Man wins court battle over $191,453 phone bill
A man who refused to pay the $191,453 mobile phone bill he’d racked up after pickpockets stole his phone overseas is celebrating after a court ruling agreed he shouldn’t have to pay.
Kim Beveridge received the whopping bill after travelling to Barcelona in 2014 where he had his mobile phone pickpocketed on a night out with colleagues.
Over the course of 20 hours, thieves had used his SIM card and activated call forwarding to divert calls from Australia to mobile phone in Latvia.
In total 4,484 calls were made totalling to 1,161 hours in call time, with the thieves also reportedly sending thousands of texts over the period.
Mr Beveridge’s provider TeleChoice, which uses the Telstra mobile network to deliver its services, pursued the contested charges all the way to the Supreme Court Victoria, which ruled against the telco, arguing these were not included in the international roaming service Mr Beveridge had agreed to.
Mr Beveridge’s barrister Jonathan Evans said, “The only fault of his was failing to report his stolen phone until 20 hours after the massive fraud was perpetrated.”
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with the ruling?