HTC Desire Vodafone 500mb Fair Usage Policy

Vans_101

I'm beginning to see why everyone is so fed up with Vodafone. Called customer service and they tried to say its my fault if I get charged as I'm the one using the data. Tried to explain its not my fault that Vodafone have suddenly changed their policy. The guy at customer services even told me I can track my data online - I explained to him this is only possible if you have the time to download your unbilled usage and pick through all the data. After getting nowhere I email customer services. They email back saying I need to put my request again. I email back repeating my request and they email back stating my last bill (august) I only used 281MB. Blatantly ignored my September bill which was 1.2GB of data. Its so frustrating because yo never get the same person twice and their online contact us form only allows a limited amount of texts. Wish I had never moved from O2.

nimby

My response from Vodafone CS - try emailing someone else - gave amazing feed back on the follower up call 20 mins later though

JayTay_2

Crossposted from the VF forums:

I got a letter!

Dated 10th September (but only arrived today...)

"Further to your recent contact in regards to data Out of Bundle charging, we are writing to you to confirm that Vodafone is currently reviewing our position in regards to the cancellation of your account.

If you are eligible to cancel, the cancellation will take effect as of the beginning of October 2010.

We will be back in contact with you to confirm


Customer Services Team"

There was no signature. Still, at least I know they received one of my letters now.

pavers

JayTay wrote: »

Crossposted from the VF forums:

I got a letter!

Dated 10th September (but only arrived today...)

"Further to your recent contact in regards to data Out of Bundle charging, we are writing to you to confirm that Vodafone is currently reviewing our position in regards to the cancellation of your account.

If you are eligible to cancel, the cancellation will take effect as of the beginning of October 2010.

We will be back in contact with you to confirm


Customer Services Team"

There was no signature. Still, at least I know they received one of my letters now.

Got that letter today aswell.

Notsram

I've received that letter too... although I'm not sure why it's been sent to me as it's dated 10th September... a few days AFTER I received confirmation from Vodafone that I could cancel without penalty...

As I said on the Vodafone forum, I'd assume it's simply a stock letter being sent to everyone who's tried to cancel, whether their cancellation has been successful yet or not, but, just in case, it IS Vodafone trying to pull another fast one and backtrack on their word, I'm going to use my PAC code ASAP... may just give Giffgaff a try

awidgery

Notsram wrote: »

I've received that letter too... although I'm not sure why it's been sent to me as it's dated 10th September... a few days AFTER I received confirmation from Vodafone that I could cancel without penalty...

As I said on the Vodafone forum, I'd assume it's simply a stock letter being sent to everyone who's tried to cancel, whether their cancellation has been successful yet or not, but, just in case, it IS Vodafone trying to pull another fast one and backtrack on their word, I'm going to use my PAC code ASAP... may just give Giffgaff a try

Received this standard letter in reply to my letter today. What email address have the rest of you been using to speed things along?
Or have you had success over the phone?

musical_norwich

JayTay wrote: »

Crossposted from the VF forums:

I got a letter!

Dated 10th September (but only arrived today...)

"Further to your recent contact in regards to data Out of Bundle charging, we are writing to you to confirm that Vodafone is currently reviewing our position in regards to the cancellation of your account.

If you are eligible to cancel, the cancellation will take effect as of the beginning of October 2010.

We will be back in contact with you to confirm


Customer Services Team"

There was no signature. Still, at least I know they received one of my letters now.

It is not down to Vodafone to decide whether we can cancel or not and it certainly cannot delay departure to suit Vodafone on an arbitrary basis. Customers can leave if they find the new terms may be to their material detriment. That is according to the OFCOM licence conditions and the UTCCR. My advice is to write back and tell Vodafone that the cancellation stands and you do not accept their claims to override your contract terms and the relevant legislation and that you will forward their claims to override the General Conditions to OFCOM.

I sent my letter to the legal department at Vodafone which may illicit a more considered response. We'll see.

If enough of you here are interested, I'll draft a legal response.

What really annoys me is that we, rather than OFCOM, have to fight these battles. Why isn't OFCOM telling Vodafone that it can't do this?

Vodafone does not have a legal leg to stand on.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

The problem is legally for people trying to cancel, you have to be charged the new fee that increases your bill by 10% or more first before you can invoke your legal rights.

Herein lies the rub. A very small number of people have been let off after they kicked up an almighty stink (myself included, I think it was sending recorded phone calls to the Director's office that was the tipping point for me). Legally though Vodafone did not have to let me go at this point because I had not yet been charged. They said on their website they would let people go who had received the text message which mentioned the £5 charge but it appears they are reneging on this.

The fact of my case was once Vodafone started getting my back up, I didn't want to stay. I wanted out. They indicated I could get out, when it appeared I was about to have problems I poured petrol on the flames and got out. Vodafone have a problem now. The whole charges issue has been done by the back door and Vodafone hoped we would all be quiet about it. On the current Vodafone forum thread there stands 530 posts and 18,242 views. This thread currently has 1,557 posts and 82,881 views. There are lots of people watching these threads and clearly hundreds (if not thousands) of people waiting to cancel. You can bet Vodafone did not expect this.

As soon as you get charged, legally I would interpret that for the very vast majority as your green light to cancel and whilst Vodafone may quibble, they cannot do anything to stop you. Right now people have not been charged though so there is no legal right, only the sinking sensation some have been allowed to cancel whilst others hang in the balance. So far no-one has suffered a material detriment.

Given how close we are to October now, I should imagine the delay is as a result of the thousands of posts now out there on the web, Vodafone will be weighing up how many people they think are aware of their right to cancel, how much this will cost Vodafone in lost revenue, and they may well backtrack on this decision for existing customers who are still in their minimum term.

