The Mobile Outlet: any good? (merged)

Alec2006

Seetha A

No, you can't do that. Orange isn't party to the cashback arrangement - it's strictly between you and TMO. You have a contractual obligation to pay Orange the monthly subscription for the minimum term (12 or 18 months normally). But it won't harm to let them know how badly you've been let down by a dealer who sell Orange airtime and handset, and how the whole experience is harming the image of the network provider.

Cobra_3

Seetha_A wrote:

Can someone tell me if I have the right to cancel my direct debit to Orange, the network service provider, as a consequence of my ongoing dispute re cashback with The Mobile Phone Outlet, or do I have to continue paying my monthly fee upfront (with no sight of cashback!).

And also, thank you Cobra for the long but succinct message regarding legal proceedings. Where can I find a 'Letter Before Action' or is this just the name given to a letter stating what I am about to do?

Alec is right, Seetha.

The nasty part of the whole thing is that although you may be in dispute with your retailer, you have to go on paying your network until the end of your airtime contract - even if the retailer goes bust, owing you money, in the meantime.

Bear in mind, also, that your retailer's Terms & Conditions might prohibit you switching to a lower tariff during the contracted period - on pain of losing your cashback entitlement - and you will almost certainly be in breach of them if you fail to make full payments, on time, to your network.

The only partial relief from this could be that if your retailer does go toes-up you could then reduce your airtime tariff to the lowest one available from your network until the end of your contracted period.


The “Letter Before Action” that you send to your retailer before applying to the Small Claims Court does not have to be formally structured. You can just write an ordinary letter and mark it up “Letter Before Action”.

Essentially, the court expects you to at least contact the retailer, setting out your grievance and giving the retailer a chance to remedy the problem reasonably promptly, before you blitz in and hit him with a writ over a problem about which he might not even be aware!

The Letter Before Action should specify your complaint, demand that it be remedied within a reasonably swift time period (a week or two) and make it clear that if it isn’t you will file claim with the SCC on a specific date.

But you should consult your local Trading Standards Office for advice on any procedural matter that isn’t clear to you and not rely for legal counsel on what is posted in forums - which may be well-intended but may not necessarily be correct.

GunJack

bump**********

Cobra_3

daniellelandod wrote:

Originally Posted by The Mobile Outlet

Hi,

If you feel your application was dealt with incorrectly, please email forumqueries@themobileoutlet.co.uk and we will review your application. Please include your full name and complete address.

Regards
Forum Query Team




I have done, but how long should I wait. I emailed cashback@themobileoutlet.co.uk many times over the past 4 months and keep getting told the same thing...'we're dealing with your claim'. I emailed forumqueries@themobileoutlet.co.uk last week and although you said you're dealing with my claim, I've heard that many times and have then just been ignored. I'm going to file a claim with Her Majesty's Court Service if I don't hear anything by Monday. Martinefjohnson@hotmail.com

Don’t you just love these postings from The Mobile Outlet?

It’s as if they were coming from another planet.

They remind me of those films in which a recorded announcement of a gently cooing air stewardess comes on, purring apologies for the fact that the drinks trolley will be a little delayed because the Captain had a spot of bother opening the door of the cocktail cabinet - whlle the ‘plane is in a 60-degree dive, with two engines on fire and all the passengers are screaming in terror.

I find them positively surreal.

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grayme-m

Cobra wrote:

Don’t you just love these postings from The Mobile Outlet?

It’s as if they were coming from another planet.

They remind me of those films in which a recorded announcement of a gently cooing air stewardess comes on, purring apologies for the fact that the drinks trolley will be a little delayed because the Captain had a spot of bother opening the door of the cocktail cabinet - whlle the ‘plane is in a 60-degree dive, with two engines on fire and all the passengers are screaming in terror.

I find them positively surreal.

- - -

A serious question to you Cobra: in your (to date) nine posts (all on this thread) you have taken almost every one as an opportunity to lampoon TMO.

I don't recall a single mention about you being a customer, so (unless you are), what are you trying to achieve?

Cobra_3

grayme-m wrote:

A serious question to you Cobra: in your (to date) nine posts (all on this thread) you have taken almost every one as an opportunity to lampoon TMO.

I don't recall a single mention about you being a customer, so (unless you are), what are you trying to achieve?

You only asked me to answer your question if I was NOT a customer of The Mobile Outlet but in view of its premise (and the inaccuracy of what you stated in posing it) I’ll answer it anyway.

As I’d have thought was blindingly obvious to anyone who had actually read all nine of those postings to which you refer, what I am trying to achieve (and the only thing I am trying to achieve) is to find out from other people’s experiences of using the Small Claims Court how best to pursue a claim through the SCC to obtain cashback owed by The Mobile Outlet.

As a result of my postings, a number of people have very kindly sent me Private Messages of advice on how to do this. For that, I am extremely grateful. Without my postings I would not have been given this information.

I hope that others will continue to post on here publicly their experiences and explanations of the procedures involved. If they do so, then further people such as I will not need to register on here and ruffle the feathers of people such as you, in order to find out.

