mobile phone guarantor problems!

spacey2012

As said, it is who signed on the dotted line that is the contract holder,

liamphughes

So if I were to contact Orange and find out once and for all who the actual agreement is with, if it is with her and i was just paying for it she is liable? And if it is with me and she is guarantor we are jointly liable, however if this is the case I will of course settle the balance with them myself.

FireWyrm

liamphughes wrote: »

So if I were to contact Orange and find out once and for all who the actual agreement is with, if it is with her and i was just paying for it she is liable? And if it is with me and she is guarantor we are jointly liable, however if this is the case I will of course settle the balance with them myself.

Well, you should have done that in the first place...saved us going all round the houses.

The following scenarios are possible :

1) You are sole signatory to the contract and she is guarantor. In which case, she is liable to Orange, you are liable to her for her costs. You are also liable for the costs to Orange, but they have her on the hook so they dont care about you. You need to deal with this immediately.

2) You are joint signatories. You are BOTH jointly and severally liable to Orange, she cannot sue you for her costs. Out of honour, you need to pay her out of pocket expenses, but she cannot pursue you in law.

3) She is the sole signatory (which makes no sense given what you have told us...but hey ho). She is solely liable to Orange and you dont owe her a brass farthing either literally or figuratively.

ValHaller

liamphughes wrote: »

I paid the contract every month despite not using it until the end of the 24 months at which point I tried to contract Orange to tell them it needed to be cancelled, but they would not speak to me due to data protection.

So I therefor cancelled the direct debit coming out of my account after the 24 months of the contract had ended, however I have been contacted by my ex stating the contract has continued beyond this and stating I owe her money for the length of time the contract had run outside of the original 24 month period set out in the contract,

:wall:
That is a catalogue of errors on your part

• The time to come on here for help was as soon as Orange played the 'Data Protection' card
• You would have been advised to send at least one letter cancelling and to keep a copy and proof of posting
• Cancelling a DD does NOT cancel a contract, it merely accumulates a debt which becomes a default.
• You would have been advised to keep the Direct Debit in place and recover the money later - although if you had sent a letter, you would have been on much firmer ground to cancel the DD

Well may be Orange have decided the contract is cancelled, but you need to make sure.

Anoneemoose

I used to work for Orange and can categorically tell you they don't and have never offered 'gurarantor' contracts. If you failed the credit check and she 'signed' the agreement then it is her liability and hers alone, technically it is nothing to do with you. This is reinforced by the fact that they would not speak to you - it means they have no record of you at all.

Even if you have been paying the DD, it does not mean you become liable. She is the one who agreed to the t&c's and she is the one that should have followed them re: cancelling. You did yr bit reminding her and could do nothing more. She can threaten court all she likes, I suspect they would laugh her out.

liamphughes

Thankyou very much guys I have confirmed she is the sole signatory on the account and Orange have confirmed I have nothing to do with it

I will send her a letter reminding her of this and hopefully that will be the end of the matter as I couldn't have done a thing to cancel the contract even going tthrough the correct channels

Thankyou all for your help

FireWyrm

liamphughes wrote: »

Thankyou very much guys I have confirmed she is the sole signatory on the account and Orange have confirmed I have nothing to do with it

I will send her a letter reminding her of this and hopefully that will be the end of the matter as I couldn't have done a thing to cancel the contract even going tthrough the correct channels

Thankyou all for your help

There you go then. In future, check what type and style of contract you are getting yourself into and you wont be surprised by this type of thing again.

For the record, she wasnt your guarantor, she was the contract holder and therefore totally liable for any and all expenses. Perhaps if she had also checked her contract, she wouldnt have wasted her time sending you a letter.

However, I do rather think that it is six of one and half dozen of the other. I think you should offer her an ex-gracia payment equivalent to half the outstanding amount incurred. She should have cancelled the contract and you shouldnt have cancelled the DD without ensuring the contract was properly and legally terminated.

Frugalsod

What really surprises me is that you took out a contract for a phone that you could not get a contract for in your own name. I would have opted to get a cheap phone off eBay and put a simple PAYG SIM in instead. This way your own credit report will not have been helped by this, as none of it went on your credit file. Some mobile networks allow you to prepay for the contract for the year. That would have boosted your credit file if you continued to manage the account properly.

Anoneemoose

FireWyrm wrote: »

There you go then. In future, check what type and style of contract you are getting yourself into and you wont be surprised by this type of thing again.

For the record, she wasnt your guarantor, she was the contract holder and therefore totally liable for any and all expenses. Perhaps if she had also checked her contract, she wouldnt have wasted her time sending you a letter.

However, I do rather think that it is six of one and half dozen of the other. I think you should offer her an ex-gracia payment equivalent to half the outstanding amount incurred. She should have cancelled the contract and you shouldnt have cancelled the DD without ensuring the contract was properly and legally terminated.

I agree with this apart from the bit about giving her half of the outstanding payments. From what OP said, he contacted her to advise her that contract was finished (or at the end of its minimum term). There really wasn't anything else he could do other than that.

Why should he keep paying for something if she cannot be bothered to organise the cancellation.

The t&c's are clearly explained regarding giving 30 days notice.

Monkeyballs

Hi,

I have to agree with Anon here, I don't think that the OP should pay anything more - I think the ex-gf should be thankful he carried on paying in the first place! In fact, how do you explain that OP?

Thinking about it... Wouldn't the ex have received something from Orange advising that the contract is almost up and offering an upgrade to a new phone or change to a more suitable contract? I don't want to open a can of worms but if someone doesn't pay and this goes to a DCA then they will go after her for the money not the OP so it's in her interests to pay up or take over payments on the contract anyway!

MB