Vodafone - Unable to assist with financial difficulties

maxbrad124

Hi all,

I have made an account on MSE to look for some advice.

I took out a 2 year contract with Vodafone for (then new) iPhone 5s paying £47/month. I was in full time employment at the time and was easily able to afford the payments, however, I currently have 9 months left on my contract and am deep in financial difficulties. I lost my job at the end of February and have been unable to find work since - I have entered an IVA which means I am now unable to get any job that credit checks and living in an area where 90% of the jobs are for bank call centres, this has left me in a really bad position.

I phoned Vodafone before my payment for June was due (all bills before this were made with now dry savings) to try and arrange some way of reducing my monthly payments so I don't fall into arrears with them. I have been advised that they are unable to reduce my monthly tariff by any amount and the only option is to split Junes bill over 6 months and pay it on top of my normal tariff (which is already unaffordable). I have spoken to their cancellation department to see if I was able to cancel the contract and split this into smaller payments or add it to my IVA but this isn't an option, you must pay the full amount in full upfront (a charge of just under £370).

I am now stuck in a position where I am unable to afford the monthly payments and am unable to cancel the contract leaving me with no option but to keep defaulting.

I have exhausted all financial help from family and friends and have send an email to the Ombudsman to see if there is anything they may be able to do to assist. Has anyone else been in this situation or know of something that might help?

Please do not reply telling me I should not have taken out the contract or that I signed up for it and now have to deal with it, I am aware of this and am not looking for a way to simply get out of paying, Im trying to setup payments I can realistically afford. If i could have seen my current situation when I was looking into the contract I would never have signed it, as with every long-term contract, I can think about my future situation but have no idea what its really going to be.

keith1950

Hi, it sounds from your post that your only option is to default on the payments. There is virtually no chance of coming to any arrangement until you have defaulted.

Alternatively you could sell the phone to envirofone or mazuma for around £180-£200 ( or privately for more ) which would finance the next 4-5 months payments and hope that your finances improve in the meantime.

maxbrad124

That's the part I don't understand - I thought it would be better for me to contact them and come to some arrangement before I started defaulting, is the opposite true?

Im looking into selling the phone at the moment but have found that my best option (in terms of keeping the price down for a plan with another company) may be to keep the iPhone as most of my family and friends have iPhones meaning I can use iMessages and FaceTime voice calls that wont use allowances so I can easily stay within a £5/month 30 day no-contract plan with Giff-Gaff.

mobilejunkie

You did contact Vodafone - and got the expected result. In effect you are also looking for a way of getting out of paying - if you pay less you have done exactly that. There is no compulsion to sign the contract - you agreed to it. The Ombudsman in this case is a waste of time - Vodafone (for once) have done absolutley nothing wrong.

You only have two options.

1) Default (thus wrecking your credit records for the next 6 years).

2) Contact the Vodafone Web Relations Team - they are the only people at Vodafone who a) care and b) may actually help you reduce your tariff under the circumstances - but they are definitely not obliged to, either legally or morally. See the last page of the Vodafone complaints thread as to the how.

simax

As the OP wanted to add this to their IVA, their credit record will already be trashed, so no further harm in defaulting the account IMHO.

maxbrad124

mobilejunkie - I think you misunderstood what i mean by reducing the payments. I'm not saying that Vodafone should reduce my tariff so I pay less than the £370 owed, I was hoping for a way to spread the cost. For example, change the 9 remaining monthly payments of £47 into 18 payments of £23.50.

I added the part about Vodafone not agreeing to lower my tariff because I know that some companies will agree to do this under certain circumstances and wanted to explain that this option is not available to me.

This is the problem that I am facing - people (perhaps Vodafone too) see people in my situation as just trying to get completely out of paying for something they have agreed to - this is not the type of person I am or want to come across as. I agreed to pay and I want to do that but with no funds available to continue the payments at their current amount, I am looking for a way to lower the monthly payments only, not the full balance.

mobilejunkie

I missed the IVA part. Your only chance of achieving what you want is still option 2.

ConsumerGuy0016

Two questions - how did you end up paying £47 a month for this contract? Assuming it's a 24 month contract you're paying £1128.00 in total.

The phone's value at it's peak (in September 2013) was ~£550 - so you've paid £578 for airtime (£24 a month) which is just absurd.

Second question - as someone previously said, why not just default on the payment..you've actually got nothing to lose.

Silk

ConsumerGuy0016 wrote: »

Two questions - how did you end up paying £47 a month for this contract? Assuming it's a 24 month contract you're paying £1128.00 in total.

The phone's value at it's peak (in September 2013) was ~£550 - so you've paid £578 for airtime (£24 a month) which is just absurd.

Second question - as someone previously said, why not just default on the payment..you've actually got nothing to lose.

Not sure why you question someone's willingness to pay £47 a month for a contract ?
At the time Sept 2013 an iPhone on EE for example was £46 unlimited talk/texts and 10Gb data or £51 if you wanted 20Gb or on 3's One plan was £46. Vodafone was £47 unl talk texts 4Gbdata.
So the OP was paying a normal price at the time

secretmsg

My advice is, sell you iphone 5s, which you might be able to sell it for upto £250 and get iphone4 for £40ish so you won't loose your facetime and imessage feature.

chanz4

sell the 5 and buy a 4