In need of some contract cancelling advice....

j4g3d

My friend stupidly took out a vodafone dongle internet package out at a vodafone store, thinking it was the best to go for.

Anyway its a 24 month contract and its CONSTANTLY disconnecting. Its SLOW AS HELL and to top it off the bill this 1 MONTH ALONE came to £80. The download limit is 3gb but there saying it was used 18gb in 1 month. It is strictly ONLY used for facebook, hotmail and general browsing with no downloading what so ever.

Now when my friend had called them to complain about the £80 bill, they said theres nothing they can do about it and that 3gb is your limit..bla bla. My friend then said that the vodafone sales person in the vodafone shop did not mention about a 3gb limit. He then said its no this problem or vodafones and that my friend should go back to the vodafone store and complain. But how would a sales representative be able to do anything if my friend goes there to complain?

The bottom line is the service is extremely poor, my friend got fooled into it without the sales person explaining exactly what you get. So can anyone please suggest a way to get out of this rip off contract? Think so far its cost my friend £120 in 3 months.

earthlover

You could look at the consumer direct website or citizens advice website.
They may have some advice about how to proceed.

ckerrd

j4g3d wrote: »

My friend stupidly took out a vodafone dongle internet package out at a vodafone store, thinking it was the best to go for.

Anyway its a 24 month contract and its CONSTANTLY disconnecting. Its SLOW AS HELL and to top it off the bill this 1 MONTH ALONE came to £80. The download limit is 3gb but there saying it was used 18gb in 1 month. It is strictly ONLY used for facebook, hotmail and general browsing with no downloading what so ever.

Now when my friend had called them to complain about the £80 bill, they said theres nothing they can do about it and that 3gb is your limit..bla bla. My friend then said that the vodafone sales person in the vodafone shop did not mention about a 3gb limit. He then said its no this problem or vodafones and that my friend should go back to the vodafone store and complain. But how would a sales representative be able to do anything if my friend goes there to complain?

The bottom line is the service is extremely poor, my friend got fooled into it without the sales person explaining exactly what you get. So can anyone please suggest a way to get out of this rip off contract? Think so far its cost my friend £120 in 3 months.

Not sure how it is a rip-off

Is the reason for it being slow that it is faulty?
Is there reception poor where your friend is?

You don't need to download anything to eat into your limit, merely surfing uses up bytes.

Why did your friend not complain as soon as they found out it was not working?
You may struggle to get a successful result after this amount of time

j4g3d

ckerrd wrote: »

Not sure how it is a rip-off

Is the reason for it being slow that it is faulty?
Is there reception poor where your friend is?

You don't need to download anything to eat into your limit, merely surfing uses up bytes.

Why did your friend not complain as soon as they found out it was not working?
You may struggle to get a successful result after this amount of time

1st month tolerable/OK. 2nd and 3rd month living nightmare.

So your saying browsing hotmail, facebook and general google..ect surfing 1 hour a day would use 18gb? or over 3gb for that matter?

ckerrd

j4g3d wrote: »

1st month tolerable/OK. 2nd and 3rd month living nightmare.

So your saying browsing hotmail, facebook and general google..ect surfing 1 hour a day would use 18gb? or over 3gb for that matter?

No - I am saying that surfing the internet uses up part/all of your friend's allowance.
How much it uses I have no idea, but there are monitors to check so perhaps installing one of these would be useful for your friend.

Still not a rip-off

j4g3d

Right ok, but you say its still not a rip off £80 in 1 month browsing the net generally?? Forgive me if im wrong but im with virgin media and literally do whatever i want for £10 a month. So £70 more my friend is paying doing LESS than me and you think its not a rip off? I was shocked when my friend told me thought it was a complete rip off. Maybe me payng £10 a month is me ripping them off then.

macman

j4g3d wrote: »

Right ok, but you say its still not a rip off £80 in 1 month browsing the net generally?? Forgive me if im wrong but im with virgin media and literally do whatever i want for £10 a month. So £70 more my friend is paying doing LESS than me and you think its not a rip off? I was shocked when my friend told me thought it was a complete rip off. Maybe me payng £10 a month is me ripping them off then.

