The Mobile Outlet

mar<

Shelby wrote: »

(What I don't understand, Saint, is why he posted that partial quote of mine at all. )

Because what he quoted was what he thought you were saying was a 15 month term of payments contractually. It was rather a long, wordy and not crystal clear musing.

Aren't you two guys just the best thing since sliced bread.

Please try not to get offensive.

thesaint

mar< wrote: »

Aren't you two guys just the best thing since sliced bread.

Please try not to get offensive.

Why would anyone get offensive after receiving such a compliment? :beer:

grayme-m

mar< wrote: »

Because what he quoted was what he thought you were saying was a 15 month term of payments contractually. It was rather a long, wordy and not crystal clear musing.

Aren't you two guys just the best thing since sliced bread.

Please try not to get offensive.

I'd give DazzaMc a medal for reading the whole of that post. :beer:

I only picked up the reference to me (and don't even try to deny it Cobra, your abuse is so thinly veiled) when thesaint replied to it; funny how they ignore questions that they don't want to answer.

Anyway, back to lurking for me, I've got a court case to prepare for. :rotfl:

DazzaMc

Shelby wrote: »

(What I don't understand, Saint, is why he posted that partial quote of mine at all. )

Thanks for clarifying - your original message was indeed very wordy and complicated. But I understand now.

Phone should be coming tomorrow

Shelby

grayme-m wrote: »

Shelby, if you take a contract out with O2, they bill you on the monthly anniversary of that connection; is time of the month relevant to other networks?

Of more concern to me personally is that it is (I guess) 21 days since my July bill was produced and as yet I haven't received it nor the copy that O2 claim to have sent; looks like I will be cashing in some of those days the first two payments were late... :rotfl:


I have to ask this though, why do you all care so greatly about the new T&Cs when you wouldn't go with TMO again?

Grumpy-m,

I'm sorry (genuinely) that you now have problems with your cashbacks. Whatever may be my faults, I'm not the sort of person who gloats at other people's misfortunes and I can appreciate how embarrassing it must be for you to be in this predicament after all the advice on the subject you have dispensed to others.

Over the last few years I've had contracts with every network except "3" and T-Mobile.

What I've found is that each each network operates to its own accounting date (usually around the 20th of the month) and adjusts new contracts into that. The first bill is issued on their next regular accounting date and it starts with an additional period that covers the days between the date when the contract commenced and the date they routinely issue invoices. Perhaps the date your contract started just happened to coincide with O2's own accounting date?

My O2 (proper) contract is so long standing (it started out as a BT Cellnet contract!) that I don't recall the details of when it was connected but the bills do arrive with absolute reliability. They are always (nowadays) dated the 26th of the month and they run from the 26th of one month to the 25th of the next. They can take about 8 days to arrive.

My O2 (Carphone Warehouse) contract commenced in October 2006 and their bills are invariably dated the 21st of the month. They run from the 23rd of one month to the 22nd of the next.

Vodafone issues bills on about the 19th of the month. They run from the first to the last day of that month and take about six days to arrive.

Orange always issues bills dated the 19th of the month and they they are the promptest to arrive; usually about five days.

Well, that has been my experience.

Hope this is of some help to you and that you get your cashback(s) without having to go to court. Not getting the bills from the network on time (or at all) is a nasty problem and one over which you have no control.

Good luck!

mar<

Shelby wrote: »

I'm not the sort of person who gloats at other people's misfortunes and I can appreciate how embarrassing it must be for you to be in this predicament after all the advice on the subject you have dispensed to others.

Two opposing statements. Offensive again. Please let's not let this discussion degenerate again. Follow the forum rules please.

Shelby

DazzaMc wrote: »

Thanks for clarifying - your original message was indeed very wordy and complicated. But I understand now.

What I post on here is for the benefit of those who do take the time to read advice that is complex but which may save them many hundreds of pounds.

And if you - or anybody else - are about to sign up to a new contract with The Mobile Outlet you might be wise to read what follows while you are still in a position to change your mind.

It's long, it's complicated and it's wordy but it may save your butt - and those of many others - from making a hugely expensive mistake.

What you'll find on this thread is that it's invariably those who read the postings diligently and absorb the advice posted on here by others, however verbosely, who then get their cashbacks successfully and that it's those who don't bother to read them properly and scoff at taking the precautions that others have suggested who then wind up coming back here and moaning that they've then been shafted because they didn't follow the wealth of good advice that others had made available to them on here.


