Consumers are calling for caps on mobile phone bills after their phones have been used by criminals who have run up huge bills on them by making calls abroad.

Calls have been made to mobile phone companies to introduce caps on mobile phone accounts by consumers who have been hit with hefty bills as a result of their phones being used by criminals who have made calls to overseas destinations and run up a huge bill in the name of the phone owner.

A number of students were recently interviewed after falling victim to phone crime, where their phones were stolen and the criminals used the phones to make calls to abroad, which then clocked up huge bills for the accountholders who had not even made the calls. Several of the students interviewed had been billed for £1500 or more as a result of this.

One student explained that he is deaf and only uses the phone for texts. His bill was normally around £30 per month. However, he mislaid his phone when he was studying last year and by the time he realised and contacted his provider around £1500 in calls had been run up.

Another student explained how he had lost his phone and the person who had the phone contacted his friend stating that he had found it and was going to return it, asking for the student’s home address so it could be posted. However, instead of posting it he actually used the phone to run up £1100 of calls to abroad. The student had not bothered cancelling or registering his lost phone because he believed that it was being sent back to him.