Stolen Phone - Call Centre Can't Cancel Until A New SIM Is Ordered

[himpantsou]

My phone was stolen today. Not an expensive one but the whole process of reporting to EE just didn't sound right to me.

I called and was phone the phone for 50 MINUTES trying to get this sorted.

I was told the sim cannot be cancelled until a new phone is dispatched. And the new one had to be despatched by post, I could not go to my local EE store in the morning to get a new SIM. And I have to pay £1.50 delivery. So this means the thief can go around making calls using my credit until a new sim is dispatched which could take a few days.

Can someone please confirm? I told the man surely this can't be right but he could not see how to do this otherwise.

I will be putting in a complaint to EE about this experience.

[Linzi_H]

Hi @himpantsou 

Regardless of the cost of your phone, it's an awful thing to go through having your phone stolen, and I hope you're doing OK! 

When reporting your phone or SIM stolen, the right thing to do is contact us as soon as you can. From there, our team will look at options to block the device and make sure your account is suspended preventing someone else from using this.

A new replacement SIM card can be sent in the post, or you are welcome to head to any EE store with valid photo ID.

If we are sending the replacement SIM to your registered address, the team does have the option to send this pre-registered. This means the SIM you previously had will no longer be in use. 

Did the team mention why you weren't able to head to an EE store? 

Linzi 

[himpantsou]

I can only assume the call centre team member was completely incompetent. He simply said the system would not block the existing sim until a new one was dispatched and that there was no option in the system to allow me to collect from a store, which is a 10 min walk from my house, and I would need to wait up to 3 business days for a new sim to be posted.

I have already put in a complaint about this call and if there are any call charges after I reported my phone stolen then I will be putting in a further complaint and refund request for fraudulent call charges. I called and sent an sms to the phone after my call with this person and calls are still going through - it has not been disabled yet.

[Linzi_H]

I think the best thing to do at this stage would be to give us a callback @himpantsou. I wouldn't want there to be any confusion with the next steps, and making sure a new SIM card arrives as expected.

We post SIM cards First Class post, so we do have to advise 3 working days for these to arrive. We send out stolen SIM cards activated as I previously mentioned, which means within 24 hours if not sooner your original SIM card will stop working completely, and I know you'll want peace of mind this has been actioned correctly. 

How did you raise your complaint, was this over the phone? 

Linzi