T-Mobile strikes again

Sarc

Hi Guys

First time poster so I apologise if this is in the wrong section and if seems long winded.

I had/have a contract with T-Mobile/EE and never had any problems with them until recently.

In December I flew out to visit my folks in Lanzarote for a month and the day before I flew I contacted them to let them know I would be out of the UK for a while and if it would be possible to put a booster on my account so I wouldn't be hit with a massive bill when I got back.
I was told to call back the day I flew and that they'd sort it out for me so I tried to call from the Airport but ran out of time as my flight was boarding. When I landed I turned the phone on to see "No service" where the signal provider should have been, I figured it was just taking a while to locate a network.
Three hours later it still read "No service" so I rang them from a landline and explained what was going on only to be told that I wouldnt be getting any service as I'd not paid a deposit of £150 and unless I paid that then Id be unable to use my phone abroad.
No-one mentioned anything like that when I originally rang up and I'd be using it to text iphone to iphone so in essence it should have been free, the booster was just a precautionary measure.
I couldnt even recieve calls or texts on it.
If I hadnt been staying with relatives it could have left me in a seriously tricky situation as I'm sure you could imagine, if something had happened I wouldnt have been able to contact anyone.
I explained the situation to them but they just wouldn't budge and because of this I told them that if they weren't going to uphold their end of the contract then I wouldnt be paying that months line rental.
If I hadnt paid up then they'd be in their right to stop my service so how can they expect me to be paying for a service that they refused to provide.

To add insult to injury by the time I got back to Blighty they'd sent a debt collector after me for not only the £30 pound line rental but an extra £150 on top which was apparently the deposit they didn't mention anything about.
I contacted the debt agency and told them what the situation was and luckily they actually saw it from my point of view and said they'd speak to T-Mobile and ask them to send a breakdown of the bill to see how they're justifying this ridiculous charge.
T-mobile sent another bill the other day but not what was asked for just the previous bill with another £15 added on top which is apparently charges from calls made since the 18th of Jan which I don't see as possible as the damn thing hasn't had any network connection since the 18th of December.
Again I contacted the Debt agency and told them what I'd recieved to which they replied that they'd contact them again and try and found out what's going on.

Does anyone have any suggestion on how to go about dealing with this because even though the debt people genuinely seem to be siding with me, especially after the extra charges, they'll still be working for T-Mobile who I can't imagine will just drop the whole thing.

I'm worried as to how this would affect my credit rating as it's never been particuarly high due to never having a credit card or over draft.

Cheers in advance

d123

Sarc wrote: »

Hi Guys

First time poster so I apologise if this is in the wrong section and if seems long winded.

I had/have a contract with T-Mobile/EE and never had any problems with them until recently.

In December I flew out to visit my folks in Lanzarote for a month and the day before I flew I contacted them to let them know I would be out of the UK for a while and if it would be possible to put a booster on my account so I wouldn't be hit with a massive bill when I got back.

I was told to call back the day I flew and that they'd sort it out for me so I tried to call from the Airport but ran out of time as my flight was boarding. When I landed I turned the phone on to see "No service" where the signal provider should have been, I figured it was just taking a while to locate a network.

Three hours later it still read "No service" so I rang them from a landline and explained what was going on only to be told that I wouldnt be getting any service as I'd not paid a deposit of £150 and unless I paid that then Id be unable to use my phone abroad.

No-one mentioned anything like that when I originally rang up and I'd be using it to text iphone to iphone so in essence it should have been free, the booster was just a precautionary measure.

I couldnt even recieve calls or texts on it.

If I hadnt been staying with relatives it could have left me in a seriously tricky situation as I'm sure you could imagine, if something had happened I wouldnt have been able to contact anyone.

I explained the situation to them but they just wouldn't budge and because of this I told them that if they weren't going to uphold their end of the contract then I wouldnt be paying that months line rental.

