ombudsman currently.

[ClarkePJ]

Hello, I am in the exact same situation right now which is highly distressing. Could you please advise as soon as possible as I am being defrauded right now.