Can you help? We've emigrated, not received the bills & now they are with an agency!

lolarhamster

We emigrated in August to Malaysia and closed all utility bills. We had two talkmobile phone accounts and wrote to them in July giving 30 days to close and issue a PAC. When I called in August to use the PAC (to transfer to a new account) I was told we couldn't as it was an overseas account (bit daft of me to think it would work). They cancelled the accounts - or did they?

We had outstanding charges but no contracts as these had ended in 2013 so I left the DD run until Oct 2014.

Mid-November the MIL contacted me to say the tenancy agent at our old address had received a bill with added charges as I had defaulted on a DD. I contacted Talkmobile and stressed that I had spoken with their employee (name and date given) who had cancelled the PAC as it was invalid. It seemed they had only actioned one of them. They say that the account was still running and that was my fault for asking for a PAC. How can they cancel one number and not the other when they are both the same account?

I have refused to pay the Oct-Dec charges, as they are unreasonable and unfair as I had spoken with their office. They applied 30 days notice in Nov which ran until mid Dec 2014. I have made many attempts to email or call them. They give me the run around or simply hang up on me (usually because I start the call with "please may i take your name?"

When you call a 0871 number from overseas it drains your mobile account within minutes. After waiting (for on average 7-8 minutes) to get through, it becomes very expensive.

THey refuse to send the bills by PDF by email or by post to my new international address. Is this right? Can they continue to send bills to an address you no longer live at in Dec, when they were informed in July of your move?

They have now placed the outstanding 36:06 with a debit collecting agency who have added 30 pound admin and the amount is adding up. They have told MIL (who called to say we have left the country and wont be back) that she can pay it or they will send the bailiffs round to our old address - which has new tenants! MIL is very worried that as they have her contact details now that they will go to her house. The off-handed man on the phone suggested she should pay our debit or they will follow it up with her!

Help! How do we move this forward? Does anyone have experience of this? Are Talkmobile always so self-righteous and evasive? Why wouldn't they send a bill to the forwarding address so we could at least deal with this in a timely manner?

Help!

thank you for reading this posting.

welshiex

When you were made aware you couldn't use the pac code did you contact talk mobile? When you request the PaC which is valid for 30 days if you do not use it whether because it's not possible or you change your mind the contract just carries on and you have to reinstate your 30 days notice. Whether you were made aware or agree with this is a different matter, but with it being the case I would say you are liable for payment up to December. If I was in your position I would pay under protest to avoid further issue and then if it means so much try to reclaims or wipe the slate clean and just move on and not let this affect your new life for any longer than necessary.

DCFC79

Why can't you pay them ?

SnowTiger

Getting a PAC doesn't end the contract. If the PAC isn't used within thirty days the contract continues as normal.

I don't know why both accounts weren't closed. Perhaps, when you called, you only spoke to the CS rep about one account and not both. Is the other account in your partner's name?

Anyway, you may be able to find a cheaper number to call talkmobile on here. And you can use Skype and lots of other services to make cheaper calls back to the UK.

I guess you've probably almost spent as much as you allegedly owe on phone calls.

If it were me I'd probably just pay it and get on with my new life. talkmobile may accept £36.06.

However, if you don't have any financial interests in the UK, you could simply forget about it. There are DCAs that will chase you across the plant for payments, however for the sake of £36.06 (£66.06) I doubt any of them would bother. At worst, you might end up with a CCJ in the UK that will disappear after six years.

Voyager2002

It is clear that you contacted them to say that you were leaving the country: although you asked for a PAC code they should have told you that it would not work overseas and taken your call as notice to close the account. And the fact that they only 'actioned' one number is inexplicable.

I suggest that you follow their formal complaints procedure and if necessary use the arbitration service (probably CISAS): I had a positive experience using this to settle a similar problem with Virgin Media.

And keep all communication in the form of snail mail letters.