T-MOBILE still taking money for cancelled contract

Techhead_2

oopsadaisydoddle wrote: »

Why not Ofcom?

ETA, Ofcom are the telecoms regulator?

(ETA? - ETA means estimated time of arrival)

OFCOM do not investigate individual complaints. The correct route is to follow the T-Mobile complaint process and then if this fails ; proceed either to the Ombudsman or legal action.

oopsadaisydoddle

Techhead wrote: »

(ETA? - ETA means estimated time of arrival)

OFCOM do not investigate individual complaints. The correct route is to follow the T-Mobile complaint process and then if this fails ; proceed either to the Ombudsman or legal action.

Also means 'edited to add'.

That's why I mentioned escalating it or writing in as an official complaint. If she contacts Ofcom though, they will give her a reference number to give to tmob and they will have to investigate though. Although having said this, if she goes through their complaints procedure, it should hopefully not get that far.

Buzby

OFCOM do not deal with consumer complaints. That said, she has been reckless in letting them take 14 payments and not query them.

If they did not process her disconnection request and the SIM was active, then the onus remains with her to ensure disconnection and charging stops. If the service WAS terminated, then she is due a refund for the incorrect charging for a service not provided.

Fifer

Buzby wrote: »

OFCOM do not deal with consumer complaints. That said, she has been reckless in letting them take 14 payments and not query them.

If they did not process her disconnection request and the SIM was active, then the onus remains with her to ensure disconnection and charging stops. If the service WAS terminated, then she is due a refund for the incorrect charging for a service not provided.

If the provider acknowledged and accepted a request to terminate the service but did not do so, she is still entitled to a refund for a service provided which she did not request nor use. The onus is not on the individual to check that companies are not removing unauthorised funds from their accounts. Any sensible person would make periodic checks, but that's not quite the same thing.

shoperholicnot

Well, my Daughter spoke to someone in her bank and they said they wouldn't help because its her fault,she should have terminated the contract in writing!
I think the next step is a letter of complaint to T-Mobile.

macman

She's hardly helped herself b a) failing to cancel the DD and b) failing to look at 14 consecutive bank statements with the continuing charge on.

grumbler

macman wrote: »

She's hardly helped herself b a) failing to cancel the DD

Really? This did help to protect her credit history. Cancelling a DD never helps in such cases.

Buzby

Fifer wrote: »

The onus is not on the individual to check that companies are not removing unauthorised funds from their accounts. Any sensible person would make periodic checks, but that's not quite the same thing.

Sorry, these double negatives are getting too confusing. I can state that the onus is ALWAYS with the individual to ensure their payments are taken (or not, as the case may be). The courts are very clear that giving someone a DD mandate is not a replacement for ensuring that their account is paid correctly and on time.

The DD guarantee will not protect you from losing your home (say) if the lender does not receive the agreed funds on the due date. Having an active mandate authorised is not acceptable mitigation - the responsibility remans with the consumer.

If T-Mobile say they got the call to cancel, but kept the account and SIM active whilst waiting to issue a PAC code, the OP is stuffed. It would be reasonable to claim maybe 2 months of charges back, but 14? I don't believe so.

If only people will learn that DD's cause more problems than the solve, perhaps they will treat them with more respect, but I doubt it.

grumbler

Buzby wrote: »

If only people will learn that DD's cause more problems than the solve, ...

Are you saying that it was the DD that created the problem and if the OP was paying manually there would be no any problems?

You seem to ignore the 'industry';) practice to routinely trash credit histories in such cases. Without a DD the OP would have ended up with a trashed history and a debt that indeed would be likely to be less than 14x£X, but not necessarily.

macman

grumbler wrote: »

Really? This did help to protect her credit history. Cancelling a DD never helps in such cases.

But if she'd cancelled it, then she'd have realised somewhat earlier that the contract had not been terminated.