The Mobile Outlet

mobilejunkie

Wishful thinking. Salvage what you can and move on. This is now a well-worn path.

jeppy

I fell foul of this co and cool new mobiles. It is hard to forget, but you have to. I had to look on the cashback as free money.
Fortunately with my vodafone phone I was given a 50% discount. I rarely use my phone so this was really appreciated.
My daughters, ordered thru TMO is thru T Mobile, so doubtful I'll get any sympathy (unless you know better and I have missed some relevant threads!), however, she does use her minutes and texts.

So whilst I feel that I am out of pocket, I try to think of it as I am getting what I am paying for!! (which of course I am!! just disappointed no cashback which would have come in very handy at the moment!!!)

cerreno

Shelby wrote: »

in contrast to my own postings, the most conspicuous thing about your own five on this thread is that they strive to assist nobody and exhibit not an ounce of concern for anybody but yourself.

Breathtaking. Even in your last post you manage to tell the story of How Shelby Saved the World!, using his amazing powers of self-satisfaction and glib statements of the obvious after the fact, and still find the chutzpah to deny it!

I am bored with this argument. You will leave it and no doubt still think that wagging your finger and saying, "Well, don't say I didn't warn you!" constitutes valuable advice.

A last (and rhetorical) question: do you admire people whose best response to a crisis is "I told you so"?

LittleHen

My latest claim was also returned today marked 'addressee gone away', looks like that is it then. Thanks to all for your posts on this thread.

Shelby

cerreno wrote: »

Breathtaking. Even in your last post you manage to tell the story of How Shelby Saved the World!, using his amazing powers of self-satisfaction and glib statements of the obvious after the fact, and still find the chutzpah to deny it!

I am bored with this argument. You will leave it and no doubt still think that wagging your finger and saying, "Well, don't say I didn't warn you!" constitutes valuable advice.

A last (and rhetorical) question: do you admire people whose best response to a crisis is "I told you so"?

Not half as bored as the rest of us are with it.

The Mobile Outlet has gone bust, people have lost their money and there's nothing more that can be done on here to retrieve it.

Once a crisis reaches the point beyond which nothing further can be achieved or redeemed, the best response is to analyse why it happened and help people to avoid making the same expensive mistake in future.

I'll leave it to everybody else to make up their minds which of us has provided the most help (and least obscenity) to others in our postings over the last year, here and on the previous two TMO threads.

The number of "thanks" that Cobra and Shelby received offers a clue.

Shelby

bauer_24 wrote: »

Hi all,

Just wondering if the voluntary code of practise from OFCOM brought in November last year (i think) is mainly to blame for dealers like TMO, p2ud & simply3G going t*ts up. By bringing these in, its given the distributors reason to stop paying the dealers, therefore starting a chain effect which has affected people on this site and many more. Anyone willing to keep on pursuing this may wish to make the networks or even OFCOM themselves accountable.

You raise an interesting point, Bauer. The code (apparently) came into force on 1 August 2007 and it was on that date that The Mobile Outlet switched from Terms & Conditions that were clear, simple and easy to comply with (disastrously so, for The Mobile Outlet!) to new ones that were confusing, contradictory and almost impossible to comply with, together with an outrageously protracted redemption period.

Whereas previously there had been merit in going with The Mobile Outlet if you were prepared to gamble on them not going toes-up before you could obtain the cashback and if you had the resolve to pursue them through the courts for it, nobody but a complete fool would have signed up for the new T&Cs unless they were devious enough to be counting on The Mobile Outlet bouncing their first claim unjustifiably and then using that excuse to pile in through the courts for the whole of their cashback immediately.

Under the later T&Cs, the nine weeks (45 working days) that The Mobile Outlet was permitting itself to delay paying the cashbacks would, if they had ever been allowed to run their course, have resulted in the four final cashback payments overlapping with each other, resulting in a total confusion that The Mobile Outlet would have been able to exploit to its advantage.

That, of course, would have eased its cashflow sufficiently for it to be able to meet the payments (and costs) being demanded of it by the most resolute of those still claiming cashback under the previous, far tighter, T&Cs. (Which is probably what the company was counting on, in order to keep going.)

The whole process of TMO’s demise was a lot more complex that those who look at it superficially assume and there are many lessons to be learned from it by those who wish to prevent the same thing happening again - be they customers or regulators.

jeppy

The truth of the matter is that many newbies (and lots of experienced!!) mobile users will fall for these offers.

I feel that as anybody with credit can sign up for these type of offers, that strictly speaking there should be guidance, even if that means that the websites come with a warning!!!

