sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Please read this long winded post correctly.....

In May 2006 i took my mum on holiday to Spain as she had just been diagnosed with cancer and given 6 months to live.

Previously i changed my mobile phone provider and was 6 months through an 18 month contract. because my mum was very sick my phone bill was bigger than normal as i had a lot to sort out in the coming months. Anyway as some of you know, my mum died 6 months later in the August.

In the October i took my son and daughter to Spain to sort out some of my mums affairs. I called the mobile and told them that i was going away, i explained the situation to them (i told them about my mum) and we agreed that i would pay the £190 on my return in the November. They were happy to agree to this.

On the second day that i was away i was unable to call out on my phone. Then i was unable to text. I thought the phone was broken. This caused massive problems as i was on my own and i had no way of contacting my son who was with me and to hook up with my dad in a different part of the island. I needed my son as my daughter has disabilities and i needed him to help me.

when i returned from Spain i called the provider and asked what happened. They then told me that as i owed a bill while a new one was being generated i would lose my services. As you can imagine i was very angry especially as i had called them a couple of days prior to going away to let them know that i would be using my phone abroad, They didn't mention that my outstanding bill would cause me to lose any services. They told me that it is mentioned in 'the small print'. I got the contract over the internet. I questioned why they did not inform me of this when i spoke to them, they said they were unaware it would happen as its done automatically by the computer.

In desperation i had to get a new contract with my previous provider.
I paid the outstanding £190 to the company that had disabled my phone as previously agreed and told the mobile people that i didn't not want their service anymore as they had let me down after an agreement was made on the phone, and i now had a contract with another.
There was still one year left of the contract. They told me that i had to pay over £400, this would be the monthly rental charges for the next year. I told them that i did not want their service anymore and that i would not pay the £400 as i was not going to be using the phone. So basically i had not used anything that i had not paid for. I told the mobile phone people that i had to take on another contract because they had cut my services and not informed me they would do this.

They were aware that i was going to be on my own in Spain (not a holiday) with my children and using my phone. I kept them informed of the financial problems i was having and they were aware that the extra costs incurred was because of this and they agreed that i would pay the debt on my return. At no time did they tell me that my phone would be disconnected.

I have not had the use of the service for the year that they are billing me so they are not out of pocket.

Two and a half years later i have had a letter from a collections agency. I have told them the same.....



where do i go from here?

thanks you lot in advance

EddScott

Although the provider failed to tell you that the phone would be cut off it was your choice to take up the new contract. If you were going to spend so much time in Spain why not just get a local phone - its cheaper than using a UK phone there anyway.

Its a poor situation but I don't think you can blame the first providers failings on your non payment of the 2nd provider contract.

Ant

Wasn't orange by any chance I had the same problem with them *****.

Because entered a binding contract for 18months and the person on the phone who you made a arrangement with proberly didn't give a toss and never noted anything same thing happened to me.

Sadly I had to pay a £430 month phone bill which wasn't right.but had no way of proving it. Just arrange what you can afford to pay be awkward £1 a month

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Even if i had not took on another phone i would still have refused to pay for something i had not used. They stopped me using my phone but still expected me to pay for the service for a further year.

I have had a contract phone for about 15 years and have never been late with any payments.

hodgy0_2

in these contractual small print situations often the only way is to appeal to the "compassion" of the company concerned

and this couse of action is often more successful if you get the help of some of the many consumer organisations out there

I often read similar stories in the Guardian "cash" section on a Saturday -- and usually when the "experts" intervene the company concerned, often a mobile telco, drops the demand or offers a reduced amount

vvv sorry to hear about your mum

Dear Anna | Money | guardian.co.uk

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Will i be taken to court?

Its not Orange its o2 that i was with.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

thanks

Idid say to o2 at the time that if they took me to court i could not see them winning as i had not had the service they want the money for and that they failed to inform me what would happen especially as i was good enough to call them before i left and they agreed to my proposal.

Ant

If you don't sort something out they'll start looking into court proceedings I'd imagine

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

In a way i am hoping that they do take me to court. I cant see that a judge would make to pay for a service i have not had.
Mobile phone providers are well known for charging extortionate prices and being a law unto themselves so i would like to think that the law would be on my side under the circumstances. Plus i can show that i have never before been late with a payment.

Whatever happens i am prepared to fight this all the way

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Has anyone taken on a mobile phone provider and won?

EddScott

So you were 6 months into an 18 month contract. They cocked up so you had to get a new contract and told the first contract people to go away.

Its unlikely you'll get very far. Your in an agreed contract

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

Thats fair enough but why deny me the last 12 months use of the phone but still charge me?

Ant

They shouldn't you pay what you owe and they turn the services back on

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

am i allowed to cancel a service with good reason?
you can return anything these days if you are not happy with the quality, i suppose that is what i did.

If they had informed me that i was going to lose services for a late payment (a payment that they agreed could be paid late) then i could understand it.

