Forward Cellular Have Gone Bust

Goat

alric wrote:

Vodafone agreed to change my contract from £30month to £15 month!
but I am waiting until the end of the month to use up my free minutes etc first
they denied having a £5month contract

How did you get them to do that? They refuse to let me downgrade even after explaining about the situation. (I have to wait until May.)

I received an e-mail on the 26th saying payment was due Monday. Does that mean anything now?

I'm a student! Losing £270 is not an option!!

andy88_2

if you do downgrade before the 6 months, it'll be a breach with Vodafone. And, in those circumstances, I can't see how the receivers would owe you any money at all, as you're in breach of the cashback conditions, and Vodafone would not pay the commission to fund it

VictorianDad_2

I can't back down on my Vodafone contract because I'd be in breach, Vodafone have already said that they will chase me for £30/month for the remained of the contract term (in my case 10 months), that'll put me in a worse condition than I'm in now. Plus, I'll have a bad credit rating which I wouldn't be too chuffed about, therefore it's a no-brainer.

I spoke to Harrisons this morning about this debacle, they seemed very helpful and they did indicate that there could possibly be upto 50% coming back, but that's all. It's better than nowt, so I suppose we've just got to accept it and take the loss on the chin.

VicDad

allthatmularky

VictorianDad wrote:

Vodafone have already said that they will chase me for £30/month for the remained of the contract term (in my case 10 months)

VicDad

As stated before - you can downgrade your contract with Vodafone from month 7. The original Vodafone deal was at £25 for the SIM and 200 xnet mins a month. If this is the same - Voda charge £15 for 1st three months then £30 for next three months, change down to £15 tariff for 50 (?) xnet mins for final 6 months. Total cost £225 less (hopefully 50% of cashback was £315 = 157) = £68 for the year. Not as good as the original deal but at least stops some of the damage.
The problems for T mobile customers are they're unable to change tariff for 11 months.

Again, apologies in advance (I'm not one of the folks that have lost out) - for these comments if they annoy people.
Seems FC have been fair till the end - to get back hopefully 50% in a liquidation is virtually unheard of. It seems that they were quite responsible with their act to try to protect as much customers cash as possible - most co's trade on till debts to banks,govt etc leave little to the little man.

magic

andy88 wrote:

if you do downgrade before the 6 months, it'll be a breach with Vodafone. And, in those circumstances, I can't see how the receivers would owe you any money at all, as you're in breach of the cashback conditions, and Vodafone would not pay the commission to fund it

this doesnt make any sense to me...if vodafone ALLOW you to change your tariff down before 6 months, then how can you be in breach of vodafones conditions? it would breach fwdcellulars conditions, but in a sense they have already broken the contract by not giving your cashback. either way, fwdcellulars terms said that if you do change tariff before 6 months then a clawback will apply. and thats all it said, it didnt say the value of the clawback...that is, if they would clawback the saving that you made by downgrading early, or the whole amount of the cashback.

either way, if they havent given you the cashback in the first place then theres nothing for them to clawback...

andy88_2

I wouldn't be surprised if FC's earlier cashback than everybody else, together with some customers too-early downgrades degrading the commission, was what damaged them.

JayS_3

VictorianDad wrote:

I have a Sim only deal, i.e. it cost me £10 + p&p for the card with a deal for £30/month for 7 months then £15/month for the remaining 5 with cash back to cover the bills. Started just before Xmas.

I sent my claim for £285 back yesterday and got the letter from the Insolvency Practitioners when I got home tonight.

Just got off the phone to Vodafone and they refuse to cancel my contract or downgrade it to £15 (from £30) a month. They will allow me to downgrade after 6 months (June).

I suggested that I may stop payments, they said that they would chase after me and claim the remainder of the contract at the £30/month rate, so effectively it will cost me more to do that, plus there would be other fees involved in chasing me, so it's not worth it.

Vodafone don't seem to have much sympathy for it's customers getting caught up in financial difficulties with it's own authorised re-sellers. The least they could do is allows us to downgrade our contracts if not back out all-together.

Vodafone and the Insolvency Practitioners are the only winners in this game, the rest of us can effectively swivel!

VicDad

I've got the same deal, but have not yet sent back my claim but did get the letter. Is it too late to claim? Do you think?

Jay

ArsenalFC

Jays - you put in a claim to the insolvency company - harrisons. May get half the cashback.

Think I am the biggest loser here, £567 of cashback on 2contracts . I was very confident of FC as like many of you had cashbacks from them previously. It just goes to show you cannot be too careful, crap things like this happens.

peteinwarks

AS i see it Vodafone's agent - acting on behalf of Voda - have sold a contract that Voda know all about - it has gone wrong - now Voda don't want to know anything about it.

However if suitable publiicity shines on their action ' headline 'Vodafone renege on phone deal leaving student £500 in debt' etc.. Than we might see a change of heart.

So suggest we point all of Fleet street at the info - e-mails - faxes etc. - from as many different directions as possible.

Downside - we look silly accepting a 'too good to be true deal'; Receiver gets less money to hand out; we waste our time ignored by the journos.
Upside - Voda and their kin take more responsibility and cut a deal.

Suggest Upside benefit greater than downside risk - however before I put my fax to meltdown mode I would be interested in any views on this route.

"May the force be with us... and up them"

andy88_2

If the commission was not greater than the annual rent, things like this could not happen. Is that the solution you want to see?