Yes, because you get far more for your money on ADSL broadband or cable broadband than on mobile broadband. The bandwidth is limited and expensive. It's not a download limit, it's a data usage limit. Every time you load a web page, you are using data up and downstream, every time your AV updates download, the same.
3GB would be enough for light use, but if your friend is getting through 18GB then clearly they are not a light user. Either cut the usage or upgrade the tariff to get more GB within the alllowance, it will be cheaper that way. They agreed a 24m contract, so no way out of that I'm afraid, the 3GB allowance would have been clearly in the terms if they didn't bother to ask-it's the key point in all mobile broadband contracts, in the same way that inclusive minutes are the key point in mobile phone contracts.
Mobile broadband is not an adequate substitute for ADSL or cable broadband, it is much slower, and if you use it like the latter then it is much more expensive. Much cheaper to pay out and get a landline connection.

j4g3d

macman wrote: »

Yes, because you get far more for your money on ADSL broadband or cable broadband than on mobile broadband. The bandwidth is limited and expensive. It's not a download limit, it's a data usage limit. Every time you load a web page, you are using data up and downstream, every time your AV updates download, the same.
3GB would be enough for light use, but if your friend is getting through 18GB then clearly they are not a light user. Either cut the usage or upgrade the tariff to get more GB within the alllowance, it will be cheaper that way. They agreed a 24m contract, so no way out of that I'm afraid, the 3GB allowance would have been clearly in the terms if they didn't bother to ask-it's the key point in all mobile broadband contracts, in the same way that inclusive minutes are the key point in mobile phone contracts.
Mobile broadband is not an adequate substitute for ADSL or cable broadband, it is much slower, and if you use it like the latter then it is much more expensive. Much cheaper to pay out and get a landline connection.

I understand this, that is why i told my friend that your paying for 'on the go' mobile broadband. Seen as my friend doesnt go ANYWHERE with there laptop then there paying mobile broadband prices at home when they can be paying alot less.

My point was £80 is a utter rip off considering less than 3gb of usage is used each month. I guess i will tell my friend to argue with them regarding the 18gb limit they supposedly have used and see what happens.

thanks

macman

j4g3d wrote: »

I understand this, that is why i told my friend that your paying for 'on the go' mobile broadband. Seen as my friend doesnt go ANYWHERE with there laptop then there paying mobile broadband prices at home when they can be paying alot less.

My point was £80 is a utter rip off considering less than 3gb of usage is used each month. I guess i will tell my friend to argue with them regarding the 18gb limit they supposedly have used and see what happens.

thanks

You are missing the point. I don't know what your friend paid, but the Voda Standard dongle contract is currently £15pm with a 3GB allowance. That's quite reasonable, £5 a GB. But your friend has allegedly used 18GB a month, i.e. 15GB over their allowance. So they surcharge at something like £4.30 per GB it would appear-the T&C's will make it exactly clear how much.
Even the top option only gives 5GB for £25.

ckerrd

j4g3d wrote: »

I understand this, that is why i told my friend that your paying for 'on the go' mobile broadband. Seen as my friend doesnt go ANYWHERE with there laptop then there paying mobile broadband prices at home when they can be paying alot less.

My point was £80 is a utter rip off considering less than 3gb of usage is used each month. I guess i will tell my friend to argue with them regarding the 18gb limit they supposedly have used and see what happens.

thanks

If they are being charged £80 for less than 3gb then there is something far wrong.

Not a rip off - more likely a !!!! up

Vodafone

Hi j4g3d,

I'm really sorry to hear about this and I understand how shocked your friend must have been when they received this bill.

To give more specific answers and advice about this situation I would need to speak with your friend and discuss their bill at greater length. Could you possibly ask them to contact Vodafone Web Relations Team (When contacting, please quote the code WRT135 in the subject line. In the main message, please include a link to this thread and your user name.)

I'm certain that we can find out why the usage was so high and rectify any other issues that there may be on the account.

Thanks,

Espi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK