Mis-advised by T-Mobile, what can I do?

miamidice

I rang up T-Mobile at the beginning of January and asked to lower my tariff to the lowest one they do. They agent on the phone said he had lowered it and it would be reflected on my next bill.

I've just had my bill through, and it's still on the highest tariff. I contacted T-Mobile, and the agent said it's not possible to lower tariffs until the last month of the contract, and said he has no record of me ringing in January.

I however record all my calls to customer service numbers, as things like this happen so often, so I have a recording of the original call telling me the price has been lowered. Is there anything I can do? Am I likely to get the price lowered on the basis of being mis-advised if I complain?

MataNui

Thats an interesting one. The latest rep advised you correctly. No mobile provider will downgrade you until you are in your upgrade window and then you will be signing up to a new 12 or 24 month minimum term (unless you have specifically picked a 30day contract).

If you have a recording of being lied to then you can certainly complain but i dont think they will be obliged to do anything about it as what you requested simply isnt something they would ever do.

nidO

MataNui wrote: »

Thats an interesting one. The latest rep advised you correctly. No mobile provider will downgrade you until you are in your upgrade window and then you will be signing up to a new 12 or 24 month minimum term (unless you have specifically picked a 30day contract).

This is not entirely true. I have no experience of other networks but O2 have for years allowed you to do exactly this, you can't go all the way from their most expensive to cheapest tarrif but once you've been in your contract a few months (currently a minimum of 9, on a 24 month afaik) they will let you lower your tarrif for the remainder of your current contract by 1 or 2 price bands (ie £5-10/month less).

gjchester

nidO wrote: »

This is not entirely true. I have no experience of other networks but O2 have for years allowed you to do exactly this, you can't go all the way from their most expensive to cheapest tarrif but once you've been in your contract a few months (currently a minimum of 9, on a 24 month afaik) they will let you lower your tarrif for the remainder of your current contract by 1 or 2 price bands (ie £5-10/month less).

That used to be the case, but rarely is now. Almost all new contracts cannot be lowered until the minimum term.

In O2's case (see http://www.o2.co.uk/termsandconditions/mobile/our-latest-pay-monthly-tariff-terms) This apples form Dec 2013 Older tarrifs may allow a reduction..

The T&C Para 1 Section 4 States

You will not be able to move to a lower priced tariff (with a lower rate monthly subscription than the tariff you’ve joined on) during your minimum term.

nidO

As this has apparently only changed for O2 very recently then i'd be curious to know whether other networks have until recently offered the same facility (fwiw my current O2 contract was taken out in November 2012 and then subsequently regraded it to a cheaper tarriff in July 2013, and have been doing basically the same on every contract i've had with them for the past 10 years).
If T-mobile used to offer the same at the time the OP took out his contract he might have a perfectly valid case to get it re-graded.

grumbler

O2 were the last network to disallow downgrading during the minimum term.

gjchester

nidO wrote: »

As this has apparently only changed for O2 very recently then i'd be curious to know whether other networks have until recently offered the same facility

Vodafone pulled it at least four years ago when they started the Your Plan tarrifs,