Robbed by T-Mobile - How am I affected

jayshep1981

Help please?

I had 2 contracts with T-mobile, 1 for me and 1 for the wife, paying £70 per month.

One phone broke in May 2012, Contract was due to expire in November 2012 so I let the contract wind down, paying £35 per month. I understood the terms so was happy to pay the money monthly and let it run down. I spoke to T-mobile 5 times before it was due to expire and was EXPLICIT that I did NOT want the contract renewed. I even spoke to staff at Tmobile store and they said there was a note against the contract that it was cancelled.

I was of the impression that it was all sorted so thought no more. Then in December I checked my bank statement and I'd been charged for the contract.

Phoned them up to query and they said I was still contracted, despite SEVERAL notes to the contrary. They said as I didn't phone 30 days before the end date they didn't cancel the contract. (despite phoning 60, 90, 120 days before!!!)

Where do I stand, they say that I have an outstanding bill now for the next 30 days!!! Please Help I'm at my wits end

System

If you can afford to lose £35 a month for 6 months does one more month really matter?

If you have written proof they had your cancellation request then you can probably get the money back from your bank via the direct debit guarantee.

jayshep1981

It wasn't about affording £35 per month. I went to a company that buys out contracts & had the money - which I used for car repair - I then didn't mind paying £35 per month otherwise I couldn't have afforded the car repair.

I don't have anything in writing, unless I could somehow get them to sen d me details of my call logs 《which I very much doubt》

CupcakeLisa

It says in my contract I must call them 30 days before if I want to cancel....

If yours says the same I dont see how you have a claim

wealdroam

In T-Mobile's 'Pay Monthly' Terms and Conditions it says...

2. Terminating this Agreement. You can phone Us and give 30 days’ notice to terminate this entire Agreement with effect from the end of (or after) the Minimum Term. You may have to pay a Cancellation Charge, totalling the rest of the Monthly Charges for the remainder of the Minimum Term, less 4%.

To me, the last sentence in that quote implies that you can give more than 30 days notice.
If that were not the case, how would it be possible to have more than one Monthly Charge remaining in the Minimum Term?

As you gave them more than one month's notice (phoning is ok, it says so above), the contract should've been terminated at the agreed date.

T-Mobile have made a mistake and are now trying to wriggle out of it.

unholyangel

Are you sure it was due to that? Network operators have started (Orange in particular are extremely bad for it) reactivating your contract unless you activate a PAYG sim they send you.

As for getting a log of calls.....you could submit a subject access request under the data protection act (which allows you to see any information a company has regarding you) but there can be a cost for this and well....despite them telling you the calls are recorded, they rarely ever do actually record them. You could have a copy of your account notes but again, it relies on whether or not the operator you spoke to entered any notes.

vuvuzela

unholyangel wrote: »

Are you sure it was due to that? Network operators have started (Orange in particular are extremely bad for it) reactivating your contract unless you activate a PAYG sim they send you.

It's not them *reactivating* the contract, the contract is for a minimum term of 12 months and then continues unless you cancel it. If you agree to them sending a SIM out to you, they tell you that it needs to be activated to cancel the contract so if you don't do this, the contract simply continues.

unholyangel

vuvuzela wrote: »

It's not them *reactivating* the contract, the contract is for a minimum term of 12 months and then continues unless you cancel it. If you agree to them sending a SIM out to you, they tell you that it needs to be activated to cancel the contract so if you don't do this, the contract simply continues.

Thats in a perfect world where they tell you they're sending the sim card and that you need to activate it in order to stop your contract continuing when you've already given 30 days notice with the clear intention to cancel. But what do you do in the real world if they dont give you that information and you only find out when the direct debit is taken or (if you cancelled the DD) a debt collection letter? Thankfully my cousin found out via DD but some other people weren't so lucky. The ironic thing? She'd destroyed the pay monthly sim as the call centre agent had advised and never received a PAYG sim until well after the DD was taken.

At the end of the day, telling them you want to cancel (especially when you also send written notification that you are cancelling) should do just that. Unless they can prove that those people agreed and were explicitly warned that their monthly contract would continue if they failed to activate a PAYG sim. But as above, while they tell you they record all calls, they dont.

DCFC79

Should have contatced them with 30 days left to state you want to cancel, even send a letter stating your cancelling.

ThumbRemote

DCFC79 wrote: »

Should have contatced them with 30 days left to state you want to cancel, even send a letter stating your cancelling.

Exactly 30 days notice? Why is that necessary. They'd already given more than this - why should that cause a problem?

wealdroam

DCFC79 wrote: »

Should have contatced them with 30 days left to state you want to cancel, even send a letter stating your cancelling.

Please re-read post #5.