Vodafone - Termination fee / subsidy recovery

JamieC

Hi all,

I'm aware this is a topic that has probably been discussed many times, however I am still slightly confused and would appreciate any advice!

I am leaving my current employer and have a company mobile phone mid-way through a Vodafone business contract (we have several phones on the plan, but they all have their own contract I believe). I want to take my number with me.

I rang their customer services and was told to email a specific email address with my request and I would receive a response in 48 hours. I did so, and naturally none was forthcoming. A few days later, a further phone call prompted a 'we have a backlog' comment, and shortly after that, two responses landed magically in my inbox.

The first supplied the PAC. The second insisted I needed to accept two charges before being supplied the PAC. It is the second email that I am interested in people's opinions on. I have quoted it below.

Good morning

Thank you for your enquiry.

In order to proceed with the PAC request please can you accept the below amounts which will be invoiced to your account.

Termination Fee £142.96+Vat
Subsidy Recovery £156.93+Vat


Below is an explanation to the Subsidy Recovery Charges.

When you sign an agreement/contract with Vodafone, we make an investment in your account (which may be by way of discounting your equipment, providing a cash bonus or giving you a technology fund) so that you don't have to pay for equipment up front. We call this investment "subsidy". In return for providing this investment, we expect you to either stay with us for a certain period of time or spend a certain amount of money with us.

If you want to end your agreement/contract before this time is up or before you have spent a certain amount of money, we will take back a proportion of our investment that we have made in your account in line with amount by which you have not hit your spend or the period of time by which you have left early. We call this the "subsidy recovery charge".

My question is this - is anyone aware of a double headed charge for early termination? I have previously paid a termination fee equal to the remaining line rental (although even then, with a line rental of £12 per month I'm not sure how they reached their figure), however I am not familiar at all with the 'subsidy' fee.

Can anyone shed any light on this, and possibly suggest ways of avoiding these charges? The thing is, my company doesn't even want to drop the contract really - they can use it for another member of staff. I just want to keep my number.

Any comments greatly appreciated!

Jamie

Vodafone

Hi Jamie,

I've a look at our internal intranet and have been unable to find anything on this.

To help me to look into this further would you be able to email the account details to me using the 'Contact us' form on our website here?

When sending the email could you also include a link to this thread and state the code WRT135 in the subject line to make sure it comes through to us.

Thanks,

Lee

Web Relations Team

Vodafone UK

Jon_01

The subsidy is what the network pays the company for taking out the contracts.
If they take, say, 10 phones they'll pay them 10x£150 to off set the 'setup' costs, this is credited to the company's mobile acc. If the contracts ended early the company has to pay the line rental and the subsidy back.