Vodafone trying to charge an early termination fee after contract expiry.

keefy1953

Hi My Vodafone contract expired on 22nd Sept I then moved across to another provider the same day. I noticed that my account showed a £178.91 early termination balance. I got in touch with Vodafone Customer Services who agreed that this was incorrect and that they would sort it, they also said it was ok to cancel my direct debit. on 16th October I received a letter chasing me for the amount, I contacted the Customer services team again and spoke to an agent who did not quite grasp the situation, so I asked to speak to a member of the collections team and got put through to a voice recording giving me options to pay. After a few attempts I again spoke to a guy called Pat who understood that there should be no termination fee and said that he would mark the account as completed and that I should receive confirmation within 24 hours. I asked him to email me direct to confirm what he had done which he agreed to do even verifying my email address. Needless to say I receive neither the email or official confirmation that the account had been cleared and today received the final notice letter threatening bad debt and debt collection agency etc.


I cannot seem to get through to the right people to discuss this can anybody help please.

TadleyBaggie

Had you given them 30 days notice of closing the account? You contract hadn't expired, simply gone past its minimum term. It then effectively becomes a 30 rolling contract.

keefy1953

Thanks, I informed them a couple of weeks before expiry so now understand I might get charged for the following month. But that should be around £35 not the £178 they are trying to charge me.

grumbler

keefy1953 wrote: »

Hi My Vodafone contract expired on 22nd Sept I then moved across to another provider the same day. I noticed that my account showed a £178.91 early termination balance. I got in touch with Vodafone Customer Services who agreed that this was incorrect and that they would sort it, they also said it was ok to cancel my direct debit.

One must be very naive to follow any advice from Vodafone CS. If you did cancel the DD then most likely you have a missed payment recorded in your credit files now.

...agent who did not quite grasp the situation, ... said that he would mark the account as completed and that I should receive confirmation within 24 hours.... he agreed to do even verifying my email address. Needless to say I receive neither the email or official confirmation.... today received the final notice letter threatening bad debt and debt collection agency etc.

Well, this proves well the above point. Their promises are even worse than their advice.

keefy1953 wrote: »

Thanks, I informed them a couple of weeks before expiry

Now you know how useless they are. Simple 'informing' is likely to have absolutely no effect unless you insist on a confirmation that you gave them the notice and make sure that you receive this confirmation.

mobilejunkie

See the Vodafone Complaints Thread working backwards; contact the Web Relations Team as per the repeated instructions on there - or expect more of the same.