'Why didn't they cut me off?' Lonely man runs up £91,184 phone bill calling daytime chat line after splitting up with his girlfriend

Kevin Waldrum, 45, ran up £91,184 phone bill calling adult chat lines

Began calling after splitting from girlfriend of 2 years

Claims he was unaware of costs and should have been 'cut off'



Continued to call after receiving first bill of £19,333.63 from Vodafone

Company barred his SIM but he obtained a new one to continue calling

Vodafone has cut total bill of £91,184 to £29,083 in 'goodwill'

Mr Waldrum has called the offer 'rubbish' and refuses to pay



A man has run up a staggering £91,184 phone bill in just three months after calling a daytime chat line to alleviate his loneliness.

Kevin Waldrum, began calling the premium rate chat line after splitting from his partner of 2 years.

The former security guard, from Gladstone Avenue, Loughborough, says he will continue to fight against paying the debt, which Vodafone have reduced to £29,083, claiming it has ruined his life and forced him to begin taking a variety of anti-anxiety medications.

Kevin Waldrum from Loughborough who has been charged more than £91,000 by Vodafone for calling adult entertainment services

The 45-year-old called the daytime chat line, which charges premium rates, after seeing an advert on television, and claims he was unaware of the mounting cost of his calls, which he made between September and November last year.

‘I was flicking through the daytime TV channels and I saw the advert,' said Mr Waldrum. ‘I just wanted to see what is was all about.

‘You ring up and there's all these options, they ask your name and sympathise with you' he said.

Mr Waldrum holding a letter from Vodafone regarding his bill, which the company have reduced by over half as a gesture of goodwill

Mr Waldrum, who is currently unemployed, said that he felt able to speak to the girls about his heartache and that he had a special bond with one girl, ‘Hannah’ who he spoke to on a regular basis.

‘I was telling this girl Hannah about my previous relationship and how it had ended 18 months before and she told me that she was having problems with her boyfriend and it was all going wrong.

‘Her and the other girls had a nickname for me, I was so well-known there.

‘When I called up they used to say 'Loughborough Kev is on the phone'.’

Kevin says he had a special bond with the women premium rate chat line (posed by model)

Despite an initial bill of £19,333.63 from his phone provider Vodafone, Mr Waldrum continued to make regular calls to the chat line.

He says he felt unable to stop: ‘I was back calling them pretty much right away

‘They used to warn you when a call was coming to the end of the 20 minutes you were allowed, and then I'd just phone straight back.

These calls resulted in a second bill of £71,850.67, which prompted Mr Waldrum to complain to Vodafone.

‘The Vodafone need shutting down because they're ripping people off left, right and centre,’ he said.

‘I'm not putting all the blame on them but not even multi-millionaires would want to spend this much on a phone bill, surely, so why I have been allowed to go up to £91,000.

‘I admit I rang these numbers and it's partly my own fault but the line should have gone dead before I started to incur such high charges.

‘They must be taking millions from poor people like me.

‘It has absolutely screwed my head up.

‘I am so down, depressed, desperate and anxious over the whole situation.

‘All I can think about from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed is, how am I going to pay these bills?

Mr Waldrum says the stress of the bill forced him to visit his doctor, who put him on medication to control his stress.

He now takes Diazepam for his anxiety and Nitrazepam to help him sleep.

Mr Waldrum began calling the premium rate chatlines after splitting from his girlfriend of two years

But he said he will not be able to move on with his life until the situation is settled.

He said: 'I called Vodafone and they said they were going to investigate but I haven't heard anything since.

‘It's been about six months of pure worry since then.

‘I've been totally traumatised by it. I have realised now, I just think 'Why did I ever do that?' I have deep regrets over it now.

‘Every time I see a Vodafone shop I start to feel physically sick and get a migraine and it makes me shake.

‘I want people to be aware how it can destroy lives. They have ruined my life.’

Kevin intends to continue to fight paying the remainder of his phone bill, which he says has ruined his life

Vodafone argue that they barred Mr Waldrum’s mobile phone for high charges but he ordered a replacement SIM from a shop to allow him to carry on calling the premium lines.

However Vodafone admitted they had missed an opportunity to alert Mr Waldrum to the higher costs at an earlier stage and following an investigation Vodafone has cut his bill to £29,083.

A spokesman for Vodafone said: 'By his own admission, Mr Waldrum made calls to premium rate adult entertainment services more or less continuously over a period of two months until we suspended the services on October 21 when the total debt was £91,000.

‘We had previously barred a phone used by Mr Waldrum on September 11 for high usage but he got round this by requesting a replacement SIM card from a retail store, saying he had lost the original.

‘He was then able to continue to build up debt.

‘We cannot manage our customers' spending for them, but we will try to alert them to it if we are aware of an unusual high spending pattern.

‘Looking back at the records, we can see that we could have alerted Mr Waldrum on September 18.

‘It can sometimes take several days for billing to register on our system, and by this time, his extreme use of premium rate services meant his bill was already £29,083.

Since we missed the opportunity to alert him at this stage, we will waive the charges of around £61,000 incurred after this point as a gesture of goodwill. Mr Waldrum remains liable for charges of £29,083.’

Kevin has said he will continue to fight against being held liable for the remaining amount - calling the offer 'rubbish'.

He said: ‘They should drop the whole lot. They have to think about my health.

‘This is not about money anymore, it is about respecting people.

‘They haven't even called me to tell me that the charges were being reduced.’