With the festive season in full swing, people up and down the country will be out socialising or hitting the high street to do their Christmas shopping.
At this time of year, however, consumers can be particularly vulnerable to mobile phone theft, with opportunist thieves preying on distracted shoppers or partygoers.
Not only are many mobile handsets worth hundreds of pounds and costly to replace, thieves can very quickly run up high bills on stolen phones.
Ofcom's latest consumer research reveals that consumers pay, on average, an additional unexpected £65 on their bill as a result of losing or having their mobile phone stolen.
However, consumer complaints highlight that, in some instances, charges from unauthorised use of lost and stolen phones can present consumers with unexpected bills of hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
Reducing the chances of bill shock' when a phone goes missing
Waiting to see if the phone turns up and failing to report it quickly can be a costly mistake.
Currently, consumers are liable for all charges incurred up until the point they report the phone as lost or stolen to their provider, including those they have not authorised.
Ofcom has expressed its concern about the unlimited liability that consumers face for unauthorised use of a lost or stolen phone up to the point that the phone is reported. Ofcom is therefore fully supportive of the recent agreement between government and industry1 to work towards the introduction of a monetary cap on a customer's liability in the event a mobile phone gets lost or stolen.
In the meantime, Ofcom today has a clear message for consumers - if you think that your mobile phone is lost or has been stolen, do not wait to see if it turns up report it to your provider immediately.
Providers can put a bar on the mobile phone's SIM to stop calls being made on it. This is usually easily reversible if the phone is later found, but consumers should check with their individual provider that this is the case.
Providers can also stop thieves from using the handset on other UK networks by blocking its IMEI - a 15-digit serial number unique to each handset.
Consumers with mobile phone insurance may also be obliged to let their insurer know if their phone is lost or stolen within a certain time frame too.2
Top tips on mobile phone security
Ofcom's has published a consumer guide offering advice on how to keep a mobile phone safe and help protect against unauthorised use.
Top tips include:
treat your phone as carefully as you would your bank or credit cards. Make sure that you always take care when using your phone in public, and don't let it out of your possession;
put a passcode on both your handset and SIM to make it more difficult for thieves to use;
make a record of your phone's IMEI number, as well as the make and model number. The IMEI is a unique 15-digit serial number which you will need to get the handset blocked. You can get your IMEI number by keying *#06# into your handset or by looking behind your phone battery;
consider barring calls to international and premium rate numbers (numbers which offer services you are charged for through your monthly phone bill or through credit on your mobile phone) to limit the risk of large bills being run up on your phone by thieves;
check the terms and conditions if you have an existing mobile phone insurance policy, or when considering a new policy as some insurers may provide cover for unauthorised use;
consider using apps which can trace your phone if it is lost/stolen and can wipe details from it remotely; and
register your phone with Immobilise, which is a database containing the details of millions of mobile phones and other property. This can help the police to identify the owners of lost & stolen property.
NOTES FOR EDITORS
The Home Office is also looking at how security features can be used to make handsets less attractive to thieves, as announced in October 2013: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mobile-phone-companies-join-home-office-fight-against-phone-theft
2. Failure to inform insurers within the required timeframe may mean that consumers are unable to recover all, or a large part, of the monies that they would otherwise expect to receive under their insurance plan.
Ofcom is the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications, wireless communications and postal services.
For further information about Ofcom please visit: www.ofcom.org.uk. Ofcom's news releases can be found at: media.ofcom.org.uk.
CONTACT
Lizzi Regan
Ofcom Communications
lizzi.regan@ofcom.org.uk
0300 123 4000
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
With the festive season in full swing, people up and down the country will be out socialising or hitting the high street to do their Christmas shopping.
