Is there a cut off after which companies cannot correct an error in your contract?

schlimig

A bit of a long one this, necessarily so alas...

I am with Vodafone; in June 09 they illegally put me on an 18 month SIM-ONLY contract (I was at that point 8 months out of my original contract with them). This was done in spite of my explicit instructions to the contrary. In July they finally sorted this out and told me they had restored my original contract, on a monthly rolling tariff.

In January I tried to upgrade to the Nokia N900 and after a series of awful foul ups and rude customer service staff, they actually sent me a free N900 on an 18 month £30 tariff, as well as the exact same for my business partner. Mine was processed as an upgrade, his as a new contract with number port.

All seemed to have been resolved and bills seemed to be the correct amounts (after a few months of all manner of billing errors and corrections!) until suddenly a month ago I got a letter about early upgrade, available from 3 months prior to the end of my contract. At that point with 11 months or so remaining this was obviously wrong and so I called up... only to find out it was in fact not wrong...

It turns out that not only did they not correctly apply the July 09 correction to reverse the illegally applied tariff of June 09, but they had not processed the Jan 10 upgrade for me. The customer services agent I spoke with initially told me that there was no record of the N900 upgrade for me, that there was one for my business partner (the whole account is in my name) and after some digging he saw that I had been sent an N900, but it was not connected to anything to do with contract upgrades or the like. He told me he'd leave well alone and pretend he'd never read any of that and told me to take advantage and upgrade when I was ready - nice guy!! :T

I realise this is obviously completely in my favour at the moment but I am so livid with Vodafone. Their incompetence beggars belief and I simply cannot comprehend how they have manage to fail yet again to put me on the right contract, even with a senior manager (and I mean proper senior manager, who took some considerable effort to track down and speak to). They broke the law and as it stands, I am still technically on an illegally applied contract to which I never agreed and I seriously want to let rip at them.

Obviously this is a delicate situation and I don't want to make them take notice if I don't have to!! I did everything right and went out of my way to get them to correct their horrendous errors and breaches of contract law, so frankly it's their look out that I'm being undercharged and I'm damned well going to take advantage of it!

Does anyone know whether there is a time limit or cut-off period for a phone company to correct their mistakes within? It is now 8-9 months since they should have started my new contract. Are they still within their rights to correct their error and put me back on contract for the remaining 10 months?

I'd really appreciate any advice Sorry for the long post!

Simon.

Money_Grabber13579

Personally, I'd never worry about and take the upgrade if you want it. They knew (or should have if you told them) about their mistake, so it's their fault if they ever find out. (What they should already know)

schlimig

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Personally, I'd never worry about and take the upgrade if you want it. They knew (or should have if you told them) about their mistake, so it's their fault if they ever find out. (What they should already know)

True, I could happily forgo the rant at them and just do the upgrade. However, the question about a cut off period still stands... if they start processing the upgrade and then notice the discrepancy, I want to know where they legally stand if it comes back to me and they say they can't do this now or something.