Obscene bill from Vodaphone

Bumpkindes

Hi

A friend of mine got a contract phone from Vodaphone last year. Things were going fine appart from some initial problems with her price plan due to mis selling in the link.

However just after christmas her phone started failing(i've no idea what the fault was) and was eventually sent off for repair.

About a month after that she recieved a bill for over £800 for the last month in call charges. She immediately contacted vodaphone who said that she was using over 1000 minutes most days. now she uses the mobile alot but no where near that amount and the phone hadnt even been with her for most of the month so vodaphone said they would send out an itemised bill so she could check.

The itemised bill never arrived but shortly after the calls demanding payment did. My friend wasnt going to pay until she knew the bill was hers so held off and asked for another itemised bill to be sent out.

Now it's got to the point where Vodaphone are adding on all these additional charges for missed payment/breach of contract so are now claiming my friend owes them almost £2000 and are threatening to take her to court.

My friend doesnt know what to do , she's quite shy and is really scared about all this money they claim she owes.

She is aware she owes something for the calls during this period and is willing to pay for what she did actually use but Vodaphone appear set on charging this obscene amount of which over 50% is there own fee's

It's got to the point she's going to take out a loan and just pay the bill but I hope someone here has some advice I can give her as Vodaphones actions here just seem incredible.

Bimbi

Hi,

My advice is to contact her local Trading Standards (TS) officers. She can find their address from her local authority website. Write a letter, explain the situation clearly, and TS should reply to you in writing, which you should pass on to Vodaphone customer services AND their headoffice so the people at the top also see that TS have become involved. It is the only way to deal with these people! Unless we all take such action, these things will keep happening over and over again. I cannot emphasize that enough. These companies think they can get away with ripping off and cheating customers at every opportunity and the only way to fight back is go via the authorities.

Bimbi

robnye

the unfortunate thing is that your friend hasnt made any payment, if she had made some sort of payment relating to what she thought her bill should be, then they (vodaphone) wouldnt be as hostile

has she contacted them again....... she does need to emphasise to them that she is in dispute..... sending a letter addressed to the CEO by recorded delivery, usually gets some sort of action,

Smartasss

There is something very wrong!

An unpaid bill from some date after January 25th (i.e. more than a month after Christmas) for £800 cannot have risen to nearly £2000 in 6 weeks.

When you get your bill you know when the money due will be applied for, and if you dispute the amount due there is time to make it a disputed invoice as robnye says.

I think if your friend is too "shy" to sort this out, then the CAB will be more use than Trading Standards (who are not known for helping to sort out disputed invoices).

The CAB will act quickly to help get the matter resolved - and if it turns out your friend does owe the money but can't afford to pay it in one go, will offer help by intervening on her behalf with voda to arrange a payment plan.

Presumably her voda service is now suspended, and unless this is resolved she will have difficulty getting another contract with any other network.

Bumpkindes

I'm not entirely sure when she recieved the bill only that it was sometime in January. I'm still trying to get all the information out of her as she's sticking her head in the sand and only told me when I found her crying one day.

I believe the additional money that vodafone are charging is a fee for non payment plus the rest of the contract, Which as she was on the top plan with 9 or 10 months left to run is quite considerable.

I'm going to try and get more information from her tonight as to what the bill is comprised of but all she keeps repeating is that she got an £800 bill for calls and now they want £2000

daveboy

I used to be shy but if this was me I would tell Vodaphone to 'bring it on' in court.

You don't mention whether the SIM card was removed from the phone prior to it being sent off for repair. If it was left in the phone then someone would certainly have used it somewhere along the line. As it's a contract phone I assume that to have that kind of bill, the SIM card must have been left in.

As has already been said, the CAB is a must. It is for Vodaphone to prove that she made the calls, and they aren't exactly helping in not providing an itemised bill. They are in trouble in that as your friend can't work out what she thinks she owes without that.

If I was in this position I wouldn't have made a payment either. Make sure that your friend certainly DOES NOT go to the lengths of getting a loan. Make Vodaphone prove what it appears they won't be able to prove.

I hope that this turns out the right way eventually and keep us posted as to how things are going.