T-mobile change in T&C

thedalmeny

Well i received my letter from small claims court a couple of days ago confirming that i can file for judgement on the 16th (17/18th as it falls on a weekend). So really is just a waiting game now to see whether they defend it or let it run for judgement.

I would recommend going to CISAS if you don’t mind waiting – i was. But decided to go directly to small claims. Mainly due to the fact i feel quite confident with my case – as they failed to give me written notice and confirmed that with an apology in writing.

deano27_2

emeraldbugle wrote: »

Anyone cancelled?

I had thought an international call could cost no more than 46 euro cents, surely at today's rate it should be no more than 40 pence.

That is my understanding and therefore their possible in breach of this.....or is it because the exchange rate is crap at the moment!!!

thedalmeny

T-Mobile have acknowledged my small claims court complaint..

They now have 28 days, may choose to settle the claim.. Or defend it.. So i may end up in court - may be quite fun lol.

Usually they'll try and avoid court with a settlement at the very last minute. So i'd be very surprised if this ever got that far. Or even more likely - not submit a defense and let the 28 days lapse.

Good thing i'm very confident of my case and have a letter from T-Mobile apologizing for not giving me notification of the price changes.

I hope they actually goto court on this, be worth the risk of losing. Since they i won't lose anything except the £60 fee i paid to submit the claim. Although it may seem odd at work when i request a day off from work because i'm taking T-Mobile to court lol.

chattychappy

Good luck. Lawyers fear litigants in person these days. If T-Mobile do defend it, it might well be the barrister is briefed at the last minute and is ill-prepared. Meanwhile you've lived the case for weeks. Your chances are pretty good and the judge should be sympathetic.

However, if they show up it could be because they feel sure of their legal ground and a better prepared appeal is quite possible. They will want an authoritative decision to preserve their business model, a model that relies on being able to mess around with T+Cs after you've signed up. An unsustainable position, in my view.

thedalmeny

chattychappy wrote: »

Good luck. Lawyers fear litigants in person these days. If T-Mobile do defend it, it might well be the barrister is briefed at the last minute and is ill-prepared. Meanwhile you've lived the case for weeks. Your chances are pretty good and the judge should be sympathetic.

However, if they show up it could be because they feel sure of their legal ground and a better prepared appeal is quite possible. They will want an authoritative decision to preserve their business model, a model that relies on being able to mess around with T+Cs after you've signed up. An unsustainable position, in my view.

Cheers.

I think i’d probably feel more uneasy if i was simply going off the T&C change and the EU law.. Still confident, but slightly less easy at defending it in court.

Because i’ve got a letter from T-Mobile apologising for giving me no writing notice and offering to give me an additional 30 days notice, i’ve pretty much got them in writing saying they’ve broken one of the terms of the contract.

If they do turn up – they best be well prepared to defend the case. Because I’m certainly not a shy when it comes to arguing my point constructively.

thedalmeny

Well received a letter from T-Mobile today requesting information. Various stuff, pretty much just why i’m claiming and what i’m claiming for. Pretty good really – as they’ve asked for the details under which i received no written notification.. Which i have a letter from T-Mobile confirming.

6 Questions – 1 page.

I sent a nice 10 page reply. Going into as much details as possible. Lets see how it goes.

harj1185

Any further updates guys?

thedalmeny

T-Mobile still haven’t submitted a defence, so sitting on acknowledged at the moment.

They’ve got to around Wednesday of next week to do so, otherwise i can enter judgement against them.

I have spoken to them on the phone – last week. Basically asked them to come to a settlement (figuring it would prompt them to either detect weakness in my resolve to carry through my claim, so would submit a defence more quickly) or if they had the common sense, to settle it.

They said “We will be submitting a defence, and defending the issue strongly. Once we have submitted one though we can perhaps enter into settlement talks. With either a settlement being agreed or for you to withdraw your claim”.

I’m hoping the phone call prompts them to do that more quickly. As i’d prefer a settlement of them cancelling my contract and refunding my costs. Letting them off the compensation i added to my claim, but we’ll see. I will be seeing it through to the end and don’t intend under any circumstances to withdraw my claim.

I seriously doubt if they haven’t submitted a defence by the end of the week, that they will at all.

smcaul

Thanks for the updates, I hope your claim goes the same way as mine did!

Just as an aside, after I got my payout from T-mobile I went over to Virgin, they recently changed their T&C's and it took one phone call and less then 10 minutes to change the contract from an 18 month one (14 months left to run) to a sim only monthly contract.

Funny how easy some companies make it, so ensuring that they retain their customers in some form or other, compared to the others that go out of their way to alienate customers.

redux

It seems to me that quite apart from this dispute, T-mobile were walking a fine line in their assumptions about future exchange rates.

Have any of you folks looked up the exchange rate recently, and recalculated what T-mobile said to harj1185?

harj1185 wrote: »

EU Cap (ex VAT)
EU Cap (inc VAT @ 17.5%)
T-Mobile Rates (inc VAT @ 17.5%)
Making a Call (pence)
£0.3809
£0.4475
£0.44

Receiving a Call (pence)
£0.1683
£0.1977
£0.19

Sending a Text (pence)
£0.0974
£0.1144
£0.11

Please note that we currently charge VAT at 15% which will be calculated on your bill, however all charges are still communicated as if at 17.5% VAT.

According to xe.com , using live mid-market rates *, 43 cents was a few moments ago equivalent to 36.7041 pence

plus vat @ 17.5, as they say, that is 43.1273, or with vat @ 15%, it's 42.2097

Both of these numbers appear to be less than T-mobile's charge of 44 pence

* mid-market is the average of buying and selling offers, and T-mobile will be buying from the foreign network, though of course a chunk of their costs aren't aborad at all

So it might be that they are already charging more than the EU mandated, but if the pound strengthens a bit more this will become worse

However, it should be noted the regulations state that an average price must be achieved over a period of 10 or 12 months, not absolutely from the 1st July, so there's no point complaining to the ERG yet. But it might be worth submitting such remarks to T-mobile, and attempt to extract comments what they'll do if the pound gets stronger ...