A woman has been left to the foot the bill for a mobile she no can no longer use after Phones 4U went into administration.

Sarah Moon dropped off her Sony Xperia Z1 smartphone into the retailer’s Sittingbourne branch just before it closed down.

A month later, she is still being forced to pay £50 for a broken phone that is locked inside the empty shop on the High Street.

The Upchurch resident said: “When I heard they had gone into administration I called the repair centre and they assured me they had my phone and would send it to my home address rather than the store when they had fixed it.

“When I called them again they told me they had never received the phone and that they had no record of me even calling them.”

The 39-year-old is angry because she believes she cannot stop paying her bill in case it has a negative impact on her credit rating.

She said: “It’s really annoyed me that I am going to have to pay this money.”

David Jetuah, a spokesman for administrators PwC, said a build-up of phones at a central processing centre meant it was likely Mrs Moon would have to wait to get her phone back.

He said: “There is a massive job to do after it [Phones 4u] has gone into administration.

“I cannot make any reassurance that she will be reimbursed.”

The Sittingbourne branch remains closed but has been bought by Vodaphone, saving the jobs of nine staff.