The Mobile Outlet

James212

Kitster wrote: »

can i just ask...although i am no law expert...surely there must be some governing body watching the number of MCOL summons/complaints that TMO are getting for not playing fair....so should they not have been reprimanded in some way by now...it seems that they are happy for things to go to court as all they ever stand to lose out is to pay the cashback they owe in the first place plus 30-50 quid for court costs and no other punishment...isnt there any rule for criminals like being hauled before court more than x number of times gets you a jail sentence or community service at least???

Hi Kitster,

No, I'm afraid I don't think this happens.
Each case through MCOL (which is just an online interface for the small claims system), is judged on the facts of the case. Outstanding (unpaid) County Court Judgements are put on a register - I think if it is not paid within a month - which then affects the defendants ability to get credit in future. I'm also sure that Bradford County Court (the court that gets involved if you have to involve the bailiffs to reclaim the money), have a good idea from the number of judgements against TMO that they have had to enforce, that they are best avoided, unless you know what you're getting into.

But there is no system in place, that I'm aware of, to punish companies with x number of claims, so long as the claims are paid.

There is already a system, via the small claims court, to enforce your cash back claims, which is why it is important that you do this. You are not really compensated for the additional effort this entails, and you just get back what was owed to you in the first place, although you can apply for interest to be added to the amount from the date it should have been paid to you (8% I think), so if you were owed £300 and they paid 4 months late, you could claim an additional £8! I think if your case was contested and went to court, you could also claim for your expenses, loss of earnings (time off work) etc. But my impression is that TMO don't either settle or don't contest the claim in the majority of cases. So if you have done nothing wrong, they would probably not contest your claim.

One last thing, I don't think they (TMO) are particulary "happy" to let claims go to court as, like in my claim, they end up paying a further £30 and then another £55 if you instruct the bailiff to enforce the judegment. But my guess is that this is their game plan, for example:

Say 100 customers have legitimate claims refused, for one reason or another. Say each customer's contract is worth £35 per month line rental, so £420 (cash back) would have to be paid by TMO over 12 months (assuming 12 months' cash back contract). TMO incorrectly reject the 1st claim for each customer for one reason or another, meaning they can subsequently say all cash back claims under that contract are void. How many customers subsequently fail to follow up this rejection with a complaint/LBA and a legal claim and warrant? Even if 80 of the 100 customers take action against them (costing TMO £35+£55 at the most), they would still save £1200. My guess is that far less than 80% do this, it's probably 50% or even less, and if this true, TMO saves themselves over £15K by doing this. Whether you claim or not depends on the type of person you are, and the circumstances that you took the contract out.

If like me you didn't really need the phone (some call centre in India contacted me, pushing contracts on the '3' network and it was a 2nd phone for me), then you are less likely to accept that something you didn't really need is going to cost you £420. I never intended to pay a penny for the phone or contract, and I had a previous contract with '3' that was free via cashback, and had no problems with this.

James212

inkypinky999 wrote: »

It is high time that we (consumers) launch a campaign against this trader.

Hi,

If there is a group campaign to raise awareness regarding past problems/complaints against TMO, I am happy support this.

rose28454

As per my previous posts I went to London to thee weekend and picked up all my son's paperwork re his 1st claim. We had a bit of a panic cos he could not find his special delivery slip but we found it in the end. Anyway he was refused his 1st claim and all the others as his papers arrived on Day 22. His 4th bill was 22.8 and we sent the papers in on 10.9 Special Delivery. However because it was re-directed to another address ( even though we used the address on the delivery note and website) it was not received until 12.9 (day 22 if you count bill date)!!
Now how do I go about disputing this? Should I just mention the re-direction element or should I focus on the fact that the T & C just say forward? His contract does say inclusive however so I cant query that. A few pointers would be welcome as I am determined to not let them keep the money as he needs it and there actions are despicable.

athomick

rose28454 wrote: »

As per my previous posts I went to London to thee weekend and picked up all my son's paperwork re his 1st claim. We had a bit of a panic cos he could not find his special delivery slip but we found it in the end. Anyway he was refused his 1st claim and all the others as his papers arrived on Day 22. His 4th bill was 22.8 and we sent the papers in on 10.9 Special Delivery. However because it was re-directed to another address ( even though we used the address on the delivery note and website) it was not received until 12.9 (day 22 if you count bill date)!!
Now how do I go about disputing this? Should I just mention the re-direction element or should I focus on the fact that the T & C just say forward? His contract does say inclusive however so I cant query that. A few pointers would be welcome as I am determined to not let them keep the money as he needs it and there actions are despicable.

Your position is good.

Firstly your T&Cs do not have the word "inclusive in them". If you got the phone over the internet you should check the internet site T&Cs from the time you got the phone. You can check them here - http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.themobileoutlet.co.uk/Information.asp?txtMode=8

Although they may be different to the ones they sent you with the phone, the ones that were in force on the site are the relevant ones.

Your claim was received on day 21 (identical to my 2nd claim) and I was paid last week after a bit of hassle and a Letter Before Action.

Secondly, you are probably right that you "forwarded" the claim in time anyway as this does not mean the same as "ensure it is received".

Thirdly, you can not be held responsible for the post being redirected as TMO have not informed all its customers.

Have a look at my posts and send a Letter Before Action is my best advise. Do not agree to compromise or to any variation to the T&Cs you find on the link I gave you.

Good luck.

PS Don't get into too much discussion with them about it. State your case and send a LBA.

castillo666

Hi all, I swear I've been using the search for 30' but I couldn't find anything!

