The Mobile Outlet

stoner_2

Grayme - "The irony is that they are still trading on their website and offering 100% cashback deals."

Fairly sure they're not offering any cashback at all? Just the free phone, but a standard monthly tariff applies. It does say free x amount of mins on the initial deal but not when you click on the relevant phone - in fact most are not available anyway.

It will be interesting to see if any of those who have applied for warrants (including myself) get anything back at all. Wonder what kind of house, and how much money the directors are living / sitting on!?

grayme-m

spinner wrote: »

The web site still seems to be offering new phones - surely this is trading while insolvent?

Even if they are technically insolvent, it is not illegal to continue to trade.

However, if I was struggling to pay baliffs, it may buy me more time if I told them I was in liquidation.... :think:

Has anyone got any first hand evidence that they are in administration?

What I find very disappointing is that they are still offering the very products that have got them into a self-confessed mess; that is so wrong...

grayme-m

stoner wrote: »

Grayme - "The irony is that they are still trading on their website and offering 100% cashback deals."

Fairly sure they're not offering any cashback at all? Just the free phone, but a standard monthly tariff applies. It does say free x amount of mins on the initial deal but not when you click on the relevant phone - in fact most are not available anyway.

It will be interesting to see if any of those who have applied for warrants (including myself) get anything back at all. Wonder what kind of house, and how much money the directors are living / sitting on!?

Ah, I didn't go further than the first page with its 'FREE on Canary 40 (12 Mth)' etc.

That is one good thing at least (in that no new people should lose out), so it does seem they are running down from looking at that.

Unfortunately, even when it seems someone has been either dishonest or incompetent, their house value is irrelevant.

spinner_2

The "business" model these companies use is no more than a variation of a pyramid scheme. The scheme only works for those who get in early enough - the later participants get stitched up. Here is the recipe:

1. Come up with offer that is too good to be true
2. Stay in business long enough to convince the wary that it really works
3. Pull the plug and leave the "customers" high and dry

repeat

It's demoralising that in a time when we are drowning in a sea of legislation , what is effectively no more than white collar crime is still so easily perpetrated on us.

abbica

Is there anyone at all we can get to about these damn robbers? I am getting more and more frustrated by the day that they are continuing to trade whilst ripping us off. They are going to get away with this scot free and probably set up in another name and do the same all over again. And what happened to the letter we were all going to receive last week? How come diggerunited seems to be the only person to get it on Friday, when everyone of their customers should have got the same thing? I'd love to be able to walk away and forget this ever happened but after starting a MCOL I just can't do it!! AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!

abbica

stoner wrote: »

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/investigates/2008/02/21/great-mobile-cashback-robbery-gets-worse-89520-20326675/



Great Mobile Cashback Robbery gets worse



Penman & Sommerlad21/02/2008

The fallout from the Great Mobile Cashback Robbery gets worse by the week.
Two more dealers that offered rebates to customers are set to go to the wall without paying them.
Cashback sweeteners are offered by phone dealers to attract new customers - if you sign up and pay the line rental you are promised money back.
That's if you meet often strict terms and conditions. And if the dealer doesn't go bust trying to pay you.