If I hadnt paid up then they'd be in their right to stop my service so how can they expect me to be paying for a service that they refused to provide.

To add insult to injury by the time I got back to Blighty they'd sent a debt collector after me for not only the £30 pound line rental but an extra £150 on top which was apparently the deposit they didn't mention anything about.

I contacted the debt agency and told them what the situation was and luckily they actually saw it from my point of view and said they'd speak to T-Mobile and ask them to send a breakdown of the bill to see how they're justifying this ridiculous charge.

T-mobile sent another bill the other day but not what was asked for just the previous bill with another £15 added on top which is apparently charges from calls made since the 18th of Jan which I don't see as possible as the damn thing hasn't had any network connection since the 18th of December.

Again I contacted the Debt agency and told them what I'd recieved to which they replied that they'd contact them again and try and found out what's going on.

Does anyone have any suggestion on how to go about dealing with this because even though the debt people genuinely seem to be siding with me, especially after the extra charges, they'll still be working for T-Mobile who I can't imagine will just drop the whole thing.

I'm worried as to how this would affect my credit rating as it's never been particuarly high due to never having a credit card or over draft.

Cheers in advance

(I've quoted the entire OP so as to format it to a more readable version with paragraphs.)

If your credit score is insufficient to allow roaming all the networks will require a roaming deposit, it's happened as long as roaming has existed.

Roaming is not part of your contract or core service, it's an additional feature that is only added to a subscribers account if they pass an additional check and is subject to status, so withholding line rental for not having roaming enabled is unreasonable.

If you have roaming removed from your account the £150 deposit required would also be removed.

Have you spoken to T-Mobile about the roaming deposit? I also find it hard to believe that T-Mobile handed your debt over to a DCA within the time you had a short holiday. It used to be 3-5 months minimum dependent on amount owed, and most definitely not in the time scale you are intimating happened in your story.

Perhaps there is a little more you need to elaborate on for this to make sense.

Sarc

nope, nothing else to tell. This is exactly how it happened.

grumbler

Sarc wrote: »

... I told them that if they weren't going to uphold their end of the contract then I wouldnt be paying that months line rental.

... they'd sent a debt collector after me for not only the £30 pound line rental but an extra £150 on top which was apparently the deposit they didn't mention anything about.
....
I'm worried as to how this would affect my credit rating as it's never been particuarly high due to never having a credit card or over draft.

....

Such tactic usually doesn't work and does result in a trashed credit history. I think some damage has been done already.

T-mobile sent another bill the other day but not what was asked for just the previous bill with another £15 added on top which is apparently charges from calls made since the 18th of Jan which I don't see as possible as the damn thing hasn't had any network connection since the 18th of December.

I expect from the bill to show itemised charges, not just charges.

d123

Sarc wrote: »

nope, nothing else to tell. This is exactly how it happened.

So you went on holiday and in the time period of the holiday and your return you missed ONE payment and T-Mobile not only put your account to collections it also instructed and transferred the account to a debt collector?

After missing only one payment, and in one month?

macman

OP was on holiday for a month.

Silk

Sarc wrote: »

In December I flew out to visit my folks in Lanzarote for a month and the day before I flew I contacted them to let them know I would be out of the UK for a while and if it would be possible to put a booster on my account so I wouldn't be hit with a massive bill when I got back.

I was told to call back the day I flew and that they'd sort it out for me so I tried to call from the Airport but ran out of time as my flight was boarding. When I landed I turned the phone on to see "No service" where the signal provider should have been, I figured it was just taking a while to locate a network.

Three hours later it still read "No service" so I rang them from a landline and explained what was going on only to be told that I wouldnt be getting any service as I'd not paid a deposit of £150 and unless I paid that then Id be unable to use my phone abroad.

My thought would be they raised a demand for the £150 the day before you flew and expected you to confirm the following day when the payment had been processed

As you had not paid the deposit and had no intention of paying you were not granted roaming.

I assume you then cancelled the DD ???

