T-Mobile charging for paper bills.

rtho782

I'm at the start of a 24 month contract at £5 a month with T-mobile (retentions deal)

My latest bill tells me that they are going to start charging me £1 a month for paper bills, unless I switch to online billing.

I don't want online billing. I obviously have internet access, but they don't know that.

I see this as an attempt to increase my bills 20% a month, withdrawing a service that was previously free. To be honest, its £1 a month and I don't really care, its just the principle!

Their retentions team told me tough, so the plan is to complain to OFCOM tomorrow.

Do you think I have basis here?

Guys_Dad

Check their t&c. Maybe you have a "get out of contract free card" as they are increasing your costs for the same service.

DUTR

You won't know until you try, why not return the handset and forget the deal?

rtho782

There isn't actually a handset involved, although if there was I'd certainly be trying to keep it for free :P

Given up with the retentions team, going to complain via Ofcom instead!

This is mostly a "principle" and "see what I can get out of them" issue to me.... I was hoping they would just give me an additional £1 a month discount, and I could then turn off paper billing and pay £4 a month for 300m 300texts and 1gb internet

drbesty

The billing falls outside of the contract, they haven't increased the cost of your services, they've increased the cost of telling you how you've used those services, ofcom won't have anything to say about it

spiro

Lots of places give discounts to get you to have paperless billing, it was only a matter of time before the balance started to change and they switched to charging a premium for paper bills. At the end of the day paper bills cost money to produce (paper, envelopes) and send (postage) and they are environmentally unfriendly. Therefore if a company wants to enhance its green credentials it will opt to charge for paper billing.

Exemplar

Why does anyone want a paper bill? Just a question not a criticism.

colinicky

alcot33uk wrote: »

Why does anyone want a paper bill? Just a question not a criticism.

In some cases to present to the tax/vat man if it is a buisness.

Exhortation

colinicky wrote: »

In some cases to present to the tax/vat man if it is a buisness.

Isn't that what printers are for?

Lynsey

alcot33uk wrote: »

Why does anyone want a paper bill? Just a question not a criticism.

To claim cashbacks - not everyone has a printer and it could be a pain to go to friends/library etc.

I/we've got 3 T-Mobile contracts and actually find it ok to have online billing - everything in one place for records and just print off what is needed. T-Mobile online billing is actually pretty good.

Lynsey

ACDeag

rtho782 wrote: »

There isn't actually a handset involved, although if there was I'd certainly be trying to keep it for free :P

Given up with the retentions team, going to complain via Ofcom instead!

This is mostly a "principle" and "see what I can get out of them" issue to me.... I was hoping they would just give me an additional £1 a month discount, and I could then turn off paper billing and pay £4 a month for 300m 300texts and 1gb internet

Ofcom wont hear your complaint until you have been through TMobile's dispute process and after that you will need to go TMobile's independent dispute resolution process before they will entertain looking at your complaint.

http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/resources/sites/TMOBILE/content/live/DOCUMENTS/0/DO210/en_GB/Complaints%20Code%20of%20Practice.pdf