TMobile broadband package confusion

DonC

About 2 months ago, my phone was stolen. I called Tmobile and reported it stolen. I also asked to cancel my broadband package with TMobile as I was intending on borrowing a replacement phone and using that till my contract ran out, and Id get a new phone and contract when the time came.
I found a phone on ebay that I was happy with, and when setting it up I found that the broadband still worked. Since I hadnt received any confirmation of the broadband cancellation, or notification of increase in price, I thought they hadnt managed to cancel my broadband and I continued to use it.

I only noticed there was a problem when I checked my bank account and found that TMobile had taken £135.94 from my account. I called TMobile, pointing out that my bills for the last several years had been under £20 a month, but they are unable to do anything about it.

I was under the impression, that if you cancel something, it should no longer be available, not replaced with something else at inflated rates. And if the service is replaced, at least confirm that there has been a change and what those changes are.
TMobile has no problems doing this with the voice side of things... ie. I get a weekly SMS saying how many minutes I have available.

Any suggestions of how I should proceed?

ScottishChick

When you called and pointed out the £135.94 what did they say this was for?

When you refer to broadband do you mean an additional extra on your mobile phone contract to allow you to access the internet?

DonC

ScottishChick wrote: »

When you called and pointed out the £135.94 what did they say this was for?

About £115 of it is broadband fees. Considering I use broadband on my phone mostly just for google maps, it seems excessive.
I have asked them to forward me a breakdown of the charges.

ScottishChick wrote: »

When you refer to broadband do you mean an additional extra on your mobile phone contract to allow you to access the internet?

I initially had a broadband package that allowed internet access. I cancelled it when my phone was stolen, because I was going to use an old phone for calls and SMS.
When I got the new phone I found that broadband was still working, I assumed that because I still had internet access, this was still my old package.
If you cancel with a regular ISP, they cut the service. They dont cancel your package, and put another service with overly excessive fees in its place.

If they had notified me of the change in fees, I certainly wouldnt have racked up £115 worth of broadband fees, thats just not something I can afford to do.

DonC

Heres a rought draft that I'll be forwarding to Ofcom.
Any suggestions towards editting it or other pertinent info that I need to add?

##################################
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About 2 months ago, my phone was stolen. I called Tmobile and reported it stolen. I also asked to cancel my broadband package with TMobile as I was intending on borrowing an old phone and using that till my contract ran out. Id then get a new phone and contract when the time came.

Shortly after, I found a phone on ebay that I was happy with. On setting it up I found that the broadband still worked. Since I hadnt received any confirmation of the broadband cancellation, or notification of increase in price, I thought they hadn’t managed to cancel my broadband and I continued to use it.

I only noticed there was a problem when I checked my bank account and found that TMobile had taken £135.94 from my account. I called TMobile and told them that I hadn’t been notified of any change in the price plan and also pointed out that my bills for the last several years had been under £20 a month, but they said are unable to do anything about it.


Generally when something is cancelled, it is no longer available, ie if broadband is cancelled with an ISP, they don’t cancel the current package and then slip another price plan in. Likewise when you cancel a phone contract, its cancelled and no longer works.

Considering that I mostly use my phone for Google maps, checking addresses and email, £115 for broadband usage does seem excessive. ( I don’t bother with video \ ring tones or anything else that would use a lot of bandwidth.)
I asked TMobile for a breaddown of the bill, but they just sent a regular bill stating the amount owed.

If TMobile wanted to provide this “service”, at least make it “opt in”, so that the user is aware that there is a package \ price change.
And if TMobile really wanted to claim they were acting in the interests of the customer, they could provide usage alerts as they do with the weekly FlexT usage SMS’s they send out.

greyster

when you talk about broadband, i assume you mean the web and walk option for your phone. This would be unlimited access at a fixed price so you can control your spending.

When you opted out, you took away the unlimited access and returned to metered. You can't tell an operator to turn that off. All you had to do is not use it.

So I assume you have whacked up a large bill which is not uncommon. You can imagine that that charge would have been a 20th of what it is, if you left web n walk on.

Anyway - rather than complain, I would say you had no idea what was going on, and they may remove it - if you can prove you didn't understand how broadband charging works. I've seen this work a couple of times.

However if you try and take on T-Mobile you may find you get no where. Good luck with the bill.

DonC

Woo Hoo!!!

They agreed to a full refund. :beer:

greyster

nice one...

carrieparkinson

tmobile will agree to wipe off data charges if there hasnt been any on the account before...