Sarc wrote: »

I explained the situation to them but they just wouldn't budge and because of this I told them that if they weren't going to uphold their end of the contract then I wouldnt be paying that months line rental.

You are still liable for the months line rental as that was provided for you in the UK as usual ...it's not T-Mobiles fault you left the country....however if the roaming was never sanctioned you are not liable for the £150 and you can ask for that to be removed if thats the case.

Sarc wrote: »

T-mobile sent another bill the other day but not what was asked for just the previous bill with another £15 added on top which is apparently charges from calls made since the 18th of Jan which I don't see as possible as the damn thing hasn't had any network connection since the 18th of December

I'm wondering if these are voicemail charges from when you had the phone abroad and you pay for the return call to your voicemail ?????

I'm also wondering if the phone has been cut off are the charges for the deposit or maybe the contract has been cancelled and the charges are for the remainder of the contract

Sarc wrote: »

I'm worried as to how this would affect my credit rating as it's never been particuarly high due to never having a credit card or over draft.

Witholding/late payments is certainly going to trash your credit history and should have been considered when you cancelled the payment.
It also explains why they required a security deposit to enable roaming.
The only chance you have is to request a transcript of the call you made to them the day before you flew out and hope that a deposit request was not made to you

d123

macman wrote: »

OP was on holiday for a month.

I gathered that (and stated so in my post).

I have never heard of a person being one month overdue and not only has the account gone to collections, it has been assigned to a debt collection agency.

Anyone else ever heard of an account being a single month overdue (ie one payment late) and already with a DCA?

chanz4

a bill isnt over due until 28 days. think op is streching the truth

StarM_2

d123 wrote: »

I gathered that (and stated so in my post).

I have never heard of a person being one month overdue and not only has the account gone to collections, it has been assigned to a debt collection agency.

Anyone else ever heard of an account being a single month overdue (ie one payment late) and already with a DCA?

I'm actually with T-Mobile and have had some pretty major billing issues with them. My internet developed a fault that was going to take a week to repair, so I called them and asked if they could set up USB tethering and provide a few GB bandwidth for a month. After explaining that this is usually done on a 12 month contract, but they'd do it for only one month because I was in a fix (I lose anything between £15 and £65 an hour when I can't work, which I do from home) it was all set up for me. Needless to say, I burnt through that pretty damn quick, so called again and they helpfully gave me the same deal (with higher bandwidth) on my second contract with them.

When my bill arrived, it was for over £400. A quick call and I'm told it is the early cancellation fee for the first one I set up, because the silly person who did it forgot to click the button that said "one month only" or whatever it says, to tell them that this wasn't part of a years contract. I'm further told that they can't remove it because I was signed up to the years contract...

Needless to say, I refused to pay until it was resolved, which was a good 2 months.

During those 2 months of non-payment, I noted my other contract was over £30 more than usual... This time, they'd not noted it was for one month at all, and I was being charged monthly for it. This time I didn't have to wait and it was resolved in one call. The lovely man just cancelled the agreement, and credited my account for not only what I had already paid, but for all future charges this was going to generate.

All in all, this went on for 3 months, and not once did I get a mean call from them, no evil letters demanding money (I got a reminder, but just your generic one) and no debt collectors. The total outstanding by the end was around £620.

d123

StarM wrote: »

During those 2 months of non-payment, I noted my other contract was over £30 more than usual... This time, they'd not noted it was for one month at all, and I was being charged monthly for it. This time I didn't have to wait and it was resolved in one call. The lovely man just cancelled the agreement, and credited my account for not only what I had already paid, but for all future charges this was going to generate.

All in all, this went on for 3 months, and not once did I get a mean call from them, no evil letters demanding money (I got a reminder, but just your generic one) and no debt collectors. The total outstanding by the end was around £620.

StarM, thanks for the info, I didn't think they would changed so drastically since I was with them.

I really think there is more to the OPs story with regard to payments and arrears.