The Mobile Outlet

tahrey

Cashback collapse article link: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/coolnewmobile-phoneboxdirect-help

Someone wanted to know where on T-Mobile's site the thing about only being able to change at 11 months was hidden. The flippant answer is "go back and look harder, dude" ... the better one is:
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-advice/common-questions/
and it's under "6. Can I Change My Price Plan?"
(remember the "/" at the end of the address, it doesn't work unless that's included for some reason)
What it seems to say in a nutshell is you can request a tarriff change at any time, and it will become effective at the end of the current billing period (i.e. month), but you'll have to wait until month 11 before you can apply if changing to a *cheaper* one... which is alright if you're a lucky one on an 18 month one and don't need to change it in the first 2/3rds, but not so 12, as this basically means your contract is up before the change takes place, or the same as saying "no, you can't do that"!
So getting them to change their tune and say 6 months is a very definite improvement... It may even be a bargaining chip to say you'll stay on for another 6 (to make it an 18 monther) if your phone's still working alright and you like the rest of their service, if they'll drop it for you --- and put you onto the equivalent 18 month price, which makes it even cheaper for the same service level... sure it must be possible, but I think I'll be itching for a different handset by my 12th, as the N70 is already narking me off at 5-6.

Also for whomever was being confused as to how even a business can be "down" £2400 (bit of an odd way of describing a discount that's been removed, but if you've budgeted for it, I suppose it counts - in the same way, I'm the best part of £500 out of pocket given the unlikely-to-arrive cashback, I could buy a car with that!)..... an introduction to maths and how a company might be operating.
Small firm, say a local-based estate agency, wants to equip it's 10 agents with company mobile phones, so they're easily reachable, can update the office while they're in the field, have a good consistent look (something sleek and black, though maybe not super-capable), that won't be bothered with continual personal calls, can be left to charge in the office without it being a big issue if it's stolen, etc. Money is always the bottom line so they look for a good deal. There's a tariff with a decent amount of voice minutes and not many texts (good for calling colleagues) that may normally cost £288 a year (£24 a month), and they come across an outlet such as TMO that's offering a free slinky, if yesteryear phone (e.g. V3 RAZR), with 10 months cashback on the line rental. 10 phones all ordered in one block on this deal, with a good chance of having easily remembered consecutive numbers (seen it happen enough).............. that's a £2400 saving. The small agency is only paying out £48 per year per phone, for a £480 total cost..... and the administrative hoo-haa is not such a big deal as they have a professional secretary on staff that deals with this sort of legal bumf on a daily basis, can mark the dates in a company calendar and set reminders in outlook that will pop up at the start of a working day, can do all 10 at once and knows how to handle the recalcitrant customer service bods.
Except now the company is having to pay the full £2880 to the phone company, without any extra cash coming back to them in the foreseeable future, because TMO has gone under with little chance of recovery, and they have to find that additional £2400 from somewhere - be it petty cash/slush fund, their customers, staff wages, the christmas party kitty, or whatever.

...

Glad to see this thread's gone back to being a useful source of information rather than the !!!!!fest it was 10-20 ish pages back (can't be sure any more). I really appreciate the excellent information that's been supplied here by several prominent members, but the surplus of grated smugness that came along on top did spoil the flavour at times Mind you, as I have my own faults (such as rambling on for hours at a time, as you'll probably soon see) I'm not going to call anyone out by name or make too big a point of it, other than to explain why it's bugged me.