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Those are two big ifs.
Peter Button of Shepperton, Middlesex, took out two phone contracts online through Yorkshire dealer The Mobile Outlet.
He was offered 10 months' cashback on a 12-month contract - meaning he'd pay just £70 per phone instead of £420. After six months he tried to claim the first half of his cashback but was told he'd missed a 21-day deadline.
This meant that, under the firm's tight T&Cs, he would also forfeit all future cashbacks, leaving him £700 short.
Director Attif Ashraf admitted that around six in 10 customers failed to claim their cashback correctly.
"We used to pay all our cashback," said Attif, from Gateshead.
"If we earned £250 in commission then we could offer £200 cashback.
"But in 2005, other dealers began offering much more money. Our sales dropped and we asked the networks what we should do.
"My account manager from 3 told us that we could compete by tightening up our terms and conditions.
"3 told us that a 40 per cent redemption model was possible if we split up our cashback into five stages, insisted on original documents and gave customers a short period to claim."
Attif says he has paid out around £4million in cashback to 30,000 customers. But he's avoided paying out another £6million.
One customer, Lorraine Felix, from Hornchurch, Essex, said: "I read everything very carefully and I made sure I sent my bills off in time."
But she hasn't been paid since August and is now owed more than £1,000 in unpaid cashback.
Attif admits there has been an "unacceptable delay" and blames withheld commission payments from suppliers.
He's run out of money, he can't pay 5,000 customers £600,000 and will have to go into administration.
We've also discovered that Phones2udirect.co.uk of Kent, another online cashback dealer, is set to be put into liquidation today.
Last year boss David Ellis refused to tell us why he'd been successfully sued 11 times by customers.
He's now lost at the small claims court 25 times this year alone and is shutting up shop.
In recent months we've seen a string of dealers - simply3g, phoneboxdirect, Mobile Connections, Click Mobile - go belly-up. Around 150,000 customers have lost £25million. Meanwhile, the big networks that either encouraged or allowed the dodgy deals happily profit from all the new customers they attracted.
A 3 spokesman said: "Cashback is an arrangement between the retailer and customer, not the network."
Consumer affairs minister Gareth Thomas said: "I thank the Mirror for continuing to highlight this issue.
"Thousands of people have lost money by signing these deals.
"It's right that Ofcom is talking to mobile operators and retailers and looking at ways to give consumers more protection.
"I would encourage anyone buying a phone to take the time to check the terms carefully and not make snap decisions based on a slick sales pitch."
The Independent Mobile Phone Dealers Association hopes to tackle the issue with a code of practice and a scheme to audit dealers.

For thousands of victims of the cashback scandal, it's way too late.

I have sent an e-mail to the mirror advising them to take a look at this forum to get a truer picture of TMO. I am fuming that TMO are made to look the victims in all this. They have not being paying cashback for months not just since companies started witholding commission from them. They are liars and thieves.

claudio

I have been following the thread since post #1 (mine) as I too am still waiting for some of my cashback. When I took the contract out for my son and I looked at various suppliers, I did say to him, at best, we'll get the cashback & at worst, can you afford the monthly line rental. We went for TMO.
Due to them submitting a defence (chq sent in Dec - right!), I now have to decide whether to proceed through my local county court as the case has been transferred there. The June 2007 T&Cs, when I took out the contract, makes no reference to cashback being paid in equal instalment only dates and billing months to be submitted at 5 intervals. I went down the route of claiming cashback based on what I had sent them ie it is implicit in their T&Cs that if you send 4 months of bills then this is the cashback instalment to be paid. There is also no address where they should be sent so I opted for Valley Parade.
It's interesting that I received 1 pre-dated chq in an unstamped envelope in Dec, confirmation that another had been sent (never received) and a humoid e-mail at the beginning of Feb'08 confirming receipt of my 2nd cashback (which I sent in Dec'07). I've just sent my 3rd cashback via special delivery knowing that there's no one at Valley Parade but I'm sticking to the T&Cs for now.
To the best of my knowledge, they are still trading, are not in administration let alone liquidation and, at close of business yesterday, had 84 unsatisfied CCJs against them totalling £31,871.
For my sake and everyone else waiting for re-imbursement, let's hope that they can agree a deal with their debtors rather than going down the winding up route.

badger64

there is no chance of them continuing to trade. there debts for cashbacks are huge, and as no networks will allow them to sell their products they are insolvent, so as most people on here( me included) we can kiss goodbye to any money that we had hoped to see.

SED_3

the f**** con artists!!!

just gone off the phone to my network and told them that for the remainder of the contract please bill to the following......

{Edited by Forum Team}

cerreno

I beg to differ, we did not take a "bet" with TMO. We agreed to a contract. The only contingency was whether or not we completed the claims process properly. In doing so, the only comparison between that and a horserace was that we did the equivalent of our horse coming first. Contracts are there to be honoured on both sides.