Some people on this site may have experience in these matters, but loads dont, including my daughter who is almost 18 and about to meet the real world.

It is time to start protecting the consumers!!

I have enjoyed the advantages of the freebie phones, but I also have lost out by £1,000 inc postage and court costs and my cashback!! If this had been my almost 18 year old, about to go to uni, who falls for what looks like a legitimate offer, I would have been raising the roof!!!

Some of you think that if you apply for a "free meal" you get what you ask for, but there are lots of inexperienced people out there who need looking after.

These mobile company directors are sharks and they wont be short of cash!! I bet they have huge houses etc and their assets wont be incuded within the company assets !! (although paid by them and us!!)

Anyone with any sense knows that if you give away all your commission you will be in debt!!

In my opinion, these people, took advanage as long as possible!! They even continued selling whilst they were deceiving their existing customers!!

If they were legit and cared for us, they would have paid out to us!! Not take more orders and paid out to no-one!! Ignored ccjs and bailiffs. They went on and on taking more and more orders and paid as little as possible!! Even held cheques then made out that they had sent them!!

It is time some authority stood up for the consumer!!

TMO truley took advantage of their customers and this is not on!! I knew since my 1st claim that there was a problem, the courts knew, Trading Standards knew and yet poor innocents are allowed to continue to buy through these fraudsters!!

Why???

How can the authorities, in the know, protect this company, so thye continue to make millions, whilst the innocent person ends up totally out of pocket and in some cases in a total mess!! The experienced will think, what do you expect, but these companies take advantage of those naive to these "offers??"

Even if they checked out the co, most would have seen that they had paid out in the past!!!!

I believe that there should be a regulator for anybody signing up for thes tpe of contracts, mobile tariffs or otherwise!!

I think we should have a poll!!

mobilejunkie

All been said before many times. As for the facts, they never paid out willingly so I'm amazed people now come on to complain that this is a new thing with them. Also anyone thinking that everyone (or even most) would get paid when every successful claim would obviously (even to the entirely stupid) cause a huge loss to the company was living in Neverland. Consumer protection only goes so far and is far too indescriminate and heavy-handed. There has always been tons of feedback about ALL cashback companies on here and other consumer sites for those who cared to do even a minimum amount of research.

I have always thought a health warning (such as on cigarettes but for different reasons) is highly desirable to prevent the hoardes of mugs swallowing up deals and later blaming everyone but themselves when it goes pearshaped. Heavy-handed regulation is no answer to anything though - as with credit cards and banks the stampeding masses will simply make things worse for everyone and the "culprits" will find other ways to profit from the new evironment. My views may not be popular but they are based on reality and lots of experience with cashback deals.

Shelby

mobilejunkie wrote: »

Seth:- Then more fool you! Why expose yourself to an obviously dubious dealer at ALL unless you were prepared to go high risk - that alone to the sum of £2,400!? They were ALWAYS one of the worse three dealers as anyone who bothered to do basic research would have known beforehand.

Despite the contemptuousness with which you invariably choose to express your views, “mobilejunkie”, many of them, from the benefit of your considerable experience, are sound and people would be wise to heed them

One fundamental point that it has always seemed to me you have never thought through properly, however, is is that for those who have indeed worked out how the whole cashback redemption process works, who seek the highest cashback, who can afford to take the risk of the retailer going bust before the cashback can be extracted and who have the necessary funds, resolve and knowledge to pursue the retailer through the courts until the money is obtained, it was always wisest to choose what you, in your own (fortunately) inimitable way, always describe as “one of the three worse (sic) dealers” - The Mobile Outlet being one of them.

This was because, if you could see that the business model to which they were all working was fundamentally flawed and would inevitably lead to them all going bust in the end, it was fair to assume that the one which was most retentive about paying cashback was, correspondingly, the one that was likeliest to remain in business long enough to be sued, if necessary, for one’s cashback.

And so it proved. CoolNewMobile paid out cashback more willingly than The Mobile Outlet and, in consequence, went bust long before The Mobile Outlet did. People were getting money out of The Mobile Outlet long after customers of CoolNewMobile had been left to whistle for their cashback.

So, you are wrong to dismiss people as fools for buying from The Mobile Outlet. Some of them knew exactly what they were doing and did it successfully.

Had you, yourself, ever bought ’phones from The Mobile Outlet, instead of avoiding them and going for CoolNewMobile instead, you would, in all probability have obtained your cashback instead of losing it.

Nor would you, as it happens, have had much trouble in getting paid your cashbacks by The Mobile Outlet, while they still had sufficient money to pay it, had you applied all your experience to going about it correctly.