My feeling there is possibly coloured by the fact that I tried to do my research on the different companies, was trying to get the best possible deal within certain requirements (particular amount of minutes/texts without being excess, internet, certain minimum quality of phone without needing top-of-the-line rather than sim-only because the old one was internally damaged and only functioned with a small bit of blu-tac jamming the sim against the circuit board) and without - I thought - overly risking my cash or entering into something particularly complex. As stated a few posts back, I was previously with e2save, who everyone is currently performing sexual favours a la messageboard for, but around november '06 to february last year were giving me an almighty headache as regards actually admitting I had conformed to their T&Cs and sending me the money owed... those same "putting up the wrong signs to the airport and secretly changing the times the flights leave" tactics mentioned of The Mobile Outlet. Having extracted my cash - arming myself at the time of dispute with a wodge of supporting information, including a fair bit of comment and instruction from here (non-poster at the time IIRC) - as the time came for me to renew my contract approached, I really had no intention of sticking with them. Mother and brother had been with TMO about 7-8 months already and had nothing but good things to say, having had prompt delivery of phones, no hassle at all with the 3 and 6 months cheques and any dealings with customer service, etc. I didn't have a great deal of free time to sort out my deal as I'd left it a little late (yeah, I'm disorganised, I forgot exactly what time it expired), and work was hellish (over-running, no lunchtimes, requiring me to do stuff on personal time etc), so I did as much looking around and fielding opinions as I could, at the same time as hitting up a load of suppliers and phone company/operator/review sites to get the skinny on both the reliability of retailers, the fine detail of what different call plans offered, and the specs of suitable-looking phones (a fair bit of time taken by arguing with my brother over whether I should have a new working version of my old one, or a comparable nokia... wish I'd stuck with what I'd known on that one, as he made a compelling argument for a rather lacklustre model - the theme of the whole affair in fact!), etc etc, it basically took up all my spare time for about a week when I could have been sunbathing in the early evening. In the end, as far as I could tell, TMO did occasionally give people a little run-around, but were largely honourable and fairly solid. There was no mention anywhere that it was effectively "two people operating out of a shed" (does that mean when I spoke to customer service to confirm the delivery, I was talking to one of the directors? somehow I doubt it...) and it appeared to be a quite professional operation, almost equal to e2save, certainly a lot better than some of their eminently dodgy online rivals who I wouldn't have trusted to walk a dog given the state of their websites. As the saying goes, once you can fake sincerity, you've got it made... still, though I was maybe a little naive, I'd already had a slight sting, and was trying my best to avoid a second blow by getting personal recommendations, etc.

Though there ARE people putting the useful information out here on the boards, and on other websites, that's absolutely no guarantee it's going to be seen, or that it will turn up on a web search (even less so that it'll be near the top), particularly a hurried or badly formed one (the only guarantee besides death and taxes is that stuff you don't want / don't want people to see will always be the top 20 results), so please don't get high and mighty about how you were writing about them being crap three years ago and we all should have paid attention. It probably got lost in the mire of google or even the MSE forum search itself - god knows there's enough stuff out there, and enough people saying that they are/were actually alright (including flesh and blood people). Some of the people coming here and asking about it may be on MSE for the very first time - I don't think it was the first thing that came up when I went googling, and despite his books and TV appearances, and regardless of how much it's deserved, Martin and MSE aren't too much of household names and IIRC it actually required someone else to TELL me about this place in person before I ever came to it. We can't all have read up that info. Besides, this thread is a very good example of how it can descend into crushing information overload... I've been about two hours just reading up to date from the point at which I made my last post (and quickly disappeared off into the night, as I've had other fish to grill the last week or two) - things can take a lot of time to research that we don't all always have.

What makes it even worse, and more annoying overall, is that IIRC I made my order sometime close to August 1st... which complicates matters a great deal, but also means that all the recommendations I was given basically became null and void between the time I stopped fishing for information, and hitting the "Submit" button - TMO's terms and conditions for cashback etcetera went from being quite easy to follow and fairly lenient just before I ordered, to the nigh-impossible to decipher spaghetti (sending such-and-such a bill at a certain number of DAYS, in a certain month, etc, even though my mental maths put some of the send dates at a time BEFORE the appropriate bill would have arrived, no clarification of whether they had to ARRIVE then or just be postmarked, what you would do if it were a Sunday... plus it started no less than six months after the initial order) that faced me when I took receipt of my package a few days later. Had I been more wary and more clued-in, asking my family about it and finding this was something quite different to what they had needed to do, I might have used the cooling-off period to cancel and return it and go with a different provider. Except there'd already been a postal delay (or, actually, them having an administrative hiccup caused by legistlative and contractural panic?), and my previous phone had gone dead a couple of days earlier, so I just wanted to be back in the land of the connected already. So all previous bets were off even if the previous feedback had been glowing (online it was a bit of a mix, but the balance came down in their favour).

