Advice please! - Claiming back charges from 3?

Mike_C

Apologies if this is posted on the wrong forum.....

We need advise please.

My other half took out a Laptop with internet Dongle contract which ended in June 2011. The laptop/dongle was for her ex husband and since they were seperating she phoned 3 in July 2011 and asked for the account to be cancelled, its a longer story, but to keep this short...

• She was put through to the cancellation dept by "3" customer services, where she gave notice of cancellation and stated that her ex husband was taking over the contract, she gave them his name, address and contract details. Stating that he wanted to take over the dongle.
• 3 advised her that they would cancel her contract and would contact her ex for him to take it over. However it now appears that instead of contacting him, they set up a new D/D just for the dongle out of HER account not his Ignore this greyed out sentance, made in error.
  
• It transpires that although (on their records) she did pass over his details. they never bothered to contact him or inform her that they had not contacted him
• Instead they have been taking out under £20 a month from her account since that date.

She suffers from ME and has difficulty in concentrating on everyday tasks and is unable to work, she spotted the mistake just recently and contacting "3" customer services, she was passed over to a complaints department manager.

In short, the complaints dept manager is stating that, they ("3"), are not liable for the over payment and that she has to get her ex-husband to give her the money back
(even though they have been taking the money from her account since that date)



Currently we are at an impass, the complaints manager (who was very insensitive) set up a 3 way call with her ex-husband, who was very abusive to her and we told the manager this, yet he insisted that her ex-husband must speak to her while he listened in on the 3 wa phone conference, trying to get her ex-husband to own up and cough the money up himself - which he refuses to)
- he has been using the dongle all that time.

What we want to know is she owed money back by 3 or can they wiggle out of it and its up to her to sue her ex-husband?

Thanks for your time.

Herongull

Can you clarify:

Was she outside the minimum contract term for the laptop/dongle? So could she just cancel whether or not her ex-partner wanted to take it over?

Was she notified about the new direct debit? There are supposed to let you know 10 days before taking the money.

Was the new amount different to to the old?

Does she have anything in writing that she cancelled back then?

I'm thinking that if she was outside the minimum term of the contract and thus entitled to cancel (whether or not anyone else took the contract over), and can prove that she cancelled, then the money was taken in error and they have to pay it back. If the ex-partner doesn't want to pay anything, that is not her problem.

It gets more problematic if she was within the minimum term and therefore some one has to take the contract over unless she pays cancellation fees.

Mike_C

Herongull wrote: »

Can you clarify:
Was she outside the minimum contract term for the laptop/dongle? So could she just cancel whether or not her ex-partner wanted to take it over?

The contract had already expired. She was outside of the contract, even her ex-husband knew she had cancelled it.

Was she notified about the new direct debit? There are supposed to let you know 10 days before taking the money.

Was the new amount different to to the old?

Ignore the new direct debit, I will amend the original post by me. That was a misunderstanding between us and "3" call centre (I do wish they wouldn't have overseas call centres) There was a D/D setup, but it wasn't regarding this matter at all.

Does she have anything in writing that she cancelled back then?

There is no written statement, but they readily admit that they put her through to the cancellation dept, which gave her a refund of one month overpayment on the account. However, they are saying that even though they put her through to the cancellation dept, they are maintaining she never asked for a cancellation.


Thank you for your response, we are hoping we have a case here as she we reckon she is owed at least £300 odd quid.

gjchester

Mike_C wrote: »

The contract had already expired. She was outside of the contract, even her ex-husband knew she had cancelled it.

Mobile contracts generally don't expire, they have a minimum term, after that it becomes a 1 month rolling contract.

Mike_C wrote: »

Thank you for your response, we are hoping we have a case here as she we reckon she is owed at least £300 odd quid.

Unfortunately the only thing three did wrong was not setup/take the money from the new account, it could be it was never set up, or the Ex refused to sign the forms, either way it remains the responsibility of the person who took out the contract, so they fell back onto the existing Direct debit to pay the bill.