Anyway, for those who are prepared to invest some time in considering what they might be getting into if they take out a contract with The Mobile Outlet under its new Terms and Conditions:

(these can be found here: http://www.themobileoutlet.co.uk/Information.asp?txtMode=8)

here are some alarming (very alarming) examples of the problem that I see looming.


Whereas the old T&Cs were very clear and thus simple to comply with, these new ones make it a whole new ball game. A very dangerous one indeed. You could lose your whole cashback entitlement at the very first stage without ever getting the chance to file a claim.

You think you'll have plenty of time to file your cashback claims under these new Terms & Conditions. Wrong. Far from "30 days", you may not get any days at all to file a claim and would thus lose your entire cashback entitlement. :eek:

Consider this:

Suppose, for example, you bought a 'phone on a Vodafone contract from The Mobile Outlet under its new (August 2007 onwards) Terms & Conditions and the 'phone was connected on, say, 5 September 2007.

With a 5 September 2007 connection date, your "Instalment Dates" (the dates within 30 days of which you would have to get your cashback claims to The Mobile Outlet) would be fixed by The Mobile Outlet at 2 January 2008 (120 days, inclusive), 1 April (210 days, inclusive), 31 May (270 days, inclusive), 30 July (330 days, inclusive) and 29 August (360 days, inclusive)

Vodafone would send you your first invoice on 19 October 2007 and it would arrive on about 26 October. This would bill you for line rental (in arrears) from 5 to 30 September, plus line rental (in advance) from 1 to 31 October. It would show that (on 19 October) you had been connected since 5 September (44 days).

On about 26 December 2007, you would receive your third invoice from Voda. It would be dated 19 December, which would show you had been connected for 105 days. Not enough, yet, for your first cashback claim.

On 2 January 2008, your first "Instalment Date" would occur. You would then have 30 days in which to provide The Mobile Outlet with proof that you had been connected for 120 days. That would set a deadline of 1 February.

On about 26 January, you would receive an invoice from Voda dated 19 January. This would show you had been connected for 136 days. That's enough, for the purposes of your first cashback claim. But you'd now have to get this invoice to The Mobile Outlet by 1 February. You'd have about six days to do it. If you failed, you'd lose your entire year's cashback ("Line Rental Entitlement" as it's now called).

Well, let's assume you managed it.

On 1 April, your second Instalment Date would occur. You would have 30 days in which to provide The Mobile Outlet with proof that you had been connected for 210 days. That would set a deadline of 1 May.

On about 26 April, you would receive an invoice from Voda dated 19 April. This would show you had been connected for 227 days. You'd have to get it to The Mobile Outlet by 1 May. This time, you'd have about 5 days to do it or you'd lose all your remaining cashback entitlement.

Still, by then you should (supposedly...) have received your first cashback - on about 8 April, allowing for the fact that Easter wasn't "working days". If you were on a £35 a month contract, you'd get £84. But since you'd already have paid Voda about £265 in line rental, you'd still be about £180 out of pocket.

It gets worse.

Your next instalment date, the third, would occur on 31 May. You would have 30 days in which to provide The Mobile Outlet with proof that you had been connected for 270 days. That would set a deadline of 30 June.

On about 26 June, you would receive an invoice from Voda dated 19 June. This would show you had been connected for 295 days. You'd have to get it to The Mobile Outlet by 30 June. This time, you'd have about 4 days to do it or you'd lose all your remaining cashback entitlement.

You wouldn't even be able to console yourself with your second cashback. That wouldn't be due to reach you until 3 July. Hang on; make that 5 July - there's a couple of Bank Holidays in May, so those aren't "working days", either. And after that second £84 cashback instalment hit your bank account (always assuming that The Mobile Outlet wasn't having any "technical problems" that were causing a delay that was "not ideal") you'd be in the hole for £205 - because you'd already have paid Voda some £370 in line rental.

Instalment Date four would occur on 30 July. You would have 30 days in which to provide The Mobile Outlet with proof that you had been connected for 330 days. That would set a deadline of 29 August.

Unfortunately, the invoice you'd have got from Voda on about 26 July, dated 19 July, would only show you'd been connected for 318 days.