I thank you greatly for your input, and it's genuinely going to be quite useful... just remember that when you're online, you're still talking to regular human beings rather than interwebs superpeople who already know most of what you also know and have a pipe directly into their brain, eh? Try not to treat anyone differently from how you would whilst sharing a pot of tea, or at least whilst giving a talk at a seminar.

(It's a skill I think I also need to master - this stuff can't be quick in the reading either)

...

Ahem. Anyway. Hopefully the above can be left where it is unless anyone takes severe umbrage. I also have proper, non-protest points to make.

First up is a bit of devils' advocate... maybe if the networks hadn't been so swift to, paraphrasing a TMO director's own words, "pull the carpet out from under" the company quite soon after the new guidelines came in, preventing new connections, etc, there wouldn't be quite such a mess. They could have just cut back on their high-percentage cashback offers and survived... REMEMBER! NOT EVERY deal was a 100%'er! I had to work fairly hard to find them, and as I found, they were only on the cheaper phones with more expensive tariffs, obviously they were hoping someone taking up such an offer would be a dumber customer more likely to screw up their claim and provide pure commission profit - and in fact even when I was looking, a good proportion of the attractive phones/tariffs were 50% or less, or no cashback, but with some rubbish free gift or no real offer at all - they'd still have had potential to continue making actual, no-dirty-tricks money just by dropping out the more costly, if more customer-attracting deals. This also is possibly what the directors, and even the administrators initially wanted to do --- keep basically retailing some "exclusive" phone + tarriff deals and clawing back some cash with which to keep the company afloat, themselves and their employees paid, and to pay back what they contractually owed to the customers who complied with the T&Cs and bugged them enough to become annoying. Revocation of their dealer status basically strangled this. Yes it was conceptually a bit of a pyramid scheme, but only in the way that a greengrocer needs to sell oranges today to buy more from the wholesaler tomorrow - just this time the customer is on the traditional "supplier"s end, and it's the phone company that are acting the part of the highstreet fruit-buyers who have been convinced by some misguided government information film that oranges are poisonous. Cashflow still needed to be maintained from new deals in order to pay off old ones, but it wasn't as sinister or god-damn obvious as a traditional pyramid, where you get told "pay £5! get an ipod!", and eventually the chain reaches a point where there aren't enough people in the world to put in money to pay for the ipods of the people further up the pyramid. It was fairly common knowledge that the schemes worked by a certain number of people forgetting to send in their claims or messing them up (though the 40% success rate, perhaps not?), and could also be considered "loss leaders" alongside a company's other more profitable deals, and so it wasn't magic money coming from nowhere as some people seem to be suggesting. What may have been more sensible would be for the company to only allow a certain number of deals for any one phone + tarriff combo to be the dangerous 75-100% discount level, and after that it reverts to more regular upto-66% cashbacks, which would still bring in custom (and even make these sell quite quickly), but then have those disappointed at missing the best deal stick around and maybe get "suckered" into going for an offer that still provided quite a good discount, but wasn't completely as awesome as the "free, near as damnit!" one.

Second.... I'm going to be digging out my bills now to see what's on them. I quite fancy a reduction, but will have to do maths first. I'm on T-mobile Flext/WnW 35, so £42.50 a month. £5 off would be nice, but a reduction to Flext/WnW 25 would be better, WITH an extra £5 off (or the WnW free - £7.50 off!) but it depends on whether I'd go enough over the much lower Flext 25 limit to make it a bad idea. I use maybe a little over £40 of my £120 allowance on average (so PAYG would still not be a sensible option, as any decent phone has to be paid for then), but it does fluctuate, and the lower package only offers a £40 allowance itself for something like £10 a month less... a month in which I used £50 would make it instantly not worth it.
Will be keeping the web & walk however. Use the mobile internet an awful lot, particularly for e.g. google maps and other on-the-spot information hunts, email, etc. £7.50 is basically the equivalent of 1024kb (1mb) on Pay-as-you-go or a regular flext account (which i dont think covers internet anyway) thanks to their scandalous per-kb charges.... I can burn through that in a minute just routefinding/checking traffic or sending/recieving images over email thanks to 3G (even over GPRS, it's the equivalent of about 5 minutes' continual data transfer) so it's totally worth it's weight.

