Need Help with Cashback Offers

Mark_H_7

Someone lives in the same house with me and I both have a 12-month free cashback contracts with buymobilephones.net... but now buymobilephones refuses to pay one of us because they say on their T&C's it says the 12-month free cashback offer is limited to 1 in each household.

The problem is that the guy who's in the same house with me had the contract first and when I asked for the same deal, buymobilephones.net gave it to me as well. Certainly they knew that they should not give the contract to me (because they knew their T&C's and they could check on their system if a similar contract had already be signed in the same house). After saying that, they still signed a contract with me. Now two of us in the same house have both legitimate contracts with buymobilephones.net, but buymobilephones refuses to pay one of us, basically, me.

My question is: Can they do that?

melipona

Interesting my thoughts are.

What is the definition of a household? Trouble is its not clear, the OED says it is a group of people living as a unit. However are a group of people, students for example, who share the same address but each financially independent a unit? Did a search on the net and some organizations add further definition by saying that if one meal is shared or a single sitting room is shared this is a household.

Im no legal eagle and so best you go to citizens advice and ask them how contract law defines household. If you are financially independent then it seems to me would be difficult for them to enforce the condition after all why should you share such information as telephone contracts? But of course you say you did so thats blown that.

Not meaning to sound callous, but did you read the Ts & Cs? It is a lot of dosh to lose so If I was you I would try CAB and see what they say, good luck, fingers crossed.

Mark_H_7

In my view, this is not an issue of how to define 'household', but if buymobilephones.net is breaching its contract... correct me if I am wrong.

melipona

Um I think that you accepted their Ts & Cs, it sounds really tight I know but thats what they will say, there would have been a tick box somewhere when you did the deal. So you have to convince them either you were compliant or that the condition was unfair i.e. you could not reasonably have complied. CAB

Reestit_Mutton

Mark_H wrote:

Someone lives in the same house with me and I both have a 12-month free cashback contracts with buymobilephones.net... but now buymobilephones refuses to pay one of us because they say on their T&C's it says the 12-month free cashback offer is limited to 1 in each household.

The problem is that the guy who's in the same house with me had the contract first and when I asked for the same deal, buymobilephones.net gave it to me as well. Certainly they knew that they should not give the contract to me (because they knew their T&C's and they could check on their system if a similar contract had already be signed in the same house). After saying that, they still signed a contract with me. Now two of us in the same house have both legitimate contracts with buymobilephones.net, but buymobilephones refuses to pay one of us, basically, me.

My question is: Can they do that?

Hi Mark,

Welcome to MSE.

Can you contact me either via PM or via the email address available on my website (the link to my site is available via my profile).

As an affiliate of theirs I had also wondered about the 1 deal per household rule and decided to query how this is enforced. As it happens, I have just received a response which clearly implies that you shouldn't have been refused your cashback.

Now, you could of course chase this up yourself but now that I have a categorical acknowledgement from someone inside BMP I might be able to get your cashback reinstated for you if you are prepared to email me a scan of your refusal letter. (no promises, mind you...but I'm willing to give it a try for you)

HtH
Reestit Mutton

Old_Gold

Reestit can you tell us what the position is then with the example given above ie Students in a house.

Reestit_Mutton

Old_Gold wrote:

Reestit can you tell us what the position is then with the example given above ie Students in a house.

The scenarios that were outlined to me basically said that, via a manual checking process, the second customer would be declined the sale.

However, BMP acknowledge that sometimes multiple sales of 12 months free deals to the same address slip through the net and it was made quite clear to me that those customers would not be denied cashback on the basis of it being a duplicate sale.

I'm prepared to test this theory by providing my contact with a documented counter example to see how he deals with it.

Reestit Mutton

jnm21

That is interesting Reestit & also a kind offer to the OP (one which I would jump on if it were me).

Two interesting questions - could they enforce this - would the average person know what exact deals every person at their address has taken - if not, I believe that makes it legally unfair. Also why do this? Could it be that their commission is address influenced?

Edit: just thinking about it, wouldn't even telling you your flatmate took the deal break the data protection act?

Reestit_Mutton

jnm21 wrote:

That is interesting Reestit & also a kind offer to the OP (one which I would jump on if it were me).

Two interesting questions - could they enforce this - would the average person know what exact deals every person at their address has taken - if not, I believe that makes it legally unfair. Also why do this? Could it be that their commission is address influenced?

Edit: just thinking about it, wouldn't even telling you your flatmate took the deal break the data protection act?

Putting the issue of how aside, the why is probably quite understandable...networks hate the way that their sales commissions have been used to lure the wrong kind of customer onto their network.

Customers who go for 12 months free offers tend to be the kind of customer who will not spend beyond their monthly package of free calltime/texts and change their contract annually. This kind of customer increases the network's "churn" figures and lowers the network's ARPU (average revenue per user) figures. These statistics are very closely monitored by the financial markets and can affect the network's market valuation (read: share price).

It is entirely possible that (statistically speaking) people who purchase more than one 12 month free contract in any 12 month period may be far more likely to not use the second and subsequent 12 months free contracts and ditch all their contracts at the year end.

Networks are now getting aggressive with retailers whose churn figures are higher than an acceptable level and BMP may well have identified that multiple purchases from the same address represent their biggest risk of breaching the network-imposed limits on such customer behaviour which could result in them facing either a fine or, worse still, being struck off as an approved dealer for that network.

There may be other reasons at play as well but the above scenario is, in my view, a very plausible one.

HtH
Reestit Mutton

melipona

It would be great if RM can help sort this out.
Personally I think that it is an unfair clause that would be difficult to defend. It is common to have such a limit on things like free soap powder or suchlike but where the company encourage others to recommend a friend and then accept you as a customer they need to be take some responsibility.

There are those that have many concurrent cashback deals and in my opinion this is who the clause is trying to catch. Although it is very high risk I know a few who have a dozen or so deals, they sell the phone and other pocket the cashback that the likes of quidco offer and just run the contracts without charge. As usual this sort of abuse impacts the innocent.

Best of luck.

Mark_H_7

I noticed another problem... on BMP's cashback claim vouchure, it is stated 'to be sent within 14 days of the date on your bill'. The usual billing date of Orange is 12th of the month. Does it mean I need to send the bills to them by 26th the latest?

I remember I saw one reply in this forum in the past, somebody mentioned that BMP actually wants the bills to be received within 14 days - that means, if the bills were sent on 25th and received on 27th, it wouldn't account.

Can anyone who knows this clarify for me? Thanks a lot!