Unauthorised third party charges apple.com/bill

[CAER]

Ok, so long story; My sons phone got stolen and on the next bill I had £56 unrecognised third party charges for apple.com/bill. I phoned up EE who told me they could block this charge and I should phone apple for a refund; i did. and they said yes, they could see it’s fraudulent and would reimburse me. Next bill arrives and on the contrary, there are another new £208.55 in charges and only a tiny refund for a 25.99 part charge shown; I phoned apple again and they said nothing they can do as they only reimburse particular charges; others they don’t; strange thing to say, so I escalated but same result with the higher managers... just can’t believe it’s possible for two mega reputable companies to allow fraud to happen that easy - What can I do? Is there anybody with a similar experience? I think if it is so easy to take money through a phone number, something is not right!

[Northerner]

Hi @CAER 

Wow that is bad. If your sim is reported as lost or stolen then any account billing shouldn't happen. 

@Chris_B might be able to help if you can log into your apple account and remove payment authority. Do you have any insurance. Have you checked your hone and content insurance as you may have cyber cover which you maybe able to claim from. One thing for sure is you need EE to remove any account payment authority if you cannot do this via Apple. 

Thanks 

[CAER]

Thank you, but that’s the conundrum; there are no charges on my Apple ID, it’s been a clever fraudster who managed to use the stolen phone to bill his apple account purchases to my phone bill. It’s all data protected so the said the account is blocked but the £200 came in the time it took to actually block anything, if indeed, EE or apple blocked anything..

[Leanne_T]

Hi @CAER 

I am very sorry to hear this has happened. 

Are the charges after you reported the phone as stolen or before you had the chance to get in touch with us? 

Leanne.

[CAER]

I raised the case on 18th July, when reviewing the July bill (bill from 7th)  i.e. the charges were before that;

on the August bill there are new charges from 9th and 10th July and only two of the original charges from before have been reimbursed by apple, the other 205.88 not, ( add to that the previousy not reimbursed 25.99)

they now say I should go back to the mobile phone company...I just can't face running round in circles...crazy

[Leanne_T]

What date was phone reported as stolen and blocked? @CAER 

Leanne.

[Chris_B]

@CAER   The best way to stop this is to request a change of number and make sure there is a passcode on any new phone and also a sim pin for the sim so if the sim gets removed or the device is turned off that sim pin has to be entered before the sim will work.    plus the device passcode has to be entered to gain access. 
The device couldn’t have had a passcode on it or who ever took it saw that code being entered on the device or that sim didn’t have a sim pin on it and was removed from the device and placed in to a different phone.