£121 bill on £15 contract. T-Mobile

Guys_Dad

MissKeith wrote: »

I already asked the OP this. He selectively ignored it. Like he'll probably ignore your comment. LOL.

I asked him this - same response

But a serious question. You say on a number of posts you admit it is your fault. OK, that's at least one point in your favour. Given that they have applied their charges scrupulously correctly, just how much did you expect them to knock off for "loyalty" given that you acknowledge it was your mistake. Was a reduction of nearly 50% not a pretty good offer? Seems to me it was.

MissKeith

ispartacus75 wrote: »

I have responded to this in Post #118 actually.

So wrong again

Wrong once, so I'll admit I was wrong and I apologise. I'm sorry. But I have been right the whole way through this thread, you have been wrong the whole way through. Where's my apology and to those of the members who have provided some good, honest advice?

spook

This thread is going off the rails...

OP had a big bill, rang up, was treated rather rudely by T-Mobile (by his account) and came on here to grumble about it. People are ripping him to shreds every time he posts a response to any comment. The fact is, it could happen to any of us. A crisis comes up, you use your phone for a few calls, you forget to keep track. It happened to me many years ago and I ended up with a similar bill (I paid it without complaining).

OP should pay the bill, but not before they complain their hardest to try and get that £50 discount back on the table. (After all, the words "consumer revenge" are right up there under the site logo).

I still think it's an unfair system. If you're shopping in a supermarket you can look at your trolley and get a feel for how much you're spending. If someone is doing some work for you, you expect them to forewarn you if you ask them to do something that's going to increase your bill by a factor of 7.

With phones, the charges are much harder to keep track of. I keep hearing stories of people getting stupendous bills, often young people who aren't savvy enough to get their heads around complex pricing schemes, roaming charges, data fees etc. This is how companies like it.

What I'd like to see is phone companies being required to set a reasonable credit threshold for each customer, agreed up-front when the contract is signed, and promise to do something to warn them when they go above it. It could be opt-out-able if customers feel happy doing so. They obviously have the infrastructure to do this, if they're doing something similar for their Flext customers, so I don't think it would be difficult to implement. The problem is that they don't want to - which is why I think their customers should put pressure on them to do so.

All the people saying "nah nah, you should have read the Ts & Cs" (over, and over, and over) are correct in principle but missing the real point, which is that the OP was caught out by a rather unfair pricing system, and the company could, if forced to by us, take some simple steps to stop it happening again to others.

Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

ispartacus75

Guys_Dad wrote: »

I asked him this - same response

But a serious question. You say on a number of posts you admit it is your fault. OK, that's at least one point in your favour. Given that they have applied their charges scrupulously correctly, just how much did you expect them to knock off for "loyalty" given that you acknowledge it was your mistake. Was a reduction of nearly 50% not a pretty good offer? Seems to me it was.

Answered many many posts before you even asked the question. I asked T-Mobile to take a further £20 off. I would have settled at that. Post #1 Pretty easy to miss I imagine.

ispartacus75

spook wrote: »

This thread is going off the rails...

OP had a big bill, rang up, was treated rather rudely by T-Mobile (by his account) and came on here to grumble about it. People are ripping him to shreds every time he posts a response to any comment. The fact is, it could happen to any of us. A crisis comes up, you use your phone for a few calls, you forget to keep track. It happened to me many years ago and I ended up with a similar bill (I paid it without complaining).

OP should pay the bill, but not before they complain their hardest to try and get that £50 discount back on the table. (After all, the words "consumer revenge" are right up there under the site logo).

I still think it's an unfair system. If you're shopping in a supermarket you can look at your trolley and get a feel for how much you're spending. If someone is doing some work for you, you expect them to forewarn you if you ask them to do something that's going to increase your bill by a factor of 7.

With phones, the charges are much harder to keep track of. I keep hearing stories of people getting stupendous bills, often young people who aren't savvy enough to get their heads around complex pricing schemes, roaming charges, data fees etc. This is how companies like it.

What I'd like to see is phone companies being required to set a reasonable credit threshold for each customer, agreed up-front when the contract is signed, and promise to do something to warn them when they go above it. It could be opt-out-able if customers feel happy doing so. They obviously have the infrastructure to do this, if they're doing something similar for their Flext customers, so I don't think it would be difficult to implement. The problem is that they don't want to - which is why I think their customers should put pressure on them to do so.

All the people saying "nah nah, you should have read the Ts & Cs" (over, and over, and over) are correct in principle but missing the real point, which is that the OP was caught out by a rather unfair pricing system, and the company could, if forced to by us, take some simple steps to stop it happening again to others.

Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

Thank you so much for understanding my POV Spook.

Yes I was responsible. Yes I was wrong not to check my allowance. Yes I was stupid. Yes I am a customer tied to them for the next 17 months. Its not like I can get a discount on this bill now and then next month jump ship to a rival provider is it. They are going to get plenty more money out of me.

All I have expected is a little loyalty from the provider to the consumer for a change. By the majority of responses on this thread it seems the UK public are happy to be screwed left right and centre, so from now on it will only get worse.

Guys_Dad

ispartacus75 wrote: »

Answered many many posts before you even asked the question. I asked T-Mobile to take a further £20 off. I would have settled at that. Post #1 Pretty easy to miss I imagine.

I read that. However, given that they made you 3 increasing offers, are you really saying that your one and only offer to them was £70 off ?? Not even 50:50 when you accepted it was your fault??

Your beef is that the cost per minute if you burst your limit bears no resemblance to the cost per minute that you pay for in advance each month.

I agree.

