Can Vodafone do this?

Little_Maya

There is an official announcement on Vodafone's forum that's appeared a few days ago stating that "Your Plan, iPhone Price Plans and a few very old price plans cannot be downgraded for the length of your contract".

When I signed online for a Your Plan 18 months contract at the end of November, I printed the T&Cs from their website. While these mention upgrading price plan "You may change your price plan to one with a higher monthly line rental charge at any time" there is no mention whatsoever of downgrading (they don't say you can but they don't say you can't either). I've just looked at the "your plan" t&c again online and nope, nothing about not being able to downgrade so do they have a leg to stand on if I ask to downgrade my price plan after 9 months?

Jon_01

When you agree to a contract, you agree to pay £X for Y months.
The network may allow you to downgrade but they don't have to.
Some let you after the half way point, some in the last month. All Voda are saying is that they will not allow anyone to downgrade at all on those plans, in effect not agreeing to change their contract...

marksaver

When you signed the contract it'd have been for 18/24 months at the agreed original cost. Account downgrades are courtesies rather than requirements, and as such I doubt you have a legal leg to stand on, I'm afraid.

Pete*G_4

there will be something in the T&C's saying they can change them at any time by giving prior notice, and I would suspect that they have made the announcement on the website somewhere, so I would doubt that you have any leg to stand on if they said you couldn't downgrade.

Little_Maya

Fair enough however I just wish their people at the end of the phone would stop talking rubbish then. I called them before taking out the contract to see what deal they could do, the guy told me that if I took that plan I could downgrade after 9 months. Ended up doing it online cos they wouldn't/couldn't do better that what was on their website and I could get £90 Quidco cashback. Will probably try anyway when the time comes just in case

Pete*G_4

They were probably telling the truth at the time - they have almost certainly just changed the T&C's, hence the announcement on the website.

Little_Maya

Ok so now I'm confused... if they've just changed their T&Cs, how come they haven't informed me "we can make changes to and/or introduce new terms to this Agreement at any time. We will give you at least 30 days notice of these changes if we do". I saw it on their forum, the only reason I went there is because their online billing thing is sooooooooo messed up, kept coming up with errors the other day so wanted to see if was just on my computer (and no, it was at their end lol)

Edit: I suppose that they can always say they're "clarifying" the T&Cs rather than changing them so don't need to give notice lol

Vodafone

Hi all,

Firstly, apologies that it has taken so long to get round to replying to this thread. We have been busier than expected lately but we're working extra hard to get all of your posts dealt with.

To clarify the situation with downgrading your priceplan -

If you are on a "Your Plan" agreement, you will not be able to downgrade your price plan at any point during your contract. This also applies to all iPhone price plans as we cannot modify these price plans in any way.

If you are on a CTR priceplan you will be able to downgrade your price plan after the ninth month of your contract. You will only be able to drop down by one step every 30 days.

If any of you have any further questions, please let me know and I will get back in touch as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Espi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK