son pursued for full term of phone contract

AngryParent

Can anyone answer this query; my son defaulted on an O2 two year contract within approximately six months; O2 closed the account and sold the debt to Wescot who within two or three months offered a settlement figure of £250. My son (stupidly!) did not make any payment to Wescot, and after returning to O2, the debt was then sold again to Lowell Financial. They are now demanding a full payment of £913, which I'm assuming is what the full value of the original 24 month contract would have been.

My question is can this whole value really be demanded from a legal point of view, given that O2 closed the account and therefore removing any opportunity for my son to benefit from approximately three quarters of the length of the contract? grateful for any advice. Many Thanks

DUTR

The debt has been sold and he still owes the money, as he has a judgement against him, it may affect his ability to get credit.

forgotmyname

He took out a 2 year contract so needs to pay the figure agreed. They only closed the account after he stopped paying so all his fault really

He could have returned any freebies included in the deal to reduce the amount owed but he ignored them.

So legally yes they can demand the original figure + costs.

They can chase him for 6 years and take him to court. Has that happened yet? The above post seems to think it has?

matttye

Yes they can. If not then anybody could cancel their contracts early so what would be the point in having fixed term contracts?

ViolaLass

AngryParent wrote: »

Can anyone answer this query; my son defaulted on an O2 two year contract within approximately six months; O2 closed the account and sold the debt to Wescot who within two or three months offered a settlement figure of £250. My son (stupidly!) did not make any payment to Wescot, and after returning to O2, the debt was then sold again to Lowell Financial. They are now demanding a full payment of £913, which I'm assuming is what the full value of the original 24 month contract would have been.

Doubt it, likely to be some fees in there.

stator

He can still offer partial settlement, they might accept it or not. If he doesn't need credit for a long time and they don't have his address he could try to keep running away from it. Or he could pay it.

BJV

Most phone contracts now are split. I know I had a problem with a Tesco contract a while back. Your monthly payment is actually made up of an amount foe the phone and then the call time.


I think that in the eyes of the law the amount due is the amount he will have to pay as the people who now own the debt could say that it has cost them admin, etc.


But I do think that you can try and contact them. They may accept a lower amount and I am sure that they would rather have something than nothing.

Brooker_Dave

AngryParent wrote: »

My question is can this whole value really be demanded from a legal point of view, given that O2 closed the account and therefore removing any opportunity for my son to benefit from approximately three quarters of the length of the contract? grateful for any advice. Many Thanks

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=73493#.VLOUk8mo24w

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=58119#.VLOU1cmo24w

you'll need to add get out of debt free (all one word) to the above and they give some practical advice to dealing with your sons situation

Marktheshark

In the eyes of law they can not pursue a contract penalty, if they have mitigated the loss by cutting service then they can only charge for the loss up to the point they mitigated it.
Anything else other than reasonable and provable admin costs would be a unlawful penalty.

This is why mobile phone companies very rarely attempt to obtain a CCJ as judges often want to know what happened to the service they were billing for.

matttye

Marktheshark wrote: »

In the eyes of law they can not pursue a contract penalty, if they have mitigated the loss by cutting service then they can only charge for the loss up to the point they mitigated it.
Anything else other than reasonable and provable admin costs would be a unlawful penalty.

This is why mobile phone companies very rarely attempt to obtain a CCJ as judges often want to know what happened to the service they were billing for.

Any case law on this that you're aware of? Never heard of this before, they usually pursue for the full amount.

bsms1147

Marktheshark wrote: »

In the eyes of law they can not pursue a contract penalty, if they have mitigated the loss by cutting service then they can only charge for the loss up to the point they mitigated it.
Anything else other than reasonable and provable admin costs would be a unlawful penalty.

This is why mobile phone companies very rarely attempt to obtain a CCJ as judges often want to know what happened to the service they were billing for.

We don't know the breakdown of the request for payment. It could be made up of the phone cost + airtime cost only up to the point it was stopped by O2 + debt collection and other default fees, all very reasonable since I assume the OP's son had a 'free' or subsidised handset at the outset and some months of use of the airtime package.