However, if you go into a council owned car park that gives you 2 hours free parking and you come back after 3 hours because you lost track of the time, would you expect them to give you additional reductions apart from the 50% for payment within 14 days just because you parked there daily for a few years? The cost for the additional hour bears no resemblance to the cost for the initial 2 does it???

What's the difference ?????

ispartacus75

Guys_Dad wrote: »

I read that. However, given that they made you 3 increasing offers, are you really saying that your one and only offer to them was £70 off ?? Not even 50:50 when you accepted it was your fault??

Your beef is that the cost per minute if you burst your limit bears no resemblance to the cost per minute that you pay for in advance each month.

I agree.

However, if you go into a council owned car park that gives you 2 hours free parking and you come back after 3 hours because you lost track of the time, would you expect them to give you additional reductions apart from the 50% for payment within 14 days just because you parked there daily for a few years? The cost for the additional hour bears no resemblance to the cost for the initial 2 does it???

What's the difference ?????

Chances are that with the help of sites like this one and pepipoo I would have (and have) proved that the excess parking charge was invalid and that all the council is entitled to is the parking charge per hour multiplied by the time spent in the car park.

Thats the difference. Its possible to prove that the excess parking charges, whether advertised or not, are punitive in nature and therefore unlawful.

MissKeith

spook wrote: »

This thread is going off the rails...

OP had a big bill, rang up, was treated rather rudely by T-Mobile (by his account) and came on here to grumble about it. People are ripping him to shreds every time he posts a response to any comment. The fact is, it could happen to any of us. A crisis comes up, you use your phone for a few calls, you forget to keep track. It happened to me many years ago and I ended up with a similar bill (I paid it without complaining).

OP should pay the bill, but not before they complain their hardest to try and get that £50 discount back on the table. (After all, the words "consumer revenge" are right up there under the site logo).

I still think it's an unfair system. If you're shopping in a supermarket you can look at your trolley and get a feel for how much you're spending. If someone is doing some work for you, you expect them to forewarn you if you ask them to do something that's going to increase your bill by a factor of 7.

With phones, the charges are much harder to keep track of. I keep hearing stories of people getting stupendous bills, often young people who aren't savvy enough to get their heads around complex pricing schemes, roaming charges, data fees etc. This is how companies like it.

What I'd like to see is phone companies being required to set a reasonable credit threshold for each customer, agreed up-front when the contract is signed, and promise to do something to warn them when they go above it. It could be opt-out-able if customers feel happy doing so. They obviously have the infrastructure to do this, if they're doing something similar for their Flext customers, so I don't think it would be difficult to implement. The problem is that they don't want to - which is why I think their customers should put pressure on them to do so.

All the people saying "nah nah, you should have read the Ts & Cs" (over, and over, and over) are correct in principle but missing the real point, which is that the OP was caught out by a rather unfair pricing system, and the company could, if forced to by us, take some simple steps to stop it happening again to others.

Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

But the simple fact is, T-Mobile put plenty of measures in place so users can keep track of their usage. As I've said before on this thread, you can call 150, text AL and BAL to 150 for a free reply on how much allowance you have left and your account balances and you can sign up online for an account where you can check the same. The OP went six hours over on his allowance, that's an awful lot to use when it's so easy to check.

T-Mobile offered a goodwill gesture to knock 50% off the costs and the OP knocked it back, thus shooting himself in the foot as they withdrew all offers.

They gave him 300 free minutes and stated that any calls made outside of these minutes are 33p a minute compared to 25p a minute on PAYG which people will happily pay for without complaining about "unfair" pricing. Do people complain when making a long phone call on PAYG that it has eaten up all their credit and want a refund? No.

People are ripping the OP to shreds because it's normal consumers who have to fit the bill if the network put any of the above measures into place. Consumers want cheaper and cheaper deals with higher end handsets free of charge and ultimately, we are the ones who fit the bills for all those customers who make honest mistakes and expect the networks to pay.

ispartacus75

They offered £50 not 50%. A previous poster stated that I asked for £70 off as a first and final offer. Why wouldnt I have accepted 50% off. To be honest I would have. But after rejecting the £50 I was eventually put through to a manager (10 phone calls later) who simply took everything off the table, so I didnt have the chance to offer or accept 50% off.

Guys_Dad

spook wrote: »

This thread is going off the rails...

OP had a big bill, rang up, was treated rather rudely by T-Mobile (by his account) and came on here to grumble about it..............................

....................Phone companies are raking it in. 33p per minute? It's probably costing the company about 0.3p/minute to connect the calls. It's all profit. Why is everybody so keen to defend them?

But OP wrote " I pointed out to the manager at this point that I had introduced both my wife and my mother to T-Mobile as contract customers and my 2 kids have PAYG sims with them, so T-Mobile are receiving £80 per month from the group of us, and if this was the way I was going to be treated we would ride out the term of the contracts and then take our business elsewhere. The manager told me I was free to do that."


Now if they all are the same, what does he gain??? The point is that the inclusive calls are subsidised by the out of bundle calls. I don't want to pay more per month when I keep in bundle to subsidise those who can't be bothered to keep a check on their verbal monthly outpourings. The networks provide adequate checking via their 150/121 etc facility - although this should be updated with outgoing UK calls in real time. ( I understand about overseas calls needing to be added when the overseas network bills your carrier).

He received a good offer. He stubbornly turned down a near 50% reduction and it was removed from the table. Do you really expect MSE members to gather round and support him under these circumstances?? I think most of us believe in fair play and when that sometimes means the carrier is in the right, then we should - as many have done - be honest and say so.