The more this strings out, the more it looks like existing customers will be left alone and not charged so they don't have the right to cancel. If this is the case, you are truly unlimited and have got exactly what you signed up to so this should be good news for all.

musical_norwich

JayTay wrote: »

Crossposted from the VF forums:

I got a letter!

Dated 10th September (but only arrived today...)

"Further to your recent contact in regards to data Out of Bundle charging, we are writing to you to confirm that Vodafone is currently reviewing our position in regards to the cancellation of your account.

If you are eligible to cancel, the cancellation will take effect as of the beginning of October 2010.

We will be back in contact with you to confirm


Customer Services Team"

There was no signature. Still, at least I know they received one of my letters now.

Key Legals:

The Defendant is Vodafone.

The Defendant’s refusal to allow the Claimant to leave without penalty is in breach of consumer protection legislation:

1. The Defendant’s unilateral increase offends §(i)-(l) inclusive of Schedule 2 and §5 of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. In particular, Schedule 2 (1)”(l) …allowing a seller of goods or supplier of services to increase their price without in both cases giving the consumer the corresponding right to cancel the contract if the final price is too high in relation to the price agreed when the contract was concluded;..”;

Defendant’s refusal to allow the Claimant to leave without penalty is ‘objectionable’ according to OFT guidance on Unfair Contract Terms:

2. The Defendant’s unilateral increase offends §12.2, of http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/unfair_contract_terms/oft311.pdf (Schedule C, p. 57) which states that ‘Any purely discretionary right to set or vary a price after the consumer has become bound to pay is obviously objectionable. ..It also applies to rights to increase payments under continuing contracts where consumers are 'captive' – that is, they have no penalty-free right to cancel..... .. such a clause is particularly open to abuse, because consumers can have no reasonable certainty that the increases imposed on them actually match net cost increases’;

3. OFT states that ‘Any kind of variation clause may in principle be fair if consumers are free to escape its effects by ending the contract. To be genuinely free to cancel, they must not be left worse off for having entered the contract, whether by experiencing financial loss (for example, forfeiture of a prepayment) or serious inconvenience, or any other adverse consequences.” (Schedule C, p. 58);

Defendant is in breach of Ofcom’s General Conditions of Entitlement under the General Authorisation, NOTIFICATION UNDER SECTION 48(1) OF THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT 2003, Notification setting general conditions under section 45 of the Communications Act 2003, Condition 9 and 9.3, by which the Defendant is bound:

4. Ofcom’s General Conditions of Entitlement under the General Authorisation can be found at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/publications/eu_directives/2003/cond_final0703.pdf (Schedule D);

5. “9.3 Where the Communications Provider intends to modify a condition in a contract with a Consumer which is likely to be of material detriment to the Consumer, the Communications Provider shall: (a) provide the Consumer with at least one month‘s notice of its intention detailing the proposed modification; and (b) inform the Consumer of the ability to terminate the contract without penalty if the proposed modification is not acceptable to the Consumer.” (Schedule D, p. 22);

In addition, can include

(i) Defendant is in breach of contract notice period for increases if only received text notice of charges in September 2010.
(ii) Attempts by the Defendant to claim internet services are optional or discretionary have no legal basis. Defendant cannot opt out of statute or licence conditions as and when it chooses. The consumer contract is the agreement between the customer in its entirety.
(iii) There was no charge of £5 for 500MB of data in the contract agreed between the Claimant and the Defendant. Hence by definition it is a new charge and a change in the Terms and Conditions.

musical_norwich

CitySlicker wrote: »

The problem is legally for people trying to cancel, you have to be charged the new fee that increases your bill by 10% or more first before you can invoke your legal rights.

Herein lies the rub. A very small number of people have been let off after they kicked up an almighty stink (myself included, I think it was sending recorded phone calls to the Director's office that was the tipping point for me). Legally though Vodafone did not have to let me go at this point because I had not yet been charged. They said on their website they would let people go who had received the text message which mentioned the £5 charge but it appears they are reneging on this.

The fact of my case was once Vodafone started getting my back up, I didn't want to stay. I wanted out. They indicated I could get out, when it appeared I was about to have problems I poured petrol on the flames and got out. Vodafone have a problem now. The whole charges issue has been done by the back door and Vodafone hoped we would all be quiet about it. On the current Vodafone forum thread there stands 530 posts and 18,242 views. This thread currently has 1,557 posts and 82,881 views. There are lots of people watching these threads and clearly hundreds (if not thousands) of people waiting to cancel. You can bet Vodafone did not expect this.

As soon as you get charged, legally I would interpret that for the very vast majority as your green light to cancel and whilst Vodafone may quibble, they cannot do anything to stop you. Right now people have not been charged though so there is no legal right, only the sinking sensation some have been allowed to cancel whilst others hang in the balance. So far no-one has suffered a material detriment.

Given how close we are to October now, I should imagine the delay is as a result of the thousands of posts now out there on the web, Vodafone will be weighing up how many people they think are aware of their right to cancel, how much this will cost Vodafone in lost revenue, and they may well backtrack on this decision for existing customers who are still in their minimum term.

The more this strings out, the more it looks like existing customers will be left alone and not charged so they don't have the right to cancel. If this is the case, you are truly unlimited and have got exactly what you signed up to so this should be good news for all.

This is incorrect. See my most recent post. It is not up to Vodafone to 'allow' us to cancel. Vodafone has to give thirty days notice of any increase to those whose bills may increase in the future, which in many cases it has failed to do, and then allow us to leave. The 10% increase threshold is stipulated in the contract but not in the statute which takes precedence and we don't have to be charged, we just need to be able to show that the change is likely to be of material detriment to the Consumer.