It is perfectly clear from what other folk have posted in this thread that I am not alone in needing to know how to extract cashback from The Mobile Outlet when it does not respond to a properly filed claim.

I will concede that one of my postings (the seventh) did reflect my frustration that, in pursuit of the aforesaid quest, I had had to soldier through 36 long pages, largely composed of “open letter”s to The Mobile Outlet written by people just dithering endlessly and moaning instead of getting on with the task of pursuing their claim through the SCC, obtaining the money they are owed and then telling the rest of us how to do it.

And my ninth was prompted by the surrealism of the answers they receive (and which we all have to wade through) from The Mobile Outlet.

Why, on earth is stuff like that being posted in a public forum? Why cannot it be thrashed out in private - and through the courts, if necessary? What we actually want to know, here, is HOW to do those things, how to help ourselves and who else is in the same boat. This is a forum set up charitably for the interchange of information between us, not an alternative message board for The Mobile Outlet.

That said, I do want to correct the inaccuracy of the allegation you make publicly against me.

Having just re-read all my nine postings to which you refer, I invite you to do so again yourself and then either justify or withdraw your accusation that I “have taken almost every one as an opportunity to lampoon TMO.” That simply is not true.

Most of those nine were of general application, five of them (the majority) do not even mention The Mobile Outlet at all, one of them was an explanation to a novice who was asking what the term “PM” meant, another was explaining to somebody who hadn’t bothered to read the previous postings in this thread that The Mobile Outlet had in fact sent him the correct sum in cashback, and a third was a warning to another person not to stop paying their network just because they are in dispute with their retailer (who wasn’t specified at all). Having asked for advice on something I did not know how to do, I was trying to give back, in return, information on things that I do know about.

I would still appreciate advice on how to pursue to its ultimate conclusion a claim against The Mobile Outlet through the SCC to obtain outstanding cashback - and (having sent a stamped SAE with them) the original invoices that had to be submitted to The Mobile Outlet but which they have not returned.

In particular, I would like to know how best to proceed in regard to taking enforcement action if an SCC judgment is ignored and I think that many other people reading this thread would like to know the same thing.

That, in my opinion, is how this thread should be used - for us to exchange useful information with each other - instead of cluttering it up with endless and futile “public message”s to The Mobile Outlet bleating “when are you going to answer my last email?” or “why haven’t you sent me my cashback?”, all of which only makes it harder for everyone else to find the information that they want and need.

Nevertheless, since you have castigated me untruthfully in public, I think we can spare a single line of server space for you to now apologise to me in public.

What we need to remember here is that most of us are all facing the same problem and are all on the same side. To look for hidden agendas amongst ourselves is paranoid and distracts from the common cause. The whole point is that if The Mobile Outlet abided properly by its own Terms & Conditions and paid people their cashbacks within the timescale that they themselves chose to specify in them, this thread would not need to exist at all - let alone run to 37 pages (so far) - and our own time could then be put to more profitable and enjoyable use.

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BigSaver_2

Hi,

What are the chances of THO giving a 100% of the chequeback, even when you have done what they have stated? Please advise...

Thanks in advance

Cobra_3

The best advice you can be given is to ask yourself why this thread runs to 37 pages and then to read through them and form your own conclusion, based upon the experiences that others have posted here.

To give you any advice other than that is to risk being accused of lampooning The Mobile Outlet (by those anxious not to upset the company while it is processing their own cashback claim).

But I'm sure you won't have much trouble in working it out for yourself.

- - -

grayme-m

Cobra wrote:

You only asked me to answer your question if I was NOT a customer of The Mobile Outlet but in view of its premise (and the inaccuracy of what you stated in posing it) I’ll answer it anyway.

As I’d have thought was blindingly obvious to anyone who had actually read all nine of those postings to which you refer, what I am trying to achieve (and the only thing I am trying to achieve) is to find out from other people’s experiences of using the Small Claims Court how best to pursue a claim through the SCC to obtain cashback owed by The Mobile Outlet.

As a result of my postings, a number of people have very kindly sent me Private Messages of advice on how to do this. For that, I am extremely grateful. Without my postings I would not have been given this information.

I hope that others will continue to post on here publicly their experiences and explanations of the procedures involved. If they do so, then further people such as I will not need to register on here and ruffle the feathers of people such as you, in order to find out.

It is perfectly clear from what other folk have posted in this thread that I am not alone in needing to know how to extract cashback from The Mobile Outlet when it does not respond to a properly filed claim.

I will concede that one of my postings (the seventh) did reflect my frustration that, in pursuit of the aforesaid quest, I had had to soldier through 36 long pages, largely composed of “open letter”s to The Mobile Outlet written by people just dithering endlessly and moaning instead of getting on with the task of pursuing their claim through the SCC, obtaining the money they are owed and then telling the rest of us how to do it.

And my ninth was prompted by the surrealism of the answers they receive (and which we all have to wade through) from The Mobile Outlet.