With luck, it'll have that same 6 month whoopsie on it. If it's there (on an August-start contract), I'll let you know. Hopefully they really slipped and put it on all the bills, and a lot more people will be able to do it this way.

I'm in two minds whether to consider sending a claim to the administrators... I have easy access to a fax after all so it would cost me buttons to give them instant hardcopy. On the other hand, though it leaves less free cash for CDs and such luxuries, I can somewhat afford even the full tarriff for a few more months, so it's morally questionable to be reducing whatever small pool of cash is left over for those that REALLY got screwed by this situation. Plus I'm not sure how they'd view someone who hadn't applied for any cashback yet, whether they'd want the same over-the-top "proof" that the original outfit did and for it to be delivered at the same time --- having ordered in early august, my first application was going to be more-or-less "now", if that might affect anything.

Anyone who wants to go by this route, but doesn't have a machine, remember that windows has faxing capability built in (all the way back to 95) if you have a suitable modem - which you may have even if you use broadband, as they get built in an awful lot. Even my laptop has a phone socket, despite not having an internal optical drive or a serial port. Broadband fax services are also available, but may cost more than a stamp if you have to pre-pay.

There you go. Sodding big post, but it's in a sodding big thread, so it shouldn't make too much of a difference. Sounding off about various things that caught my eye in the past 20-odd pages

Thanks again for bringing it to our (...my? ) attention that TMO have finally gone under, and T-Mobile have sat down, had a cup of tea and decided cutting their customers back to the contracts they would have signed up for in the first place without the market distortion they played a part in (however small) would actually be a good idea, for potential loyalty's sake if nothing else.
Perhaps we need some way of stickying / pinning said info (and a recommendation to not waste time/money on trying to extract monetary blood from the dead company stone unless they're really on their uppers) on the mobiles mainpage if possible, if this hasn't been done, to stem the growing flood of people who come looking for info on why the mobile outlet hasn't got back to them and the webpage is now a load of legal bumf, and post a query because they can't handle reading thru / attempting to run a search on a 150 page thread to find information that might not even be here?

Right, I'm off to have a good laugh at the irony of using the "Quick Reply" box to post this, and have a sleep, and try not to have nightmares that the plane that kissed the runway with its wing on the way into Hamburg at the weekend could very nearly have been mine but for few hours. Night night.

Shelby

Tahrey,

You present a greatly more balanced picture of The Mobile Outlet than has mostly been projected on here in recent weeks by those whose fingers were still in the trap when it closed and who are reeling from their pain.

And you have my sympathy at having made your purchase decision based upon the clear and reasonable July 2007 Terms & Conditions only to find yourself signed up to the radically different and utterly outrageous Terms & Conditions that replaced them in August.

But you did, as you point out, have the brief opportunity to pull out of the contract once you were confronted with the fact that instead of being required to jump through the five fiery but straightforward hoops for which you were prepared you were now being asked to walk a greasy tightrope of inordinate length, with a calculator in one hand, a calendar in the other, and perform particle-physics-grade feats of mathematics as you did so.



Where I would take issue with you is in the pyramid aspect of it all - which you are minded to dismiss.

Had the company been trading on a proper basis, it should have been ring-fencing (with what it received in commission) the total amount of cashback money it potentially owed on every ‘phone it sold, only drawing down funds from that reserve when a cashback claim failed and the liability on that particular contract ceased.

If this had been done, the money to pay the cashbacks would always have been available.

The moment that a dealer in cashback redemption sales starts living hand-to-mouth and using the commission from new sales to pay off financial liability incurred on previous sales, the whole thing becomes a pyramid and is doomed to failure.

It is for that reason that I have long been saying that the part played in all this by the company’s auditors needs to be examined - and I hope it will now be investigated. Because if the company was trading on an unsound basis it was the legal duty of the auditors to ring the alarm bells and notify the authorities.



