Carphone Warehouse Cancellation

outbackannie

I feel I am about to be scammed out of an extra months line rental on an O2 contract by The Carphone Warehouse. I have just called to give the required 30 days notice on my 12 month contract. This has to be confirmed in writing,which I already knew, but I was advised that the notice period will not commence until they receive the letter. As they will not be able to receive the letter until tomorrow at the earliest (Royal Mail permitting!) I will be taken in to a further months rental period.
This is contrary to information I received, by telephone from their terminations department last week. This gentleman informed me that the notice period would commence on the day of the phone call, hence the contract being termnated at month 12.
I will be taking this up with customer services department, requesting a transcript of the recording of the previous conversation and will be cancelling the DD when month 12 payment has been made.
Does anyone else have experience of this and could advise what the outcome was?
I feel this is a real "scam" to extricate a furthter months rent as I could not cancel prior to this or I would not have fulfilled my year's contract.
I would not expect sharp practice as this from such a "reputable" company!

g33za

i suspect it might be a combination of both what your saying and what they are saying.

Send the letter and the termination will be effective from the day you originally called, be sure to send recorded and include the DRN if its a o2/cpw contract.

Anon

If they are the same as o2, Three and Orange, if the final day of the notice period falls within a new month, they take the months rent but then refund the remainder of the month pro-rata (I cancelled an o2 contract last month and it happened to over-run into a new month by a day or so - they took £35 for the month but have then refunded £32 ish).

I would suggest not cancelling your direct debit - any defaults on payments show up on your credit reference.

Anon

Anon

You

g33za wrote:

i suspect it might be a combination of both what your saying and what they are saying.

Send the letter and the termination will be effective from the day you originally called, be sure to send recorded and include the DRN if its a o2/cpw contract.

I think you might be wrong on this. Carphone Warehouse tell most people that the cancelation period starts when they receive the letter. If it was based on the phone call, then anyone that phones in prior to the 1st day of the 12th month of contract would be in breach.

Most people as I understand it do the phone call at some point in month 11 and then post the letter the day before the start of month 12. You have to accept the chances that you will end up over the year, but better than beinh early and invalidating the last cashback! I think the OP got it as near on perfect as you can. Good luck.

Jazzyjeff_2

All I do is phone up about 6 weeks before my o2 cpw contract is due to end and then send a letter saying I want to cancel 'when my 12 month contract expires' - never had any problems with this and use the same method direct with o2 as they require a letter too.

People who wait until a day before the 30 days then post the letter seem to be making things much more difficult than they need to be, just change the wording of your letters and post them early!!!

g33za

You wrote:

I think you might be wrong on this. Carphone Warehouse tell most people that the cancelation period starts when they receive the letter. If it was based on the phone call, then anyone that phones in prior to the 1st day of the 12th month of contract would be in breach.

And they would demand payment in lieu of the remaining contract. When I called I asked to be disconnected at the end of my 12 month contract. See comment above from Jazzyjeff.

Jazzyjeff wrote:

All I do is phone up about 6 weeks before my o2 cpw contract is due to end and then send a letter saying I want to cancel 'when my 12 month contract expires' - never had any problems with this and use the same method direct with o2 as they require a letter too.

People who wait until a day before the 30 days then post the letter seem to be making things much more difficult than they need to be, just change the wording of your letters and post them early!!!

This is actually exactly what I did too. Sorry I should have said that earlier.

outbackannie

Thanks for all your replies - seems from what you have all said that what I was originally told was correct ie my notice applies from phone call not receipt of letter.
Anyway, decided to take up their offer of a further 12 months with 400 off peak minutes paid for by them putting £100 in my CFW account then taking £8.50 pm form that - overall costing £2 for the year. Will have to be more focused when I cancel this next year.

dizzy_blonde_2

A word of advice - if you send any correspondance to the Carphone Warehouse, send it by recorded delivery. I wrote to them on the 1st December giving 30 days notice that I wish to cancel my contract, and again on the 25th January, and again on the 9th February, only this time sent recorded. It now appears that they "didn't receive the first two letters", despite being sent to the same address as the one sent recorded. Guess what? I'm still connected, with a disconnection date of 17th March. The letter was signed for on the 12th Feb.

So in answer to your query, nothing surprises me with CW. I will never use them again.

nanjo

my CPW/o2 end 3 april, rang them yesterday for DRN, I was told too early for DRN, they only given out 33 days before the contract expire. was it right?

dribsndrabs

Jazzyjeff wrote:

All I do is phone up about 6 weeks before my o2 cpw contract is due to end and then send a letter saying I want to cancel 'when my 12 month contract expires' - never had any problems with this and use the same method direct with o2 as they require a letter too.

Thanks for the tip. Does anyone have the addresses of both cpw and 02 so that I can ensure I do it right? My first ever mobile phone contract is coming to an end in a couple of months and I want to make sure I've got everything covered.

Dizzy_blonde - good advice. i was going to send letters by recorded delivery.

Do they inform you in writing that they have received your letter and are confirming the contract has ended, or am I just a little too optimistic? I don't want to keep checking my bank account to see if they've taken money out despite writing the letters well in advance.

:beer:

BargainHunter_2

nanjo wrote:

my CPW/o2 end 3 april, rang them yesterday for DRN, I was told too early for DRN, they only given out 33 days before the contract expire. was it right?

yesterday I was told it was 34 days before contract end date

Last time I tried to cancel I sent it by recorded delivery but it lingered for 2 weeks before being acted on and i ended up with a 13th month of rental!