Why, on earth is stuff like that being posted in a public forum? Why cannot it be thrashed out in private - and through the courts, if necessary? What we actually want to know, here, is HOW to do those things, how to help ourselves and who else is in the same boat. This is a forum set up charitably for the interchange of information between us, not an alternative message board for The Mobile Outlet.

That said, I do want to correct the inaccuracy of the allegation you make publicly against me.

Having just re-read all my nine postings to which you refer, I invite you to do so again yourself and then either justify or withdraw your accusation that I “have taken almost every one as an opportunity to lampoon TMO.” That simply is not true.

Most of those nine were of general application, five of them (the majority) do not even mention The Mobile Outlet at all, one of them was an explanation to a novice who was asking what the term “PM” meant, another was explaining to somebody who hadn’t bothered to read the previous postings in this thread that The Mobile Outlet had in fact sent him the correct sum in cashback, and a third was a warning to another person not to stop paying their network just because they are in dispute with their retailer (who wasn’t specified at all). Having asked for advice on something I did not know how to do, I was trying to give back, in return, information on things that I do know about.

I would still appreciate advice on how to pursue to its ultimate conclusion a claim against The Mobile Outlet through the SCC to obtain outstanding cashback - and (having sent a stamped SAE with them) the original invoices that had to be submitted to The Mobile Outlet but which they have not returned.

In particular, I would like to know how best to proceed in regard to taking enforcement action if an SCC judgment is ignored and I think that many other people reading this thread would like to know the same thing.

That, in my opinion, is how this thread should be used - for us to exchange useful information with each other - instead of cluttering it up with endless and futile “public message”s to The Mobile Outlet bleating “when are you going to answer my last email?” or “why haven’t you sent me my cashback?”, all of which only makes it harder for everyone else to find the information that they want and need.

Nevertheless, since you have castigated me untruthfully in public, I think we can spare a single line of server space for you to now apologise to me in public.

What we need to remember here is that most of us are all facing the same problem and are all on the same side. To look for hidden agendas amongst ourselves is paranoid and distracts from the common cause. The whole point is that if The Mobile Outlet abided properly by its own Terms & Conditions and paid people their cashbacks within the timescale that they themselves chose to specify in them, this thread would not need to exist at all - let alone run to 37 pages (so far) - and our own time could then be put to more profitable and enjoyable use.

- - -

I guess I lost the fact you were a customer but I can't get round the post encouraging everyone to go straight to the SCC in an effort to get their money now and send the company to the wall.

But then I'm lucky in that I emailed them via their forumqueries address and they sent me a cheque.

Read my question again, I asked if you were a customer and exaggerated 'nearly every', but then often in a public frum you are measured by your last post.

Cobra_3

grayme-m wrote:

I guess I lost the fact you were a customer but I can't get round the post encouraging everyone to go straight to the SCC in an effort to get their money now and send the company to the wall.

But then I'm lucky in that I emailed them via their forumqueries address and they sent me a cheque.

Read my question again, I asked if you were a customer and exaggerated 'nearly every', but then often in a public frum you are measured by your last post.

Again you miss my point and again you misquote me. And again you thereby oblige me to defend myself from misrepresentation by you.

(Sorry, everbody but I really don't want to get a libel writ for something I didn't write. You might want to pass straight on to the next posting; it'll probably be a lot more interesting than this one.)

Let's get this straight. I did NOT file a posting "encouraging everyone to go straight to the SCC in an effort to get their money now and send the company to the wall." Be very clear about that.

I wrote simply that one should treat the company with the same intransigence as it would treat a customer who filed their own claim one day late and accept no excuses for the company failing to pay what it owes within the timescale that the company itself wrote into its own Terms & Conditions.

I then suggested that if the company failed to issue its cashback within 28 days of receiving the claim, one should not mess about sending a series of frequently unanswered) emails to them and spending hours telephoning them on a 0870 number but instead send them a Letter Before Action stating that unless the money owing is received within (say) two weeks, one will proceed to file claim for it through the SCC.

And then, if the money is still not forthcoming, to go ahead and do it.

The purpose of that course of action is NOT to "send the company to the wall": it is to obtain one's cashback.

You were lucky; you received your own cashback after sending one email. I am (genuinely) pleased for you. But others here have not been so fortunate and need to know how to obtain theirs by alternative means.

I am not interested in being "measured by (my) last post" nor in whether or not The Mobile Outlet goes to the wall through its own stupidity. Like many here, I simply want to know how best to proceed successfully through the Small Claims Court to obtain an unpaid cashback.

That is clearly born out by reading what I actually posted (which I have not edited or altered). If you don't want to apologise for misquoting and misrepresenting me, it is you who will be "measured" for not doing so and frankly it does not interest me one iota. I merely wish to set the record straight because, unlike you, I do stand by what I write so I like it to be quoted accurately or not at all.

I suggest that we now take up no more server space pursuing this because doing so will only create more stuff for other people to have to battle through, to no positive purpose in their own quest for information. The only reason I filed my previous posting was to correct your misrepresentation of what I had written before.

If you cannot quote me correctly than kindly do everybody a favour and do not attempt to quote me any further at all.

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