Warning: Don't go roaming with Vodaphone

[Pathfoot]

I've been given a £900 bill by Vodaphone for calls I didn't make. It happened while I was working in Bangladesh in July/August 2006. I had my contract Vodaphone mobile with me and it was generally switched on in case the wife decided to call me but I only used it 2 or 3 times to phone home. I have a Bangladesh mobile provided by the project I am working for so I used taht for day to day calls.
Vodaphone say it is my responsibility - the SIM details and EMEI numbers match my phone for most of the calls which were made through the local Grameen Phone network.
There are dozens of calls on my bill but they were not made on my phone - I had the phone with me all the time and they are not on the call register of the phone. There were even calls from Sri Lanka which ended up on my bill - although Vodaphone have offered to take these off the bill "as a gesture of good-will".
I don't know enough about the techie side of this but it seems to me that there is a serious security loop-hole here. Someone, somehow has managed to clone/copy my phone details and has used those for an extended period while I was "roaming" in Bangladesh.
Vodaphone say this is impossible - I say it is possible because it's happened to me.
Can anyone confirm yes or no whether it is possible?
In the mean-time - Go roaming at your peril!

Malcolm Dickson
Former Vodaphone customer

[DaveC]

Vodafone will have been billed for these calls by the local phone network, so that is where the problem lies. I suppose it could be fraud, but it would have to be at the highest level.

The Bangladesh network should have a record of where these calls were made from. If they were not from a location which you could prove then you have a claim.

[stickystickman]

I wonder if Voda have had any other similar problems with this network? If they have, I suggest they kick them off their roaming list ASAP. Perhaps even the suggestion that this might take place would make this network investigate the issue further!

I bet this sort of thing goes on all the time and is kept under wraps. A 3rd world network probably see a big company like voda as fair game but then maybe voda should throw their weight around in cases like this!

Let us all know how you get on Pathfoot.

[spartan73]

normally when you make a call your sim and imei are registered everytime you make/recive a call... this is to prevent fraud... if your sim was cloned they would have a realy hard time cloning the imei number of your pone as its simply impossible to guess just by looking at it ect... this it the reason why vodafone ave found it highly unlikly that the sime/phone has been cloned. were people rinign you ang goign to your voicemail? did you hacve diverts on your phone? i have heard of a similar problem with vodafone users while roaming... what happened was someonefrom home rang you and you and got through to your voicemail then your voicemail rings you so it counts as a incoming call.. (charged for) then you ring voicemail and this then counts a a outgoing call. charged for again

[Pathfoot]

Vodafone still say that it is impossible to clone their phones and want me to pay the bill immediately. I'm back in Bangladesh and starting to make some investigations. I have absolutely no doubt now that my phone was cloned. The numbers called were all Bangladesh mobile numbers. I got someone to call one of them last night. The guy at the other end (a Bangla speaker) said he knows where the calls to him came from but of course he wouldn't say directly.
I recall some funny things happening with my phone over this period - it would light up of its own accord without me touching it - I guess this was when the cloned phone was making a call.
It's all pretty worrying to me that no-one seems to be taking this seriously at Vodafone.
I'll let you know if I get any stronger leads in the next few weeks.

Pathfoot

[DaveC]

Thanks - do keep us informed

[GC27vf]

Sorry to hear of the problems you're having Pathfoot,

Working for Vodafone it would be possible for you to send in an email to our customer service team (www.vodafone.co.uk, 'contact us' then 'email', leaving the short code FIT135 in your email will route you through to somebody who'll be able to look into this for you).

Having not seen the account in question it's hard to know to what extent your problem has been investigated already. I say this because by doing the above there is the chance we may only be able to re-provide the information you've already received. However, it does give you a second option if you feel customer services haven't dealt with this sufficiently following your original contact.

[Pathfoot]

Just to fill you in on what has happened - the friendly customer service people insisted that I must have been responsible for the calls and passed it on to their credit manager who sent me several "notices of default" threatening that unless I pay up they will register the account as a bad debt and/or refer the account to a collection agency.

I've just paid the outstanding amount.

My last communication from customer services was as follows:

Dear Mr Dickson

Thank you for your email and payment, which should be allocated to your account in the next few days.

Line rental for mobile number 07879 458578 will be charged up to 30th November 2006, which is when the agreement comes to an end.

We contacted you on 1st September 2006 due to high usage charges and required a payment towards the unbilled usage charges. As you could not confirm the usage the service was suspended. As per the terms of the agreement, in this scenario the agreement does not come to an end and you are still liable for all monthly line rental charges due during any period of suspension.

When using your handset in Bangladesh, calls within the same country are charged at £1.69 (including VAT) per minute. Calls are charged in 30 second increments with a minimum call charge of 1 minute. The charges incurred are for direct dialled calls and not for calls diverted to another number.

The disputed usage has been investigated and no anomalies have been found. Digital networks are inherently secure. It is impossible to duplicate a SIM.

I trust this is satisfactory.

Kind regards

Andrew Woodvine
Customer Relations
Vodafone Limited


Two points to note:
1. The statement that SIMs cannot be duplicated - that's codswallop - they are being duplicated in India and Bangladesh and I've since learnt that fraudsters target roaming phones because any anomalies are less likely to be picked up immediately - so beware anyone with a roaming mobile phone in these areas.