Its probably not what you (or her) want to hear but eighteen months of not checking bank statements puts her in a bad situation. No-one will have record for two years ago, and this has only just been noticed (I realise the circumstances but 18 months is a long time to not check a statement)

If she has proof in writing that she asked for cancellation that's one thing, however as they simply attempted to change the payment account I suspect that cancellation was never processed, again if that's a mistake on Threes part, or your friend simply agreed to letting the account run in the Ex's name rather than cancelling the contract is another matter.

Again not what you want to hear but the best course is to cancel the dongle and forget it. She may be able to take the Ex to court for the payments, but it may be better to simply write it off if she does not want to deal with the Ex.

Oli.s

I would have to agree with the above poster. She should have just cancelled the contract.

By asking three to allow someone else to take over the contract she implied she wanted it to continue, just in someone else's name. This is very different to cancelling the contract, in fact it's pretty much the opposite.

The ex may have just told three that he didn't want to take over it and as far as three are concerned there is nothing they can do about that.

They should probably have re contacted your friend, the account holder and advised the transfer hadn't taken place, though I doubt they are legally obliged to do so.

Your friend should really have kept better tabs on her bank account then she would have noticed long before now.

I think she should ensure it's all cancelled now, no muddying the waters with talk of transferring the account, and chalk it up to experience.

Mike_C

Yes the amount went down, and no they didnt notify her, no bills or contact when she cancelled the contract, after the contract had expired,,this is why when she went through to the cancellation department,she was refunded a months money...
one of the reasons she hasnt checked her bank statements, is she was confident what goes in and what goes out, not realising that this money was coming out..also after 4 years of M.E and mostly bed ridden, hasnt dealt with alot of things, however, not that this comes into it.
she did notice however that even after cancelling money was taken out, which her ex husband paid for. And so contacted them again, to cancel the direct debit, reiterating that her ex was in charge of his payments for the dongle.
lesson learnt, always check your bank statements....I

gjchester

Mike_C wrote: »

after the contract had expired.

Most contracts were rolling deals with a free laptop, that's a key point, if it WAS a fixed term and there was no notification it was to continue you may have a case.

Mike_C wrote: »

And so contacted them again, to cancel the direct debit, reiterating that her ex was in charge of his payments for the dongle.

Sorry this may be pedantic but she need to cancel the contract, as well as the direct debit. Cancelling payment does automatically not cancel the contract.

If the DD isn't there but the contract still running arrears will build up and the contract owner will be liable, (ie her) Three have no contract with her Ex, any agreements between her and the ex are not Threes issue.

Cancel the DD, if the ex wants to use the dongle he need to go set up a new contract.

Herongull

Cancelling a (rolling) contract and arranging for someone to take it over might be two mutually exclusive things.

If you cancel then that is the end of it. If ex-partner wants a dongle then he must take out a new contract.

If you tell them want to transfer the contract, then if the ex-partner then tells them he doesn't want it (or perhaps they forget to contact him or whatever), then the contract probably still continues.

Perhaps you can't cancel AND transfer, you can do one or the other. If she was charged for another month and the ex-partner (not phone company) refunded her, this implies the contract was not cancelled. Who actually refunded her - phone company or ex-partner - you said both in one of the posts?

Or was it agreed that it would be transferred but if the transfer didn't go through for any reason, the contract would be cancelled?

Silk

Mike_C wrote: »

What we want to know is she owed money back by 3 or can they wiggle out of it and its up to her to sue her ex-husband?

I would have thought the correct protocol is for her to contact them with her ex husbands details which she did, and then for the ex to contact them and agree to take it over subject to him passing security and credit checks etc.
I can't see it being down to 3 doing the legwork to enable the transfer.

As the ex husband has retained the dongle and had the use of it since that time, which she has paid for, then it is he who owes her the past usage not 3