I am taking vodafone to court - my story.

fib_112358

I have an account with Vodaphone that has 3 lines. In July 2014 they accidently sent me an additional handset and created a new pay-monthly account that I did not order. They admitted fault in July however failed to collect the handset. They are still charging me and the fees now exceed £500. I attempted to resolve this directly with vodafone for over 6 month but I am now in the process of taking them to a small claims court. They have defended the claim and I expect court appointed mediation in a few weeks.

History: They failed to collect the handset despite me writing letters and making 5 requests by phone. I decided to get creative and told one of their customer service agent I would donate £20 to a kids charity if he could get the handset collected - it worked! I paid £20 to NCCP. However vodafone have no record of receiving the handset even though I have the courier's collection receipt.

I made a subject access request and so have written confirmation that they accept they made the error. There are almost 100 interactions listed on my account records for the period July 2014 to Nov 2014 which shows the number of times I have attempted to rectify this and other issues with vodafone.

Vodafone have instructed lawyers to defend the claim and still maintain the handset was not returned. They refuse to accept any negligence and refuse to pay consequential loss, for which I am claiming about £1000 for time spent dealing with their errors - aprox 2 full days. I am also claiming breach of contract to be able to move provider as they have not provided me with a service that is reasonable given the multiple errors.

The case has not yet reached mediation or court, and I am trying to negotiate with their lawyers (as at 9th Feb 2015).

Hope you find my story interesting?

ConsumerGuy0016

fib_112358 wrote: »

Vodafone have instructed lawyers to defend the claim and still maintain the handset was not returned. They refuse to accept any negligence and refuse to pay consequential loss, for which I am claiming about £1000 for time spent dealing with their errors

They've probably just instructed their in-house paralegals to respond to your MCOL. It's standard practice for them to file an acknowledgment of service, then try to mediate with the customer.

Questions:

i) What is the total amount of your claim - break it down into specific things you are claiming for

ii) What day was the MCOL issued and what day did Vodafone file an acknowledgment of service?

iii) When you contact to Vodafone, are to speaking to their Director's Office or the customer service accessible via Live Chat or 191?

fib_112358

The total amount of the claim is under £5,000. I included the contract cancelation fees of £2k, consequential loss of about £1000 and the fees charged in error.

They had 28days to defend the claim and I have since received their defence documentation. So it is my move next, I am sending off the paper work to the courts to continue the claim, going via mediation first.

Interestingly VF outsource their non strategic legal work and have a permanent retainer with a law firm called riverviewlaw dot com.

I spoke to Ms ******* today who is the VF manager and tried to negotiate a settlement. She was of the opinion that consequential loss was only applicable in cases where it is a company making the claim, therefore individuals are not entitled to claim for time spent dealing with their negligence.

They don't deny any of my claim, they just want to minimise the payout. She said she would go back to VF but that they do not pay out these kinds of awards.

I have also sent this story to watchdog, BBC money box and all the broadsheets editorial desks. I know it is unlikely to get a hit, but you never know.

I am willing to do everything I can to resolve this before it reaches court, however I am quite curious and hope I do get my day in court.

grumbler

Is it a business contract?
ETA: I see, it wasn't. Good luck with claiming consequential losses then, although AFAK 'time spent' isn't from this category.

Why was it cancelled if the problem was with the unsolicited handset and the extra line only?

fib_112358

UPDATE: My dispute with Vodafone is ongoing, for over 1 year now. Interestingly I had posted extensively about my issue on the vodafone forum but this seems to have been removed, which is their right. (I had already downloaded the posts as I expected they might do this, I might post on here at some point). The documents I obtained from VF through a court order show their conversations about my "blogging" of the issue. Clearly they are sensitive about my dealings with them being made public.

Anyway, my court claim has been sent to a Directions Hearing to establish some technical points about my claim. I had a business account with VF so I made the court claim between my business and VF. However it turns out VF business accounts are actually just personal accounts if you read the small print. It is quite a major misrepresentation of VF and the reason behind it is now clear to me.

