Need to cancel o2 Contract - maternity leave

xlouise17x

Hey

I have 6 months left on my o2 contract for my iphone paying £45 a month. I have called them to say i no longer can afford it as I am going on maternity leave which is not even enough to cover my rent not alone anything else! All they can offer is to reduce my bill by £4 a month but I will loose my unlimited internet or I can cancel but will be £270 as I have to pay of the remainder of the contract. Basically they want me to pay in advance for the last 6 months but not receive the service? Surely there is a get out of jail free card in the contract sumwhere. I asked customer services to send me a copy of my contract but they just directed me to their website for the terms and conditions which are hard to find!

I don't know what to do... if i just stop paying the monthly payments then i will get bad credit and i am due to move soon to a 2 bed for the new arrival so i will find it hard if i have bad credit.

I have just put it down in writing to see if the person who picks it up has a heart!

x

bris

Sorry, you have no right to cancel. Iphones are very expensive and don't pay for themselves, you could sell it and use the money to pay off, or most of the remaing balance. Iphones command a decent price so you may not have too much left to pay.

ThumbRemote

There's not a lot you can do. You agreed to a contract at a set price for a certain length. In exchange o2 gave you a phone. They are fulfilling their side of the contract, and can expect you to fulfill yours.

It might sound unsympathatic, but surely you thought this sort of thing through before trying for a child?

NeilF3485

Unfortunately, you will struggle to find a way out of this.

iPhone specific tariffs already have limited scope to reduce the cost and usually the cheapest is about £35p/m anyway so you'll never get it lower than that.

They are doing what all mobile providers tend to do which is if you want to cancel your contract then you need to pay for it.

If you stop paying then yes they will eventually register a Status History 8 ("default") on your credit file, and pass it on to a DCA which will indeed impact on your future ability to get credit.

What you really need is for them to make a change which will give you a get out clause, but this is unlikely. Have they increased the price of any calls or anything recently, that might be sufficient?

The only other thing I can think of is potentially "upgrading" (downgrading in this case) early to a non-iPhone tariff. I know that Vodafone now let you upgrade something like 150 days early for a £55 charge, and it doesn't have to be to same tariff. i.e. upgrade to a Nokia 3310 for £5 a month and take the hit of the early upgrade charge? I don't know if O2 allow this though.

Other than that, I wouldn't be hopeful of them taking pity, many people would try and make up an excuse like this (which i'm not saying you are!) in order to try and get out of a contract if it worked

xlouise17x

Just to add, I am currently a year and a half into a 2 year contract. A year and a half ago I was certainly not planning kids! I have been a very loyal customer with o2 for many many years and have always paid my bills on time. They just dont want to help at all. I have already paid £810 for this contract, surely thats enough to cover the phone! They can have it back for all i care, i just need the money for my child! they could at least cut my bills right down to the lowest of the low tarrif (not an iphone tarrif) but they only offering £4 off! I am disgusted!

NeilF3485

xlouise17x wrote: »

they could at least cut my bills right down to the lowest of the low tarrif (not an iphone tarrif) but they only offering £4 off! I am disgusted!

My post above covers this, they will not place an iPhone on a non-iPhone tariff, otherwise everyone would take out an iPhone then after a few months plead poverty and get it down to next to nothing.

demondoctor

If your happy to give it back then sell the phone and pay off the remiander of the contract. Is it as iphone 4, if so you'll get very close to £270.00 for it.

NeilF3485

demondoctor wrote: »

If your happy to give it back then sell the phone and pay off the remiander of the contract. Is it as iphone 4, if so you'll get very close to £270.00 for it.

But do it quickly because the 5 and 4S are due out in a few weeks if you believe the rumours and value will drop.

xlouise17x

I have a 3gs which is well used and the mute switch has broken, its over a year old i won't get hardly anything for it as everyone wants the iphone 4. its not worth doing.

arcon5

xlouise17x wrote: »

Just to add, I am currently a year and a half into a 2 year contract. A year and a half ago I was certainly not planning kids! I have been a very loyal customer with o2 for many many years and have always paid my bills on time. They just dont want to help at all. I have already paid £810 for this contract, surely thats enough to cover the phone! They can have it back for all i care, i just need the money for my child! they could at least cut my bills right down to the lowest of the low tarrif (not an iphone tarrif) but they only offering £4 off! I am disgusted!

They're not just looking to cover the cost of the phone though, they are looking to make a profit.

Even if they have increased call costs during the contract, it isn't necessarily as get out clause as if you do not agree to the change they will simply freeze the current rate.

Although I understand where your coming from, you can't make them look like the bad guys when they are honouring their end of the deal you both mutually agreed to.

The best piece of advice in this thread would be to sell the iPhone, then buy a cheap phone somewhere (you can get old Nokia 3310s for about a tenner on ebay) and put the rest of the money towards the contract, this will cover 3-4 months bill, leaving you with an average bill of £15/month for the next 6 months.

esuhl

xlouise17x wrote: »

I have been a very loyal customer with o2 for many many years and have always paid my bills on time. They just dont want to help at all. I have already paid £810 for this contract, surely thats enough to cover the phone!

It doesn't really matter whether or not it's enough to pay for the phone. You signed up for a minimum contract period, so why on earth would you expect O2 to let you cancel early? That's the whole point of having a contract! O2 exists purely to make a profit for its shareholders.

Really, I can only think of two options - you could sell your phone on eBay and put it towards the line rental, or if you know someone else who you trust implicitly, you could let them use the phone so long as they pay the bills. Then you could let them keep the phone, or sell it and give them a share of the money.