2. Vodfone's charge rate for calls within Bangladesh are almost the same as it costs to phone from bangladesh to UK. Anyone who uses a roaming phone on a regular basis for this is being seriously ripped off. Grameen phone told me that they charge Vodafone TK.20/min (around £0.17) for calls made while roaming.

Needless to say I'm disgusted with the attitude shown by Vodafone who apparently couldn't care less about providing a service. I've now closed both my Vodafone accounts and advise anyone I meet to do the same.

[spartan73]

thy may of checked your iemi number.. .even if the sim was cloned they would not of doen the same with the imei of the phone... simply to hard to do... every call made from your sim or "cloned" sim would record the imei of the handset it has been made from, there is no possible way aroudn this... it all happendsi n the split seconds while you are being connected... was probable because of a reason similar to this nothing was doen about it...

[AussiePommy]

This thread should be revived as the very same thing happened to me in Pakistan, the interesting thing about it is that the calls were being made in Pakistan when I was in India at the time. It has cost me 2,500 pounds (they rather quickly took it off my credit card without informing me of the rather large deduction first) and I am no where near getting the full amount back from the light fingered thieves that call themselves Vodafone.

I have had to go through OTELO in an attempt to have Vodafone investigate the matter fully as they had absolutely no intentions of doing anything about investigating how someone in Pakistan could have made these fraudulent calls, especially after I had left the country???

Vodafone are kidding themselves if they belive that the network is 'Inherently secure and cannot be cloned or tampered with' as this is just not the case.

I just hope that one day actual proof that their precious network's integrity is not as secure as they belive so that they will actually do something about it to save others from being caught by this.

So the original thread stands, do not roam with Vodafone, you could get cloned and you won't get a brass razoo from Vodafone.

Steve

[dwlu]

This thread should be revived as the very same thing happened to me in Pakistan, the interesting thing about it is that the calls were being made in Pakistan when I was in India at the time. It has cost me 2,500 pounds (they rather quickly took it off my credit card without informing me of the rather large deduction first) and I am no where near getting the full amount back from the light fingered thieves that call themselves Vodafone.

I have had to go through OTELO in an attempt to have Vodafone investigate the matter fully as they had absolutely no intentions of doing anything about investigating how someone in Pakistan could have made these fraudulent calls, especially after I had left the country???

Vodafone are kidding themselves if they belive that the network is 'Inherently secure and cannot be cloned or tampered with' as this is just not the case.

I just hope that one day actual proof that their precious network's integrity is not as secure as they belive so that they will actually do something about it to save others from being caught by this.

So the original thread stands, do not roam with Vodafone, you could get cloned and you won't get a brass razoo from Vodafone.

Steve

Hi Steve

It's difficult for me to comment based solely on the information in your post.

A possible explanation for the calls is if you were in India, but close to the border with Pakistan, it's possible your phone roamed on to the network in Pakistan and the calls were billed as if you were there. This is fairly common when you're close to the border of another country.

I'd like to have a look at your account to look at the charges in question. Can you please contact me using our Online Contact Form (https://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=Page_Help_ContactUs&pageID=PCU_0002) and include the code FIT135 in the body of your email to make sure it reaches our eForum Team.

Thanks

dwlu
Vodafone UK

[peterkinxl5]

A most intersting and worrying post Pathfoot.

I've been tipped off years ago that it is technically possible to scan and clone GSM phones, SIM cards etc as per the old Analogue ETACS phones of a few years back, but the capital outlay required was prohibitive.

Maybe thats just changed.

My only concern about your experience is in defence of Vodafone (whom I don't defend very often...!) was any of the bill made up of INCOMING calls?. Most people don't realise it but incoming calls are chargeable abroad and can be very expensive indeed.

The moral here is when travelling abroad, take a PAYG SIM or purchase a local PAYG SIM and leave a Voicemail msg on your main number requesting people phone you on your alternate number.

Not very convenient but in light of this posting maybe a bit safer?

[strikeforce]

Even if your service was cloned, its still not Vodafone UK's service that was cloned, you were roaming and therefore not on the Vodafone network.

I don't know how the networks are setup in India but in the UK its still impossible to clone a sim or scan for a GSM signal in the way your saying, I'd suspect it would be the same over there.

[Eleethal]

Just testing a post, for some reason it won't allow me to post. It goes through and then disappears when I reload (not a cache issue)

[Bad Horsey]

On a similar note…

I was in Spain in February and came back to a whopping data bill. I'd been very careful to only use the Wi-Fi on my N95 and after being patronised by the Vodafone muppets* ("You must have used the 3G connection when you thought you were using Wi-Fi" etc) I found out that although I'd disabled network connectivity on my Satnav, the AGPS was enabled. And this repeatedly polls the nokia servers via the 3G connection.

It only retrieves miniscule bits of data but with Vodafone's sky-high pricing, it quickly adds upp.

This was preceded by a previous debacle, incidentally, when Voda had forgotten to put Passport on my account and I was hit for high roaming charges… followed by another incident when I found out that passport didn't cover the country I was in. Fair enough, I was in a remote, minor country called America at the time.

*I take this back. I was quite fond of the Muppet Show.

[Neil201]

Whilst I agree Vodafone's roaming charges outside of the EU and passport countries isn't the cheapest, they are certainly very competitive with the Passport deal in most of Europe and are the only network to offer such a deal. I'm amazed Orange and T-Mobile don't do something similar to keep up with the competition.