Although the posting on here of advice on how to file successful claims for cashback and pursue each instalment in succession until the money was obtained caused serious problems for retailers who were trying to operate to a 40% redemption rate, it was the arrival of Quentin on here that was the great catastrophe for The Mobile Outlet.

Quentin not only gave people who would otherwise simply have given up the seemingly hopeless task of getting hundreds of pounds of correctly claimed cashback out of The Mobile Outlet the necessary information, resolve and encouragement to do so through the courts, he also showed them - disastrously for The Mobile Outlet’s cashflow - how to claim their entire cashback in one go.

Bear in mind that The Mobile Outlet, painfully aware that the 40% redemption model to which it was working was hopelessly wrong, was relying on those valid but abandoned claims to fund the cashbacks that it did have to pay out.

Once CCJs for the entire cashback started arriving six months into the contracts, with court costs and bailiffs fees added to them, all hope of sticking to a business model of any sort went out the window and the company was doomed. Quentin was, effectively, the unexpected iceberg that the Titanic hit side-on while pursing a dangerous and reprehensible course.

I’m not suggesting for one moment that the tireless, endlessly patient and shamefully unthanked Quentin himself acted in anything other than the highest faith and with the greatest philanthropy in helping people obtain the monies to which they were entitled.

I’m sure that Quentin, being as principled as he is, will, however, be concerned in retrospect as he watches the stricken vessel that he holed so spectacularly disappear beneath the waves. He helped many to find the lifeboat but an awful lot of others went down with the ship or have been drowned before they could make it safely to that lifeboat. The good bailiffs of Bradford may be grateful for the many trips they were able to make to the offices of The Mobile Outlet (racking up their fees for every repeat visit) and officers of the court were kept gainfully employed, but how many cashbacks could have been paid from all the money that was consumed by the legal process and how many now are regretting how much they invested fruitlessly in legal fees?

Those minded now to round on Quentin for following his advice should bear in mind that he always pointed out to them the dangers of leaving it too late to make the swim.

And, of course, it was The Mobile Outlet who didn’t pay people the monies that it owed them. It was a rat-infested ship and the sooner it was sunk the better.

It’s interesting to muse, though - hypothetically, of course - on what would have been the best way for a competitor to rid itself of The Mobile Outlet quite legally. All they would have had to do was pay somebody with Quentin’s knowledge to explain, on websites such as this, to The Mobile Outlet’s customers, how to obtain the whole of their cashback in one go, hit it with court costs and bailiffs fees, and destroy its credit rating with CCJs - thereby rendering it unable to continue trading.

For all that I applaud and thank Quentin for the copious help that he gave people, the one little thing that nags at me from the back of my mind and just refuses go away is that in one of his postings Quentin commended the process of waiting 28 days after obtaining a judgement, before applying for a warrant of enforcement, in order to ensure that the CCJ would be entered on the court record and help wreck The Mobile Outlet’s credit rating, as being “the most satisfying” thing to do ...

Funny, that. I must have read too many grumpy theories of conspiracy on here.

markmp

Shelby wrote: »

It is for that reason that I have long been saying that the part played in all this by the company’s auditors needs to be examined - and I hope it will now be investigated. Because if the company was trading on an unsound basis it was the legal duty of the auditors to ring the alarm bells and notify the authorities.

Just thought I would add as someone who looked into a cashback deal with TMO some months ago before not going ahead with it. The latest 30 June 2006 accounts per Companies House (which were only received 22/11/2007) are unaudited, because of the size of the company in that period, therefore the company has no auditors - no doubt the same as with some of the other cashback firms therefore the accounts provide no real level of assurance!

In my opinion surely networks should be taking further responsibility with this issue.

sarah_a386

I am yet another victim of TMO- I have two contracts with T Mob- one just ended and the other goes until April. Had one cashback for one of the contracts at the start but despite having them acknowledge more recent ones I never got any others. This is the second time I have been burnt by cashbacks- the first with two contracts with Just 3G.(have a look here for what happened with that one http://www.innovation-station.net/archives/2006/08/14/just3g-communications-cashback-problems/) They went into administration- never got a penny- there was nothing left. It may be of interest to some of you although its a fairly long read!