Ant

Doubt I tried to cancel my virgin 8 months in as I was moving to new non cables area and still had to pay fir the remaining months owed.if it goes to court I have a feeling you'll loose as you have no proof of this conversation with o2

WRX_Dazza

dont forget that some of that 18 month contractal agreement has to do with the cost of the handset. have you returned the phone to them?

sounds like your oblidged to pay whatever as any stoppage of service on their part was covered by their watertight contract i would expect.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

I was using my own phone at the time. I could have had a free phone with the contract but i decided to keep the one i had. It probably works out that i was paying for a phone that i did not have

Thats a bit tight that they made you keep paying for something you could not use


All i can hope for is that i will not be made to pay for something that i did not use.The service was flawed in their favour imho.


Do they always take you to court?

EddScott

If you don't take the phone I'm sure they are quids in.

Why could you not use the phone when you came back? After the £190 did they not reconnect the phone? Was this because you had already said you wouldn't pay the contract off?

Network suppliers are similar to banks - a law unto themselves. Sneaky toads the lot of them.

I'm sure they have whole departments dealing with taking non-payer to court. I would do as antc says and say yes you will pay but you can only afford £1 a week.

Geezer

You need to read the original contract. If it says in there about losing the service upon non payment or outstanding payment, then you are screwed.

You say you got the contract over the internet, but do you mean they sent you an email? If so, then you should have read it. I know we all don't generally, I'm not having a go, but that's what they will say.

The fact that you didn't use their service is irrelevant, you had agreed to dolly up for 18 months.

I would feel a bit peeved too in this case, but I don't see how you've got a leg to stand on.

Phone watchdog

Geezer

speedking

As stated above, the cost of the handset is spread over the 18 months, so if you have not returned it then you are using something that you have not paid for. Even if you return it, a secondhand six month old phone will not be worth 2/3 of its original value.

Oh dear. Is it a Collections Agency or the Collections department of the Mobile provider? If the former then the debt has been sold on. I think it was on Watchdog a couple of weeks ago that these agencies purchase the debts in bulk and have no idea of any of the background to why the money is owed. Will be difficult to get out of IMO.

A couple of links Watchdog1 and Watchdog2.

But having said that nothing would give greater pleasure than you posting here to say that the (alleged) debt was wiped. Keep us posted.

Spoon

Sara, you say the letter was from a debt collection agency. I read from that o2 have sold the debt and now you face convincing a third party of your perceived innocence before they start piling on their charges.

Unfortunately you entered into a contract and owed money. You can't expect anybody to continue with a 'free' service if you don't keep up with the payments due. Had you paid the money then your service would have resumed.

No amount of courtesy phone calls are going to change computer software and in this case the computer said no!

My Father won a case against Cellnet back in 1985 for cancelling a contract for shíte coverage. It cost him 5K to win so it wasn't exactly worth it in a monetary sense.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

will reply a bit later, something has come up

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

I told o2 that i was going to be using my phone abroad. They knew that i had just lost my mum and were very understanding as to why i owed the money. I was worried that they would cut my phone off as i owed the debt but they assured me it would not be. So, i believed that we had an agreement. They didn't tell me that i would lose my services in the mean time. If they had i would have made other arrangements. You cannot imagine the upset all this caused at the time as i was effectively stranded in a foreign country!
For this reason i decided that i didn't not want their service anymore.

They were in my opinion wrong/negligent to let me believe i could use my phone abroad. They were aware that i was on my own traveling with children, one of those is disabled.
On my return i told them that their service was flawed and that they had put me and my children at risk. I paid the debt but told them that i was not happy with the way that they treat their customers and was not prepared to carry on. At this time i did not owe them anything.

The debt has been bought by a specialist debt purchasing company. They have no background information on what has previously happened. I have told them to take me to court as i am not paying for a bad service.

I did not have a mobile phone from them, i used my own.

Sometime after i had told them i would not complete my contract i did ask them if i could resume the contract and was told that i could not.

i am aware that i entered into an 18 month contract but not everything is always set in stone.....i will get my handbag out and fight this one all the way

hodgy0_2

alot of this comes down to paper work in the end, i.e. who said what to whom and when

ideally you should have the name and approx time of all the phone calls etc

I know its a bit after the event, but I try and note down a name and time, when this sort of thing arises --- it would then be upto them to dig the phone records out and prove no conversation took place

Spoon

Sara, the rest of your message you are just repeating. I absorbed it the first time. You are also confusing compassion with business and more to the point, computers. It doesn't happen despite what some numpty said on the phone.

Careful how brave you feel with these cloaked sharks. They'll love your bravado and probably make sure you require a credit check the next time you try and buy milk.

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

I repeated myself as i seemed to have become a nagging bitch lately

Its for those that don't read a whole post properly and i still have not learnt to multi quote after 6 foofin years!


Anyway, i am going to give it my best shot and see what happens. But i definitely am not going to give the thieving barstewards over £400 and get nothing back for it, at the least i want a 12 month contract......when my present one runs out

At the end of the day i am not going to pay for a bad service

I will keep you posted on my progress. Hopefully i am not to old to use my feminine charms

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Sara, will send you my email (dont give it out ) and will see what i can do tomorrow as i (hopefully) will get some time during the day to look into this a little and see what i can do

Tony

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

thanks again for that

if you send me some rood pics of yourself i will promise not to share you email address

speedking

Do you pay car insurance?

sarasquares

iTrader: (1)

I do but i wouldn't pay for a years premium and not be covered for 9 months of it