Is it worth tackling carphone warehouse over misselling?

ShoesAreDamnExpensive

At the end of last year I was due an upgrade and so contacted carphone warehouse who I was with and upgraded to the iphone 3GS. I originally wanted the £35 a month contract with a one-off payment for the phone.

The guy I spoke to told me I would be better off going for the £45 a month contract, with no payment for the phone and then dropping down to the £35 after 9 months (which was the next level down at the time). I did the math and looked on here and it was recommended on here too. Overall it worked out the same cost but I would have more minutes etc for the first 9 months.

I have just tried to downgrade to the £35 contract (a bit late I know...) and been told that there is a new level of £40 and I can now only downgrade to that. Over the rest of the contract this is going to cost me £75 more. I would never have signed up for the £45 contract if that was the case at the time.

O2 say its carphone warehouse who missold me the package and carphone warehouse say its o2 who changed their contracts. Either way I'm out of pocket by £75. When I signed up I wasn't sent any paperwork so can't check to see what the terms were.

Has anyone else come up against this and any suggestions?

kai666

ShoesAreDamnExpensive wrote: »

At the end of last year I was due an upgrade and so contacted carphone warehouse who I was with and upgraded to the iphone 3GS. I originally wanted the £35 a month contract with a one-off payment for the phone.

The guy I spoke to told me I would be better off going for the £45 a month contract, with no payment for the phone and then dropping down to the £35 after 9 months (which was the next level down at the time). I did the math and looked on here and it was recommended on here too. Overall it worked out the same cost but I would have more minutes etc for the first 9 months.

I have just tried to downgrade to the £35 contract (a bit late I know...) and been told that there is a new level of £40 and I can now only downgrade to that. Over the rest of the contract this is going to cost me £75 more. I would never have signed up for the £45 contract if that was the case at the time.

O2 say its carphone warehouse who missold me the package and carphone warehouse say its o2 who changed their contracts. Either way I'm out of pocket by £75. When I signed up I wasn't sent any paperwork so can't check to see what the terms were.

Has anyone else come up against this and any suggestions?

If what carphonewarehouse told you at the time was true, then surely it's not miss selling. Unless of course the person knew a new tariff was soon to be introduced. That i imagine though would be difficult to prove.

spiro

Even if you had the original contract it would only show details of the contract you signed up to, not the one they said you could downgrade to 9 months later. 3rd parties will never know more than a short while in advance what the providers are going to do in terms of adding/changing/removing tariffs.

nickmack

ShoesAreDamnExpensive wrote: »

The guy I spoke to told me I would be better off going for the £45 a month contract, with no payment for the phone and then dropping down to the £35 after 9 months (which was the next level down at the time). I did the math and looked on here and it was recommended on here too. Overall it worked out the same cost but I would have more minutes etc for the first 9 months.

I have just tried to downgrade to the £35 contract (a bit late I know...) and been told that there is a new level of £40 and I can now only downgrade to that. Over the rest of the contract this is going to cost me £75 more. I would never have signed up for the £45 contract if that was the case at the time.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything you can do. I always recommend people never listen to any mobile salesperson who factors 'reducing the tariff after X months' into the equation.

Even if it's in your contract you can downgrade after X months, tariffs do change and different price points can be introduced and may not be suitable for you to drop to. Having less minutes/texts could actually cost you more.

It's unlikely the salesperson would know of any pending tariff changes at the time, so misselling is not really an option here. I do however think it's a shady practice as they know full well, it's not a guaranteed option and seldom point this out.

robt_2

There has been no misselling unless the sales person knew that in nine months time there would be no £35 tariff.