Hello Zen & List,
The same thing happened to me last June (6/97) ie: Somebody cloned my
cellular phone number and began running up huge amounts of roam time in
southern California. I live in northwest Oregon.
The only reason I new anything about it was I went to use the phone one day
and received a recorded message that the service had been disconnected.
My cellular service provider DID notice the sudden increase, and suspecting
something wrong, had pulled the plug... thank goodness!
I was given a new number but the bill for the fraudulent use of my own
number did show up in my statement... nearly $1000.oo
I was told by my provider that although it was showing up on my bill, to
"just ignore it" while they straightened out the records as I wouldn't be
held responsible.
When I paid my portion of that bill, ie: the correct amount charged to my
new number, I enclosed a letter detailing why I wasn't paying the full
amount and sent it registered mail in order to have some documentation in
case things got ugly.
Fortunately they didn't. After two or three billing cycles, the charges to
the cloned number disappeared as promised and things have been quiet ever
since... Still using the same cellular provider too.
I suppose, I should get a summary of my credit history from wherever one
gets those things just to make sure the incident didn't damage my credit
rating but I haven't.
I hope your story has as comfortable an ending as mine had.
Richard Wagner RPT
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC