Don't even think of letting your cell phone get lost...

Lucy dukes received a cell phone bill for almost $11,000 after not reporting it missing. She's a Raleigh school teacher, doesn't use her phone often and simply did not think there was a problem even though the phone had been missing since January 23rd.

When she got around to reporting the missing phone to the service company they informed her someone had been using it. She decided to get another phone with the same number and soon after began receiving calls from people speaking french from the Congo. Police have now traced use of the phone back to a native of Kinshasa, Congo, and charged him with using Dukes' phone to call his homeland.

Read the complete article...

News and Observer
March 28, 2007
Thomasi McDonald, Staff Writer

This 'roaming' phone delivers $10,733 bill
Police say stolen cell used to call Congo

RALEIGH - Lucy Dukes now realizes she should have called the cell phone company the same day the darn thing turned up missing.

But Dukes, a teacher at Broughton High School, rarely used the Cingular/AT&T Wireless phone that was lost Jan. 23 and figured it was somewhere in her home. She didn't call the company for two weeks.

"I called Cingular and told them, 'I think I lost my phone in the house,' " Dukes said. "They said, 'No, someone has been using it.' "

A day or so later, Dukes received a phone bill for nearly $11,000. Read more...