If you take VF to court as a business you can claim consequential loss, such as damages for time spent dealing with their negligence etc. However as a personal customer you are not entitled to consequential loss, so it limits VF's exposure to being sued.

Anyway the directions hearing went in my favour and VF were ordered to surrender all records and data attached to my account, which VF failed to do when I issued them with a subject access request.

I have another directions hearing in September where I expect the court to uphold the claim that the account was a personal one, so I will need to adjust my claim to continue on to the small claims court.

I have not yet sought legal advice but it is getting to the stage where I need to be careful not to waste the courts time, otherwise they can cancel my claim.

Any advice would be appreciated.

MataNui

people seem to be getting confused over the term 'consequential loss'. An example of that would be losing business because of lack of phone service. It isnt claiming for time spent, travel, postage, phone calls etc all of which are claimable.

Its interesting the point made about VF business contracts being personal contract (and in particular VF stating this). Business phone contracts can have longer than 24 month minimum terms and no cooling off period. I guess this means if you have a VF business contract then it contains unfair and unenforceable terms. In that legally they cannot impose a minimum term of more than 24 (business contracts are often 36) months and you do have a cooling off period.

It would be good if you could post the details of that since it may help people who had been unknowingly sold VF business contracts by OneCom then told they had no right to cancel. Which is clearly (if you are correct) not the case.

NFH

fib_112358 wrote: »

I have not yet sought legal advice but it is getting to the stage where I need to be careful not to waste the courts time, otherwise they can cancel my claim.

As you're now having to proceed as an individual rather than as a business, you should join Which Legal Service. It's quite cheap for unlimited advice.

Silk

fib_112358 wrote: »

Anyway the directions hearing went in my favour and VF were ordered to surrender all records and data attached to my account, which VF failed to do when I issued them with a subject access request.

I have another directions hearing in September where I expect the court to uphold the claim that the account was a personal one, so I will need to adjust my claim to continue on to the small claims court.

Something's wrong here ...never heard of two directions hearings, more likely the case is being heard in Sept.

fib_112358 wrote: »

However it turns out VF business accounts are actually just personal accounts

Not true a business account is exactly what it says, if you have a personal one it's correct you can't claim consequential loss.


If you have been charged for something you didn't order then you can claim your charges back plus minor costs, how on earth can you get to £5k ???

fib_112358

Vodafone claim that despite all the appearance of the account being a business account, the invoices were in my name and not the company name. The only difference they acknowledge between a personal and business account is that you can have more than one line in a "Business account". So a VF SME business account is just a group of personal accounts.

I can confirm there is a second Directions hearing. The objective of the Directions was to establish whether the claimant is my company or me personally. I managed to demonstrate to the magistrate that VF failed to establish in the Directions that the account was not a business account. As I mentioned above however, the documentation that VF have now had to surrender seems to contain evidence to support the fact it is a personal account...I think... I've not invested enough time yet reviewing this very large pile of paperwork.

[I do wonder if there is a case to be made that VF have misrepresented their product in marketing and breached some trade descriptions act etc...]

The 5k claim was made up of fees they incorrectly charged me, the penalties I would incur from cancelling my other lines, which I feel I have a right to do through breach of contract, and damages for time spent. When I submitted the claim I only did it as a last resort as I had tried everything else. I am not suggesting I have done this correctly.

The point is, I am where I am now, so what is the best way to move forward with this case? Thanks for your interest..

forgotmyname

£5k claim for a £500 bill which they should wipe off anyway? 2 whole days of work to sort? £2500 a day? can i have your job?

Best way forward maybe use proper figures not random ones plucked from the air? I can see why you would want to cancel the other lines but i cannot see you winning the costs of doing so.

Breach of contract? How did them sending you an extra phone breach your existing accounts?

Did someone use the handset and they refused to accept it back once it had been used? They sent me one i didnt order and was told have a play but do not put a sim into it otherwise its mine.

NFH

forgotmyname wrote: »

Did someone use the handset and they refused to accept it back once it had been used? They sent me one i didnt order and was told have a play but do not put a sim into it otherwise its mine.

That sounds dodgy. Refer to Regulation 27A of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, previously Regulation 24 of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.