I have a 12 months contract with TMO signed on april and I am still struggling with my first cashback and the second is due now. My problem is that I had the T&C's in soft copy in another PC that I do not have access to anymore.
Can anyone be nice enough to remind my the old T&C's? I mean, which bills I have to send and in which order? as per what I remember it went like this:

1-2-3-4
5, 6 -7.
8-9-10
11-12

Thanks!

inkypinky999

James212 wrote: »

Hi,

If there is a group campaign to raise awareness regarding past problems/complaints against TMO, I am happy support this.

James, I will be speaking to OFT if all our issues can be represented using a sigle collective application also will also ask conusmer action group.

MSE Martin,

If you are reading this, Please can you guide us here?

Regards

athomick

castillo666 wrote: »

Hi all, I swear I've been using the search for 30' but I couldn't find anything!

I have a 12 months contract with TMO signed on april and I am still struggling with my first cashback and the second is due now. My problem is that I had the T&C's in soft copy in another PC that I do not have access to anymore.
Can anyone be nice enough to remind my the old T&C's? I mean, which bills I have to send and in which order? as per what I remember it went like this:

1-2-3-4
5, 6 -7.
8-9-10
11-12

Thanks!

Unbelievably I posted a link to them on the previous post!!

James212

rose28454 wrote: »

Now how do I go about disputing this? Should I just mention the re-direction element or should I focus on the fact that the T & C just say forward? His contract does say inclusive however so I cant query that. A few pointers would be welcome as I am determined to not let them keep the money as he needs it and there actions are despicable.

Hi Rose,

Just to add my advice to athomick's excellent post (which I fully agree with), I've also worked out that your claim was received on day 21 (so regardless of whether it says inclusive on your T&C's or not, the claim got there by TMO's 21 day deadline). I do not think you would count the bill date as day 1, meaning 23.08.07 would be day 1.

But even if this was received 1 day late, i.e. on day 22, as TMO claim, you should be able to counter-claim that you did not know that mail was being redirected, resulting in a further 1 days delay, but I think to do this, you would need to then claim that the term "forward" in TMO's T&Cs is not explicit enough (i.e. does it mean "receive by" or "send by"?).

Which leads me onto.... the debate surrounding the meaning of the word "forward". I think the T&Cs state nothing more than something like:

"In month 4 of your contract you will need to forward bills 1 through to 4 to us within 21 days of the issue date on bill number 4".

Now although some people could argue that this means the bills need to be received within 21 days, this is not what the T&Cs state. Indeed, I believe that as long as you can prove that you sent (i.e. posted) the claim within the deadline, the claim should be honoured, even though TMO may argue that this was received late.

I imagine it would be possible to post (or 'forward'?) a claim within the 21 day deadline, and depending on the type of service chosen (e.g. whether it be "Special Delivery", or just plain old 2nd class) and possible postal delays (perhaps strikes or redirection delays) for the claim to be received several days - maybe even a week - later, particularly if the claim has been caught in the backlog of post caused by the recent strike action.

To support this argument, consumer's have the following right: when there is any ambiguity in a term or clause in a consumer's contract, then the consumer can legally claim that the way they have interpreted the wording of the contact is correct. (By the way, this is how TMO tried to catch me out and reject my cash back of £185).

I imagine this regulation (The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 - implemented as part of an EU directive!) is designed to protect consumers and ensure that companies word their T&C's clearly, and without ambiguity, especially in the instance where the consumer is likely to lose money in the event they do not understand the exact meaning.

Anyway here is the proof:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19992083.htm

The pertinent points are:

7(1) "A seller or supplier shall ensure that any written term of a contract is expressed in plain, intelligible language"

7(2) "If there is doubt about the meaning of a written term, the interpretation which is most favourable to the consumer shall prevail."


So to summarise, I think you have a choice:

i) Either send a LBA stating that TMO received the claim on day 21. As they received the claim on day 21, I would understand this to be "within 21 days". So they should pay up.

ii) Alternatively, you could go down the route that you "forwarded" (i.e. posted) the bills (well) within 21 days, and as you understand it, this is what the T&Cs stipulate.

I think either argument is a good one, and I would be amazed if you did not win (in the eventuality that you have to launch a small claim against TMO). Based on this, I think even if TMO do not pay up after receiving your LBA, then they wouldn't defend your subsequent claim, so it's important to give them a short (but reasonable) deadline to reply to your LBA (i.e. 2 weeks maximum?) If you do not hear anything (they took 4 weeks to reply to me), initiate a small claim immediately.

Seriously, I think you have an excellent case. Good luck.

PS thanks to athomick for the link to that excellent "web archive" site: it was down when I tried yesterday, but is working fine today. Curious how TMO seem to be changing their T&Cs more and more each year, don't you think...?

Shelby

Rose,

1. Never weaken a strong legal position by digressing into a weaker one that is open to argument. Stick with what you've got and go with it.

2. In this instance, all that was required of your son was that he send off the required documents within 21 days of the date on the final relevant bill. He did this. The Mobile Outlet has not disputed that they arrived and has not disputed that the documents were correct.

3. Something that, legally, doesn't have to arrive at all cannot be "late".

4. Leave it to The Mobile Outlet to try to convince a judge that its T&Cs required his documents to arrive within 21 days. They don't say that and it won't succeed.

5. Do not allow your son to live in London with no money: it's dangerous. Put £500 into a bank account to which he always has access in an emergency.

Quentin

rose28454 wrote: »

( even though we used the address on the delivery note and website) it was not received until 12.9 (day 22 if you count bill date)!!
Now how do I go about disputing this? Should I just mention the re-direction element or should I focus on the fact that the T & C just say forward?

Are you certain that the address you used was the correct one as far as your original claiming instructions stated?

If so, then all you need to do is write to them, send them copies of your evidence of posting in time/using special delivery/their re-direction.

You could make this letter a LBA by adding that you will take action to recover the money owed under the contract unless you receive full payment in 7 days.