Mobiles.co.uk - deliberately misleading advert?

-overkill-

Cheers MJ, Orange said they couldn’t cancel it because it didn’t belong to them. They did say that if that had been sold in one of their own shops they would cancel without hesitation.

They (Orange) were sympathetic and helpful in other ways too, I can’t speak highly enough of them, but remember it wasn’t the normal customer services I spoke to it was the Executive Office.

I'm hopeful that MOBILES.CO.UK will capitulate and sort this out for me, I’ll stick with them for now.

When they do make me a happy customer, I’ll tell you all about it and let this thread slip away, until that time I’ll keep it up to date. This thread is probably costing them more in lost sales than it would have cost to make me happy in the first place !

OneADay

Did you take snapshots of the screens of the original deals?
And have you been onto trading standards?

If this was ever to get to a court, you would have some witnesses from this forum - Ofcom were meant to deal with mis-selling with their recent changes so I would get onto them if you have not already.

Silk

Guys_Dad wrote: »

I really despair of you, OneADAy, and you too, Silk. It is obvious that Ben has signed off to answer the backlog of emails that the customer services team are struggling with.

Hi GD,
Its more likely that he was elsewhere promoting the company as he was promoting CPW phones yesterday afternoon on here too

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=26240751&postcount=6

Silk

-overkill- wrote: »

I'm hopeful that MOBILES.CO.UK will capitulate and sort this out for me, I’ll stick with them for now.

Hi Overkill,
As I've said before mobiles.co.uk will not sort this out for you. The only way it's going to get sorted is if you do it yourself.
The solution is quite simple you have been missold a phone so send it back and cancel everything.

-overkill-

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative wrote: »

I passed it onto the relevant senior manager for them to resolve so don't recall what the outcome was for the customer, but I made sure the ambiguity identified was removed.

Hi Ben, the outcome was that I was told that the website was NOT misleading and they HADN'T changed it because it was misleading ! (so who is lying , you or them ? that’s an interesting question I'm sure everyone here would like to see an answer to if you don’t mind!)

Anyway, they were not willing to help me in anyway and although I send emails every week or so to disagree, they are still ignored ! and I’m sure if you were interested you could have found out the outcome yourself.

I even actually asked them to go and ask you about this, did they ? I'm sure you would remember , so here is your chance to help and show that there is a good side to your company.

In short, even though Ben agrees as do Orange themselves, everyone here also seem to agree, apparently we are all wrong. (!!!!!!?)

The Customer Service team seem to ignore everything in the hope that you give up. The last email I sent I asked them what was the best thing for me to do, e.g. Lawyers, Ofcom Trading standards . . . . 2 emails were just ignored.

I'm disgusted with the way these people treat customers, I always thought a CS team were meant to help people like me.

Stay well clear if you've any sense, I’ve not even started the cash back system yet, no doubt that will be another story.

Cheers

Silk

Bumping up for you Overkill so theres no excuses for Ben missing it

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative

HI,

The webpage was updated to remove any ambiguity about the difference between discounted tariffs (what are referred to as Airtime Bill Credit or On-Bill Discount tariffs) and subsequent reductions available via redemption. We do not feel the page was misleading (certainly it wasn't deliberately misleading) but we do acknowledge that in your case you interpreted the deal differently to the intent and took steps to prevent this happening in future.

I can only stand behind the decision made by the Operations Manager which is that the deal you have is as described and the phone was not returned within the 14 day cancellation period, hence there is not much we can do.

Edit; I've re-read the thread, what it comes down to is that the large "14 Months Half Price" graphic is fairly clear about there being half price line rental (ie, £20) for the first 14 months of the contract on a £40 tariff (the line rental in the tariff table underneath is clearly £40). The line rental figure subsequently quoted in the text is the discounted amount but says neither that it is for the minimum duration of the contract or just for the period of the promotional discount - which is the ambiguity I removed from the site. The large "14 Months" graphic is fairly self-explanatory and it's not reasonable to assume that you'll get 24 months half price.

Regards,

OneADay

Rep - I think you need to go back and look at what was actually presented to the buyers online.

The tariff table on your site did have the right information but the Best Buy tab was absolutely misleading, incorrect, mis-selling worst case I have ever seen.

The advert quoted a tariff for Orange Dolphin 40

• HTC Hero on Orange - FREE!
• Orange Dolphin 40 (24 Months)
• With 1200 mins & Unlimited texts + 500MB data per month
• Your monthly line rental will be £20.00 per month after redemption
• Gadget Phone Support - first month FREE, cancel at any time, £2.99/month.
• PhoneCare Insurance - first month FREE, cancel at any time, £7.99/month.

That is what the Best Buy tab was - and if you clicked on Buy - you ended up with the Dolphin 40 which actually costs more than £20 a month.

The Dolphin 30 tariff at that time was the one that was for £20 a month average after redemption and yet your Best Buy was wrong and selling a different tariff - anyone signing up to it got compeletely different tariff.

Now do you see why you are wrong on this?

OneADay

Sorry - just been editing the last post. Just to make it clear what I mean

Best Buy quoted Dolphin 40 as best option at £20 a month after redemption.

Someone visited the site, viewed Best Buy, clicked on the buy button, phone arrives and its on Dolphin 40 but the bill average is £27 a month.

Why? Because the Best Buy tab should have said Dolphin 30, not Dolphin 40 - in short you signed up overkill to a Dolphin 40 tariff and not Dolphin 30 (resulting in a higher cost to him). Whether the tariff is wrong or the wording wrong or whatever, it was mis-sold.

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative

But you can keep pasting that over and over again and it still misses out the fact that sitting at the top of that list of text was a large graphic which read "14 Months Half Price! (by redemption)" - you can see it at (our website)/white_labels/mobiles/images/txt-free-14-months.gif

I mentioned On Bill Discount earlier but you are right, that wasn't an issue here - I'm confusing matters so forget I mentioned it. The tariff is £40 per month, as per the table on that best deals page and as per the cart when you checkout (and your confirmation email, and invoice, both delivered at the start of the 14 days returns period). The offer is 14 months half price, as per the graphic, the table, the checkout, the confirmation email.

I acknowledged that the page would be clearer if the text stating "Line rental - £20" was different, but not that it was misleading, and I got the page changed to address this perceived problem. However, as the deal was not what he was expecting (even though it was what was advertised - 14 months half price on a £40 tariff) the customer had every right to return the phone under DSR, which was not exercised.

I'm the first to take a customer's side if our site has let them down (cue guffaws - but prove me wrong) but in this case I'm happy that the contract is as advertised and we gave the customer every opportunity to realise their mistake.

Overkill, could you please email ben at mobiles? I'm prepared to make a goodwill gesture (roughly equivalent to our profit on this transaction - I think this is fair?) so that we can reach a compromise and bring closure to this.

Regards,