T-Mobile 0870/International Roaming/FUP rip-offs - help - criminal investigation

musical_norwich

It looks as though there is a good possibility of getting the police to launch a criminal investigation into T-Mobile (now Everything Everywhere) and its VP Legal, James Blendis, under the Fraud Act 2006.

If you are willing to make a witness statement, please get in touch via PM, if T-Mobile has done any of the following:

1. Refused to issue a PAC code without payment of an early termination fee;
2. T-Mobile has told you that that you have no right to cancel, even when you have claimed material detriment.

You do not need to have experienced loss to help.

It looks like there is a strong case to be made that T-Mobile has systematically demanded (and sometimes received) money to which it knows it has no legal entitlement. It has also misrepresented the law to consumers. This is potentially fraud by false representation under Section 2.

T-Mobile also appears to have assured its regulator, OFCOM, that it treats its customers fairly and is obeying the law whilst doing the complete opposite. This is potentially fraud by failing to disclose information under Section 3.

Do get in touch if you want to help.

Bingolingo

Interesting.

Looking at the Fraud Act there certainly does appear to be scope for applying it to some of the behaviour alleged against T-Mobile on the forum.

However, criminal investigastions into large companies are notoriously difficult. There is also the problem in judging whether or not the alleged conduct has reached such a threshold so as to reasonably determine it as criminal. There is also the matter of competency, will the police devote valuable resources when OFCOM is usually responsible for dealing with this sort of matter?

I think it's more likely that the alleged conduct can be viewed as breaches of contract and breaches of industry regulations.

Still, if the police are to investigate then who knows what this may throw up?

Have to say that the way T-Mobile have treated me recently has been very poor. Got a written apology yesterday for poor customer service, an aknowledgement of understanding about my lack of trust in T-Mobile and a written statement that my FUP is 3GB and will remain unchanged. However, no sign of an apology for the attempted breach of contract and certainly no undertaking not to breach it in the future.

musical_norwich

Bingolingo wrote: »

Interesting.

Looking at the Fraud Act there certainly does appear to be scope for applying it to some of the behaviour alleged against T-Mobile on the forum.

However, criminal investigastions into large companies are notoriously difficult. There is also the problem in judging whether or not the alleged conduct has reached such a threshold so as to reasonably determine it as criminal. There is also the matter of competency, will the police devote valuable resources when OFCOM is usually responsible for dealing with this sort of matter?

I think it's more likely that the alleged conduct can be viewed as breaches of contract and breaches of industry regulations.

Still, if the police are to investigate then who knows what this may throw up?

Have to say that the way T-Mobile have treated me recently has been very poor. Got a written apology yesterday for poor customer service, an aknowledgement of understanding about my lack of trust in T-Mobile and a written statement that my FUP is 3GB and will remain unchanged. However, no sign of an apology for the attempted breach of contract and certainly no undertaking not to breach it in the future.

Yes, it was notoriously difficult to prosecute in the old days. However, Fraud Act 2006 was designed, at least in part, to address these problems. In particular, the Fraud Act 2006 sought to address the issue of companies telling a regulator one thing (or even omitting to tell) whilst doing another. T-Mobile will find it very difficult to mount a defence if it can be shown that T-Mobile was telling OFCOM it understood and abided by the General Conditions whilst simultaneously demanding and receiving consumer's cash contrary to them. Such behaviour falls foul of both Section 2 and Section 3.

You are correct about the threshold issue which is why Witness Statements from as many people as possible are needed.

musical_norwich

Thanks for the PMs. Keep them coming. We need as many people as possible to make sure that T-Mobile gets prosecuted for this.