Mobile phone security ...is there such a thing ?

[joy division]

I thought I'd share my experience with fellow Ab'ers and pose the above question.

I was mugged a few months ago and my mobile phone was one of the items taken from me.

Immediately after the mugging, I contacted VODAFONE and gave my IMIE mobile phone number.

I was assured by the Vodafone customer care representative that my phone would be shut down and could not be used by anybody else even with another sim card.

My stolen mobile phone has just been recovered by the police where upon I have learned that the thief had been using my mobile phone with another god damn Vodafone sim card these past couple of months.

I'm bloody livid !!

Has anybody else had a similar experience ?

What's Vodaphone playing at ?

[WoWo]

Can't see what the problem is, the bill is attached to the sim card not the phone, so you won't be paying for the calls.

Unless you mean they were using the sim card in another phone. Either way you told Vodafone the phone was stolen so you would have nothing to worry about.

[joy division]

The problem is like most people I had personal information, photographs and video stored on the handset that was accessed by the thief when I was assured by Vodafone that this was not possible.

The problem also is that the thief has used this information to contact me on several occasions.

I also have a problem with the fact that that for a period of time, the thief gained from my loss and had use of a fairly decent, recently purchased mobile phone that I worked my @rse off for, and Vodafone did little in the way of ensuring security, despite their security claims made on their web-site.

[kempie]

AFAIK Vodaphone (or any other supplier) cannot block access to data on a stolen phone.

Blocking the IMEI means that the handset is unable to use the network for voice and SMS services. I think that a blocked handset is still able to use GPRS.

If you wish to stop other people accessing the contents of a mobile phone you need to set the PIN.