Vodaphone chasing me

gr33nsock

Hi all

I am after some advice, i have just received a letter from vodaphone stating that i owe them 800 quid from 2008, and that i need to contact their collections team at lowell protfolio.

in the letter it states i was disconnected in march 08, and on the back of this letter it lists some ridiculous line rental and usage fee charges from march 08 to june 08, whilst the phone was supposedly disconnected, then adds a 570 pound early termination fee?? to come to a total of 805 pounds.

Now in 2008 i had a bit of a financial meltdown, and defaulted on my rbs account and loan, which i have now satisfied and the default should come off in 2015, baisicly i thought i was doing the right thing and paid them back when i came in to some money, paid them back and they destroyed my good credit (which did not show any rbs accounts at the time) and slapped the default on their which i am very anxious not to happen again

I have no vodaphone details on my credit report at the mo, and the ammount i owe them seems very dubious, i simply dont have that money at the moment.

Should i request a SAR to see if they have a credit agreement signed by myself?

I am moving house in 6 months, should i just wait, do nothing and not go onto the electoral roll in my new home, then hopefully by 2014 after 6 years they will not be able to chase me, is this the case?

I am very concious that if i make contact with these people then whatever date i do that could be the date the default starts!!

please help!!! thanks!

edinburgher

in the letter it states i was disconnected in march 08, and on the back of this letter it lists some ridiculous line rental and usage fee charges from march 08 to june 08, whilst the phone was supposedly disconnected, then adds a 570 pound early termination fee?? to come to a total of 805 pounds.

I'm assuming you were disconnected because you didn't pay the bills? If so, you were still in contract, so the early termination fee is fairly standard. That said, the March - June charge would seem to be uncalled for (as the early termination fee should cover your contract up to the originally agreed end date).

baisicly i thought i was doing the right thing and paid them back when i came in to some money, paid them back and they destroyed my good credit

You were doing 'the right thing' (by which I mean paying back what you owed). There are lots of reports on these boards about defaults being added quite a while after the account holder broke the terms of their credit agreement by not paying their bills.

Also, I'd argue that they haven't 'destroyed' anything so much as report the truth that you managed your account poorly? I realise it's annoying when defaults are added incorrectly (my own was added some 18 mths after it should have been), but I never blamed the bank for reporting what was factual.

Tixy

Mobile phone contracts do not have credit agreements, they are service contracts.

Its usual to continue to charge the standard fee for the first few months its disconnected. During this point in time if you pay up they will reconnect the phone so you are still charged. Once you have passed that point then your contract is terminated and they charge you the remainder of your contract term. Presumably you still had quite a long time left on the contract term (another year or so?).

I would suggest contacting them and either arranging monthly repayments you can afford or you could try offering a reduced full & final settlement for the debt.

I think its quite likely that the debt collection company will track you down at your new address within the next few years even if you don't go on the electoral roll. I also doubt they would allow this debt to become statute barred, its more likely in my opinion that they will start court proceedings against you - and that really would mess up your credit file. But I guess its up to you whether you take the risk they won't find you or won't just apply for a CCJ at your existing address after you have left.

You say this debt is not on your credit file currently - have you checked both your experian and equifax credit files?

gr33nsock

Thanks for the replies, i dont have a problem paying back in installments!
I have checked my Experian credit report it is not on there, but i might check equifax tonight.

My only concern is getting another default slapped on, is there a way i can agree to pay them back and them agree to not add another default to my report, which would proberbly start from the time i had finished paying them back and then my 6 year countdown would start again......bad times!!

Vodafone

Hi gr33nsock,

If you would like me to look into this for you, I will be more than happy to. Drop me an email to the address shown here with WRT135 FAO Heidi in the subject and include a link to this thread.

That way, I can look at the cancelled account and see where these charges are from.

Kind regards,

Heidi
Web Relations Team
Vodafone UK