📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

Ending a Vodafone contract

Options
dazeruk
dazeruk Posts: 313 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
edited 23 April 2009 at 10:51PM in Mobiles
My 18 months pay monthly contact with Vodafone ends on the 3 June. After that I want to move over to Asda PAYG to save some money.

My customer agreement states

'I understand that this Agreement continues for an initial period as indicated above under the contract duration and thereafter and that I may end the agreement by giving 1 calendar month's written notice to expire on or any time after the expiry of the minimum period.'

Do I really have to write to them and say I'm leaving on the 3 June?

I thought you just rang up and asked for your PAC.

Comments

  • hieveryone
    hieveryone Posts: 3,858 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    if your contract ends 3rd June you should be able to call them on 3rd May and ask for the PAC - not sure if Vodafone take cancellations over the phone so may be wothwhile also having a letter ready to send to be received by them before or on the 3rd May.


    Bought is to buy. Brought is to bring.
  • I'm currently leaving vodafone too.

    You can request your PAC at anytime. However you will need to settle the line rental owed on the remainder of the contract before they will give it to you.

    I started the process of requesting the PAC about 6 weeks before the end of my contract and I plan on using the PAC 2 weeks before the end (don't want them to charge another months line rental).

    By all means call them, but the customer services guys have a habit of not noting that kind of thing on their system. I would put it in an email too.

    Don't forget you pay line rental in advance, so your start of May payment will be your last one.

    Goood luck!
  • Lullo
    Lullo Posts: 6 Forumite
    Hi, PLEASE can anyone advise me? (I am a first time poster, so hope that I have posted this in the right forum/place - apologies if I haven't).

    Well, we have been with Vodafone now for approx. 8 years, having always had 2 mobile fone contracts with them. The one's we are on now are 500 Anytime/any network minutes and Unlimited Texts for just £15 plus VAT per month.

    The fones are used by our 2 teenage daughters, who know to their detriment that if they go over their minutes each month, they have to reimburse us for the difference...

    Well, ALL has been well now for many years - they have always usually stayed within the £15 deal each month, & if they have gone over its only been by a couple of pounds.

    HOWEVER - 2 days ago, our 16 year old daughter told us in the evening that she had just read a text message saying that we had to urgently contact Vodafone by 5 pm that day ! (she didn't read the text till 7pm) - or they were going to "block" her mobile - which they had.

    I phoned them first thing yesterday morning, and was given the shock of my life ! I was advised the phone had been blocked, as a total of 1,795 minutes had been used during April ! The bill is £441.75. !!!!

    I was advised that until a substantial amount had been paid off the bill, the phone would remain blocked., so I had to give them my debit card details over the phone and immediately pay £200 to get the phone re-activated.

    Well, to say I was devastated and furious is an understatement. I asked Vodafone WHY on earth had they allowed the bill to become so high before alerting us. I was just fobbed of, of course.

    Well, over the next few hours, the more I thought of it, the more angry I became, so I phoned Vodafone again, to complain again that they should have realised that someone who usually keeps within their £15 a month package, would not then start using hundreds of pounds worth of calls... Then though came the next bombshell! Apparently, not only was the bill for April £441.75p, but the bill for March is apparently £185 plus VAT !...

    I am ashamed to say that I actually burst into tears, whilst speaking to the vodafone Adviser - not that that helped - she was totally unsympathetic... But I could help the tears, I was so shocked - almost £660 spent on vroody fone calls in approx. 7 weeks...

    I asked that a "limit" be set up on each of the 2 accounts - that if they go over £30 a month, all outgoing calls, etc., are blocked. I was told that this had been set up.

    I also asked for a Manager to call me back, as I was still extremely concerned that it was only 2 days ago that they first contacted us about this...

    This Manager called us yesterday at 6pm. She was totally unhelpful, and guess what? Vodafone NO LONGER will set a credit "limit" on each account. She told me that Ofcom had instructed Vodafone approx. 4 years ago that they should not do this... I asked her why on earth had I been told just a few hours earlier that this was possible and that it had been "set up" on our 2 accounts. She just fobbed me off.

    Well, I contacted my daughter during her break period, and told her the devastating news. She was obviously really upset, and not feeling well anyway, so I had to go and collect her from school. When I told her the bill had now gone up from £441 to £660, she cried her heart out... She has a part-time job, and being 16 now, has started saving up to buy her first car when she's 17...

    I didn't go mad or rant and rave at her - whats done is done. She and her sister have always known that if they go over the £15 a month, (which I pay for) they are responsible and have to pay us back the difference.

    We managed to log-on to the Vodafone account when we arrived home, (something that I haven't been able to do for several months because I kept getting "error" messages when trying to view my bill - Vodafone have said it was due to them re-building their computer billing system, but it is now up and running).

    We printed off Georgie's bill - 57 pages of it - and have gone through it carefully... Apparently, what has happened is that when she is out with her friends, some of them keep asking to borrow her fone - and Georgie, being niave, has let them. But the biggest problem has been a lad she is good friends with, has been having problems at home, and has been phoning Georgie up at all hours of the day and night, asking her to phone him back on his mobile, as he needed to speak to someone about his problems. So Georgie has been phoning him back, and they have been talking for up to 2 hours at a time... One call alone was over £45 ! Anyway, the bottom line of it is that the total calls to this one lad along is £580...

    The lad concerned is obviously feeling very guilty, and has agreed to pay us at least £290, and has said he will try to pay more if he can, but we are not holding our breaths...

    Sorry to droan on! I know we have been very stupid.

    But we are still livid with Vodafone, for not contacting us until 2 days ago, to alert us of the problem. :mad:

    Is there any point in complaining to Ofcom? :confused:

    I would be grateful for any views on this HUGE problem... Many thanks for reading all this tale of woe. and Kind Regards,
    Lullo
  • woody01
    woody01 Posts: 1,918 Forumite
    Surely this is a case of letting a teenager having a non PAYG phone and then abusing it.

    Its what teenagers do unfortunately and an expensive lesson learnt.

    I would take the phones away and give her a PAYG.
  • dazeruk
    dazeruk Posts: 313 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    I don't quite understand why you have taken your anger out on Vodafone? They're not social workers there to monitor your daughters phone habits.

    Be grateful the boy in question has volunteered to pay the £290, I don't think you have any legal redress to make him do that.

    Obviously a lesson learnt for all parties.
  • woody01 wrote: »
    Surely this is a case of letting a teenager having a non PAYG phone and then abusing it.

    Its what teenagers do unfortunately and an expensive lesson learnt.

    I would take the phones away and give her a PAYG.

    Exactly!! It's not vodafones fault that you daughter is too stupid to realise that phonecalls cost money. It's her responsibility so tough you have to pay it or her :rolleyes2
  • Hi Lullo,

    Sorry to hear of your problem, must have been quite a shock. I would suggest you post this up on a seperate thread as you may get a few more replies.

    I may be wrong, but I don't think you will be able to get out of it. Unfortunately, this is one of the reasons you have to be over 18 to get a contract.

    I'm sorry, but if she was having 2 hour phone calls, she only has to do that for a week to have used up her minutes. A tough lesson, but one that I'm sure she will learn.

    Maybe call up the other networks and ask if they can put a credit limit on the calls. If anyof them say yes, maybe move to that network?

    I would hope Vodafone let you pay off the money in a few installments at least, maybe spread it over 2-3 months?

    All the best,

    Procrastinator
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 351.1K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.1K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 453.6K Spending & Discounts
  • 244.1K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 599K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177K Life & Family
  • 257.4K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.