A MAN was left stunned after his wife's phone was stolen on holiday – only to be landed with a £20k bill.
The British tourist explained he was on holiday in Naples with his partner for their four-year anniversary.
However during the trip to Italy her phone was stolen, which they reported to O2 within the first eight hours of it happening.
Not only that, but he said she also had a £25 limit set up on the phone.
Despite this, the thieves managed to rack up a huge bill by calling premium rate numbers.
In a picture posted to Reddit, he showed the bill was a whopping £17,444.49 for calls with an additional £3,495.51 of VAT.
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This left them with a bill of £20,973 – which O2 initially said they had to pay by March 2 as they didn't report the phone as lost straight away.
He added in the comments: "Looking at the itemised phone bill, it looks like they had some sort of autodialer, making conference calls to premium numbers, each call was around 20 mins, it seems obvious that it was a bot of some sort."
He also complained on Twitter, adding: "My partner has been so stressed she has been in tears the last few days and physically sick a few times.
"Like having her phone stolen wasn't enough."
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People on social media were just as stunned that they were expected to pay the huge phone bill.
One person wrote: "They shouldn’t allow charges that high full stop. This is 100 per cent down to them to fix.
"No it’s not their fault but come on, those charges are insane and expecting you to pay it is unrealistic."
The O2 website states: "You must report a theft or lost phone immediately, as you're responsible for the cost of any calls, texts and data transfers made until it's blocked."
An O2 spokesperson told Sun Online Travel that they would not be charging the couple for the large bill.
They said: "We have spoken with Ms Lavrinovic today and we have agreed to clear this debt.
"We'd ask any customer who has their phone stolen to report the theft to us as soon as possible."
It's not the only mistake that could leave you out of pocket after a holiday.
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British tourist Adam Davies was forced to fork out £15,000 after not realising his insurance wouldn't cover him for more than 31 days out of the UK.
And one woman explained how taking a straw hat and jar of honey nearly cost her £1,116 at the airport.
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