T-Mobile & the 25% discount for life

lesley2337

Hi, this is my first post on here and felt that you guys would be able to offer the most advice

Right, basically 3 years ago when i took out my first mobile phone contract with T-Mobile i was offered 25% off for life whether or not i upgraded my phone and/or priceplan.

My first phone was a T-mobile compact 2 on Flext 20.
My second phone was a N95 with an upgraded priceplan to Flext 35.

When i upgraded to the N95 i kept my 25% discount and was also given a £5 extra discount a month.

But when i went to upgrade my phone last month to a T-mobile G1, i was told that i could keep it on my same priceplan and i had already added web & walk halfway through my previous contract on the N95. So was told everything would be fine with that and i just needed to upgrade the phone, which i did.

When i get my bill this month there are no discounts on it whatsoever, and they have charged me £6 for delivery of my new phone even though it said it was free delivery!!!

I have since sorted the delivery charge out and they have taken that off the bill and apologised for this.

I'll post a copy of the e-mail i got sent today stating the reason why i have lost my 25% discount, which is supposedly meant to be 'for life'


Thanks for your further email Lesley, asking about the 25% discount and delivery charges on your latest bill.

I'm sorry to hear that you were charged for the delivery, as you were told it was free and was informed about the loss of 25% discount on your account. I understand how frustrating it must be for you.

I've just checked your account and can see that you were on Flext 35 (18 month) which was an older version of our Flext plans and you were provisioned with 25 % discount on the account which was available when you took a contract with us on 18 april 2006.

The same discount was still continued when you upgraded your contract 4 September, 2007 as this was available at the time of your upgrade.

As the older version of Flext price plan was discontinued and we launched a new version of Flext plan, on which this discount was not applicable, due to which you've lost the 25 % discount on your account.

I'm pleased to tell you that I've removed the charges for delivery from your outstanding bill. You can see this adjustment in your next bill.

Thanks again for your email Lesley. I hope I've managed to explain you clearly about the loss of 25% discount on your account.

If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to reply to this email. You might also find the answer by clicking here to see our most frequently asked questions.

Do i have anything to stand on basically is what im asking?? I wasn't at any point told i would lose my 25% discount, and wasn't told that my priceplan would be changing, i was perfectly happy with my old priceplan. In fact the new priceplan, is in their words...... The older Flext priceplan had £180 while you're newer version has £200, i.e., £20 of extra.


I look forward to your replies and if any of you have had the same problems.

ray123

My priceplan on t-mobile is maybe 5 years old, so it seems odd that they changed your price plan and not mine. It is not available to new or existing customers, but I still have it.
Seems like they are trying it on.
Do you have the original copy of the contract promising a 25% discount for life? Did you make a note of the date and the person you spoke to when upgrading?
Could ask for the notes on your account (but you have to pay for them) or whether the conversation was recorded.
One thing in your favour is that they have admitted that they were wrong charging for delivery!

lesley2337

thanks for the advice.
Shall i ask them to put me back on my old priceplan or something, so i can keep my 25% discount?

I'm in the middle of looking for the original contract i took out so hopefully that will say something about it.

ray123

Is worth a shot. You undertook the upgrade under the assumption that you would receive the 25% discount for life. Next time you contact them, tell T-mobile that you were misled and feel v upset that such a loyal customer has been treated this way.
I had problems with t-mobile a couple of years ago and even wrote a letter to the head office. If you call customer services, ask to speak to a manager or supervisor. Make a note of the date/time of conversation, take down the name of the person/ team number / department. (VERY IMPORTANT IF YOU DO CONTACT HO, AS IT SHOWS THEM YOU ARE SERIOUS AND WELL ORGANIZED.)
When i sent the letter, I was able to show how shabby the customer service was, 'I spoke to tim who kept me on hold for 45 mins....'

If you are not satisfied with the outcome, tell that person that you are not happy and will esculate the complaint if necessary (.ie. contact the head office).
I find t-mobile treat existing customers v poorly, but if you persevere with the complaint, hopefully things will work out for the best.

Let me know how you get on!

Iain_A

My contract is up this week so I'm going to ring them up and ask them if my 25% for life still counts. I think I may be leaving T-Mobile because I reckon Orange's Dolphin 35 (600 mins and unlimited texts for £25 in the March sale) and Vodafone's tariff are better (same as Orange). I've been on Flext 35 (I think..I have £180 of credit) for 3 years now.

I'm gonna ring and ask to have the Sony Ericsson C905 and web and walk for my upgrade because if I was a new user I could get Flext 35 with free internet for £32 a month...which is cheaper than what I would get it for if I added on web and walk. It seems that T-mobile never do good retention deals. I was looknig on my T-Mobile over what phones I could get and they were all shocking!

Any tips?

Money_Grabber13579

The 25% discount is obviously going to cost T-mobile a lot of money, especially when they have to be ultra competitive with their tariffs in the first place. Hence they're probably going to try anything to get out of it, whether they have the law behind them on not. In this case, if you can prove that it was 25% for life even if you upgraded price plans, which I think you've already done, you'll have a very strong case against them.

Aye_Up

Unfortunately I believe in T-Mobile's eyes the for life offer meant for the life of the contract, so however long you stayed on it before you upgraded. When it comes to contract renewal you could continue with it and benefit from the ongoing 25% discount if you chose not to upgrade and stick to the rolling contract there after......

However legally speaking T-Mobile is not obliged to offer the 25% offer beyond the initial minimum term, given you were advised of the terms at time of upgrade you don't have a leg to stand on I'm afraid. You agreed to the terms over the phone and they will have a record of this, I know it's crap and not what you want to hear, however the onus is on the customer to understand what kind of deal they are getting. You should have been aware that price plans changed over 18 months ago when T-Mobile started charging for voicemail and the like, this should have been an indication for you to make sure they kept you on the original tariff which included voicemail useage and thus keeping the discount.

I hate to be blunt but thats how T-Mobile will put it, and in the eyes of the law they are right, morally its wrong and I agree completely with how you feel. I have had similar issues in the past myself and anything they would offer you would only be small compensatory measures.

Iain_A

I just spoke to T-Mobile. They didn't offer me any good offers to be honest. You can keep your old Flext 25% offer but I don't think they offer you very good deals. THey offered me nothing I couldn't get being a new customer:sad:

lawbunny

The 25% discount was for life on certain price plans. The old flext plan was one of these price plans. If at any time you change from this plan (either at an upgrade, or just as a general price plan change part way through your contract) then you no longer qualify for the discount.

Were you told you would get more allowance with your new price plan at the time of upgrade, or that you would get free web n walk? If they did inform you that you would be getting put on a new price plan at the point of upgrade then there's not much you can do: they are obliged to tell you how much the monthly charge will be, but they do not have to specifically inform you it does not include a 25% discount - unless they tell you the discount IS on your account you have no grounds to simply assume it will be there. However, if they didn't tell you your price plan would be changing (ie different allowances etc) then you have grounds to argue your case.