If im honest I knew there was a risk but guess I have had £120 flext credit a month and have always used more than £35 so got my moneys worth from that angle although I wouldn't have signed up to the deal if I hadn't thought I would be getting something back! I think these companies rely on people defaulting on cashback- forgetting it or doing it wrong- which used to happen a lot but more recently people were getting better at it and someone has said before the business model didn't work anymore.
Nevertheless if I learn anything from all this, it's to go with a big company such as Dialaphone - the cashback is not as attractive as TMO - maybe only £10 a month back or something- but at least you actually get it. My brother has a contract with them- when he signed up they sent him clear instructions on when to send what and you can track your cashback online. They acknowledge your claim within a few days of you sending it and a cheque arrives within the week - none of this "we will send it by bank transfer" spin. So I think this appears to be one of the only ways to save some money now- aim for less cashback and not only are you more likely to get it, there is less at stake if the proverbial hits the fan!

Fingers crossed guys- let's hope we can get something!

athomick

Shelby wrote: »

For all that I applaud and thank Quentin for the copious help that he gave people, the one little thing that nags at me from the back of my mind and just refuses go away is that in one of his postings Quentin commended the process of waiting 28 days after obtaining a judgment, before applying for a warrant of enforcement, in order to ensure that the CCJ would be entered on the court record and help wreck The Mobile Outlet’s credit rating, as being “the most satisfying” thing to do ...

Funny, that. I must have read too many grumpy theories of conspiracy on here.

Have you nothing better to do Quentin? You certainly had during the Christmas and New Year period when people where in the most need of sensible advise . Unfortunately you, Brenda and others disappeared from the board only to resurface after the dirty deed was done. Quentin was always there and does not deserve these silly innuendos.

kltpzyxm

athomick wrote: »

Have you nothing better to do Quentin? You certainly had during the Christmas and New Year period when people where in the most need of sensible advise . Unfortunately you, Brenda and others disappeared from the board only to resurface after the dirty deed was done. Quentin was always there and does not deserve these silly innuendos.

hi athomick,
I dont quite understand this post...please reread & clarify....you appear to be criticising Q and then praising him....maybe you have typed the wrong name somewhere perhaps

Shelby

athomick wrote: »

Have you nothing better to do Quentin? You certainly had during the Christmas and New Year period when people where in the most need of sensible advise . Unfortunately you, Brenda and others disappeared from the board only to resurface after the dirty deed was done. Quentin was always there and does not deserve these silly innuendos.

Well, K, I’m not sure which part of this:

Shelby wrote: »

I’m not suggesting for one moment that the tireless, endlessly patient and shamefully unthanked Quentin himself acted in anything other than the highest faith and with the greatest philanthropy in helping people obtain the monies to which they were entitled.

in my posting eluded him but remember that you are dealing with a professed mathematician who could not, himself, count up to 21 reliably. (Nor even spell the word of which he accuses me of levelling. Let alone get clear in his mind whom he is accusing of what.) Perhaps he was having a Big Bang moment.

What I do know is that although it was Quentin who baled him out of the mess he had got himself into (while I was abroad) I have given Quentin infinitely (a word close to “athomick”s heart) more votes of Thanks than “athomick” has ever bothered to do. As anyone may check and see.

I also know that Quentin himself has enough sense to realise that I was most certainly not questioning the noble Quentin's integrity in any way whatsoever in what I wrote, even if I do deprecate the concept of deriving satisfaction from wrecking the credit rating of a company from which fellow claimants of cashback still needed to extract the monies owed to them - a selfish vengeance at potentially high cost to others which "athomick" appears to endorse.

I would have thought that the concept of a hypothetical scenario was one that an atomic physicist would be able to grasp. But maybe that's what happens when you've spent 60 years trying in vain to deliver on the promise of delivering nuclear fusion.

Shelby

Or a fax, if you don't want to invest in the expense of an envelope, either! :money:

athomick

Shelby.

Please......it's like communicating with a petulant child . Calm down, take a pill and find something more useful to do with your time. As for me I'm going to say farewell and good luck to everyone. Thanks to all who helped me on the way especially Quentin (but others too).

Shelby

Hmm; a severe case of Irritable Vowel Syndrome, it would seem.