Not to worry: on about 26 August, you would receive an invoice from Voda dated 19 August. This would show you had been connected for 349 days. You'd have to get it to The Mobile Outlet by 29 August. This time, you'd have a whole 3 days to do it or you'd lose all your remaining cashback entitlement.

Well, what do you know: by coincidence, 29 August, would also happen to be your Instalment Day five. You would thus have 30 days in which to provide The Mobile Outlet with proof that you had been connected for 360 days. That would set a deadline of 28 September...

In the meantime, you would hopefully be able to buy a drink with the proceeds of Cashback 3 - which would have been due to arrive on 1 September, but for the fact that this was extended by a day because August Bank Holiday Monday was another "non-working day". The third instalment of £84 would make a handy little dent in the fact that you would by now have paid Voda some £440 in line rental and had so far received only £168 in cashback. You'd thus be in the hole for £272 by now.

Voda's September invoice would reach you on about 26 September. It would be dated 19 September and show you'd been connected for...well, let's hope you'd have remembered to give Voda the required 30 day's notice on 5 August to terminate your contract - otherwise it would be showing that you'd been connected for 380 days (and still were).

Now, you'd better hope that, this time, Voda's invoice would arrive early, before 26 September, because that's a Friday. And your deadline for getting it to The Mobile Outlet would be Sunday, 28 September. And, of course, The Mobile Outlet does not open for business (nor taking delivery of mail) on Saturdays. So, unless your invoice from Vodafone did arrive early, your Cashback 5 would go down tube before you ever had a chance to claim it.

And let's not forget that you still wouldn't have received Cashback 4 by then.


Now if all that sounds bad (and it is), wait till you get to the really horrendous part. Which is... I picked the date of 5 September purely at random, to explore the consequences of buying a 'phone from The Mobile Outlet under the new Terms & Conditions. When I then looked more deeply into it, it rapidly became apparent that there are many days of the month upon which you could lose your entire year's cashback before you even got a chance to file your first claim. And remember, whatever date you might pick to enter the contract, The Mobile Outlet can then control the date upon which your connection to the network actually commences.

Just look at what happens if you get connected on some other dates (and this applies to any month - not just September).


Connect on 10 September.
First Instalment Date thus 7 January.
Deadline for filing first claim thus 6 February. You will need an invoice proving you've been connected for 120 days.
Voda invoice dated 19 December would arrive on 26 December, would show you've been connected for 76 days. Not sufficient for claim.
Voda invoice dated 19 January would arrive on 26 January, would show you've been connected for 107 days. Not sufficient for claim.
6 February, your cashback claim deadline expires - you lose your entire year's cashback entitlement.
Voda invoice dated 19 February 19 would arrive on 26 February, showing you've been connected for 138 days.


Connect on 16 September.
First Instalment date thus 13 January.
Deadline for filing first claim thus 12 February. You will need an invoice proving you've been connected for 120 days.
Voda invoice dated 19 December would arrive on 26 December, would show you've been connected for 82 days. Not sufficient for claim.
Voda invoice dated January 19 would arrive on 26 January, would show you've been connected for 113 days. Not sufficient for claim.
12 February, your cashback claim deadline expires - you lose your entire year's cashback entitlement.
Voda invoice dated 19 February would arrive on 26 February, showing you've been connected for 144 days.


Connect on 22 September.
First Instalment Date thus 19 January.
Deadline for filing first claim thus 18 February. You will need an invoice proving you've been connected for 120 days.
Voda invoice dated 19 December would arrive on 26 December, would show show you've been connected for 88 days. Not sufficient for claim.
Voda invoice dated 19 January would arrive on 26 January, would show you've been connected for 119 days. Not sufficient for claim.
18 February, your cashback claim deadline expires - you lose your entire year's cashback entitlement.
Voda invoice dated 19 February would arrive on 26 February, showing you've been connected for 150 days.

And all that wouldn't just happen with Vodafone; it would happen on Orange and other networks, too.

This whole contract is financially lethal.

I can't wait to see what the courts make of it! :rotfl:

thesaint

^^A lengthy post, but the wise will read it and take heed ^^

grayme-m

Someone pinch me, did Cobra take a million words to say that the new T&Cs will be unenforcable in court? Bet she's great at parties! :beer:

mar<

thesaint wrote: »

^^A lengthy post, but the wise will read it and take heed ^^

Pass me a bucket someone.

Are you two engaged yet?