Some months ago, on this thread, you stated that to get money out of The Mobile Outlet one had to fight tooth and nail to get every penny - and you were taken to task for it by those who had not found it so.

This was because you hadn’t actually tried getting cashback out of The Mobile Outlet yourself - you were relying on the tales told to you by others instead of your own first hand experience.

I watched closely as someone in my own household gently but firmly prodded all her five cashbacks out of The Mobile Outlet (under their old, July 2006/7, T&Cs) fairly promptly, with just five emails and one LBA in total.

The art, I would concede, lay in what one wrote in the letter accompanying the claims themselves and what one wrote in the emails, but all it took was common sense, diligence and courtesy. (Though you might have found that last requirement demanding. )

But she was far from alone and many people applying the same strategy and tactics as she (often with the same letters, circulated privately by email as a template ) obtained all five of their cashbacks by this means, without ever having to issue writs.

It is also the fact that The Mobile Outlet’s old, July 2006/7, T&Cs were a model of clarity and very easy to comply with to the letter. Do that provably and you had them by the nuts. As many did. And when The Mobile Outlet knew that you knew this, and that you would make it even more expensive for them if they failed to cough up promptly, they paid out politely and promptly rather than incur any further costs.

I make this point not - as some will be quick to accuse - out of any retrospective smugness (I did not benefit from it myself) but in order to invite you to think though the logic of it when next you buy a ‘phone or dispense advice on doing so.

If (as you do) you know what you’re doing, it can indeed be both wisest and safest to use “one of the three worse (sic) dealers” when you want the greatest cashback - they’ll have more money to pay you with.

By the way, which do you call the three best ("better"?) dealers? This would be handy for all to know!

Whatever happens to the remains of The Mobile Outlet, I’m sure that you yourself will be around, dispensing advice and insult in equal measure, for a long time to come, and that is why I ask you to think this one through carefully before you next counsel somebody to avoid "the three worse (sic) dealers". You may otherwise be giving them the wrong advice.

(Don't fire off an immediate retort to this from the hip: consider it carefully. It is a case of turning what appears to be an obvious disadvantage into a subtle positive advantage. In that it is akin to applying what might be called the "Saint-Quentin Strategy" - deliberately inducing a notorious retailer to bounce one's first cashback claim wrongly, so that one can punt in for the whole cashback immediately, through the courts. :cool: Not, of course, that anyone would abuse the legal process in such a way... :rolleyes: )

mobilejunkie

Actually I would never plunge into a deal with a minnow likely to go bust because of "an unsustainable" business model. The top three would be cpw, Dialamobile and Phones4u - but even they have many traps and I have advised extensively on cpw for a long time, helping many people on here to get themselves out of a situation where they were likely to lose all their cashback. I find it somewhat amusing to suggest it's best to deal with a bad company because you are more likely to be able to extract your money. The Mobile Outlet's older t&c only allowed 21 days for claiming too among other negatives - and that was one of many things which deterred me from going with them. As for Mobile Affilitates, I actually did extract three cheques from them 2 weeks before they went under; two of those were actually paid on time while no-one else was achieving that. It cost me two second class stamps and no legal fees at all to achieve that. In fact, despite having obtained well over 30 cashback deals I have never actually had to sue any dealer. I regard that as a reasonable endorsement of my own particular strategy.

As to the rest I am not to everyone's taste. However, I cannot accept that the majority of people ever got paid by the Mobile Outlet on time and without fuss for as long as I've been following them (about 2-3 years). This thread has always been entertaining; one of the most acerbic and often unproductive ones on here by people supposedly trying to help other people. In fact, this thread has been restarted and cut to ribbons so many times there must be enough offcuts to start another website. When the dealer is down the only thing that matters is salvaging what you can from the situation. There are many other threads - especially Mobile Affiliates which was also far more constructive - with lots of useful information in this respect, and I suggest people affected by this debacle find and read through that/them if they prefer to focus on what they CAN do in their current plight.

For those with contracts with cpw etc, I can find absolutely no criticism with anyone who takes a firm line when messed around by intentionally misleading information and or/unjustifeid denals of claims suing for the whole amount. Contrary to the suggestion here, it is easy and quite commendable compared with the alternative - letting the dealer play silly games and lip-service instead of honouring a contract they wrote when enticing people into these deals. After all, THEY aren't likely to go bust and knowingly mess their customers around hoping to gain a financial advantage. Call me naive, but isnlt that what the law is for - to uphold peoples' rights when the other party ignores their side of the deal??