Vodafone /Blackberry, unfair terms?

English_Electric

I have a 12 month Vodafone contract for a free Blackberry (storm) handset with unlimited phone and internet service. I have wanted to cancel the contract because I am on my third faulty handset. Vodafone have told me that there will be a cancellation fee (I am in my fifth month) which will be equal to the remaining 7 months.
I do not feel I should have to pay this charge since the reason I am cancelling is due to the faulty equipment being provided. They seem to get around this in the contract by stating that phone is free and only the sim and phone services are paid for.However, these services are no use without the equipment and the services a cannot be accessed without a Blackberry handset.
I was wondering whether I am legally obligated to pay the termination charge since I am not able to use the service due to the faulty equipment they have provided and have they circumnavigated the sale of goods act by giving the equipment free?

sporedude

Yes you are legally obliged to pay the ETF, You signed a legally binding contract either in the shop or verbally. They might change the handset for you, But you cant cancel.

malky39

They have not circumnavigated the sale of goods act buy giving the equipment free, as they have replaced the handset if they were to go buy the sale of goods act and give you your money back due to it being faulty they would give you nothing as the handset was free. The line rental you took out with the hand set will still need to be payed as there is no fault with what you are paying the line rental for e.g. the minutes, internet service.
I had the same problem with vodafone with my SE w890i it was repaier 3 times then replaced then repaier again 2 twice. I then managed to get a replacement in the way of a new nokia n96. This only happened after i signed up for the eforums on vodafone website and complained through there. After putting a post there i was contacted within a few hours by there forums customer services who sorted the problem out within a 10 min call.
So you could try that and get them to give you a different phone

English_Electric

sporedude wrote: »

Yes you are legally obliged to pay the ETF, You signed a legally binding contract either in the shop or verbally. They might change the handset for you, But you cant cancel.

Thanks
You can actually cancel giving 30 days notice but they charge you for cancellation. This charge is equivalent to the remainder of the contract. I am wondering whether ..
1)The charge can be challenged under the unfair terms act
2)The handset is covered by the sale of goods act even though it was free .

English_Electric

malky39 wrote: »

They have not circumnavigated the sale of goods act buy giving the equipment free, as they have replaced the handset if they were to go buy the sale of goods act and give you your money back due to it being faulty they would give you nothing as the handset was free. The line rental you took out with the hand set will still need to be payed as there is no fault with what you are paying the line rental for e.g. the minutes, internet service.
I had the same problem with vodafone with my SE w890i it was repaier 3 times then replaced then repaier again 2 twice. I then managed to get a replacement in the way of a new nokia n96. This only happened after i signed up for the eforums on vodafone website and complained through there. After putting a post there i was contacted within a few hours by there forums customer services who sorted the problem out within a 10 min call.
So you could try that and get them to give you a different phone

Thanks
I have lost faith in the equipment and have spent more time than I wish sorting out replacement handsets and spending hours (at local rate cost) speaking with Vodafone and I do not wish to continue with them. I am wondering why they have sent replacement handsets at all if they are not bound by the sale of goods act in this case and if they are bound by the sale of goods act in regard to the handset, would their inability to provide functioning equipment be sufficient ground for me to terminate my contract without penalty?

malky39

English_Electric wrote: »

Thanks
I have lost faith in the equipment and have spent more time than I wish sorting out replacement handsets and spending hours (at local rate cost) speaking with Vodafone and I do not wish to continue with them. I am wondering why they have sent replacement handsets at all if they are not bound by the sale of goods act in this case and if they are bound by the sale of goods act in regard to the handset, would their inability to provide functioning equipment be sufficient ground for me to terminate my contract without penalty?

Ok i can see why you have lost faith but all i will say is just put one post about your problems in there forums and give it a day and some will call you, so no cost to you, to sort it.
About the sale of goods they will still be bound by it this is why they have sent new handsets or claimed to fix them. You would not be able to cancel your contract without penalty due to problems with the handset.
I say this because the sale of good basically states that should a product not be fit for the purpose it is intended for then you are entitiled to a full refund or a replacement.
In this case you got the phone for free so should you use the sale of goods act you would get a grand total of nothing back. But vodafone are sticking to sale of good as they have tried to fix the problems
As i said the line rental, with whatever mins,text internet are included will not be eligable for refund or cancelation unless they are not fit for the purpose for which they were sold to you.
To cut it short the phone and the line rental are basically treated as separate from each other

English_Electric

Thanks Malky
I believe that I have reasonable grounds for no fulfilling my side of the contract and would be willing to appear in court (if pursued for the punitive cancellation charge)on the basis that the handsets were consistently faulty, rendering me unable to utilize the paid for service much of the time and I could not be reasonably expected to fulfill the remainder of the contract.
Your previous post seems to suggest that Vodafone are still bound by the sale of goods act with regard to the handset, despite the fact that the handset was free as part of the deal. I wonder if any other posters could confirm whether this is definitely the case?
thanks again!

d123

English_Electric wrote: »

would be willing to appear in court (if pursued for the punitive cancellation charge)on the basis that the handsets were consistently faulty,

Odds are they wont go near a court, you fail to pay them what you owe them they will default you, eventually CCJ you and then sell the debt on to some "friendly" debt collector like MacKenzie Hall who will make your life miserable and totally ruin your credit file.

You signed for the contract and as long as the sim works will legally be liable, the Storm has been known to be a POS since it launched, every review I saw slated it, most users on the Vodafone forum hated it, the best thing you can do is persuade Vodafone to change the Storm for a Bold.

It is a 100 times better than the Storm.

English_Electric

Thanks d123. To receive a CCJ, I would have to be given the opportunity to defend in court, which I would be willing to do.
Thanks for the confirmation that the Storm is a piece of garbage. Not just me then!
Ps.funny you should mention the sim as I am on my second one, the first being replaced as faulty!!!

malky39

Regarding the sale of goods the reason that i say that they are still bound by it is that they supplied the phone ok there was no charge for it but they still have a duty to provide that its will do what they said it would and in this case it hasnt. As another poster has said get them to replace it with a Bold, dont want to sound like a parrot but in my experience the quickest and easiest way to do this would be through the eforums.


The problem with vodafone is that they like to put there own firmware on phone so it directs you to there chargeable service e.g vodafone live and this means that when a phone is realeased, usually before its been tested properly, the company say nokia develope new firmware for it quite quickly but the service provides want to aller said firmware to suit them which takes time and its also worse when handsets are superseeded buy a newer model or they are bad sellers and the will not care about developing the new firmware quickle. The example is with the phone i got as a replace ment the n96 it on v121 of vodafones firmware but if it was on nokias it would be version 30 and a big difference in how the handset works. And it has been months and months with may people comlaining to vodafone about this and yet nothing has happened yet or looks likly to happen in the near future causeing alot of people to debrand the n96's and losse any warranty they have.
Sorry for the long posts

English_Electric

Interesting post Malky.
I may consider the 'Bold' as you suggest if it is a more reliable handset as I would prefer to keep the service if possible and only considered cancelling because of the unreliable handsets I was given. I am sure I will be able to convince vodafone to supply me with one.