Vodafone charging unfairly

ajc1g11

Hi all,

I am in a tricky situation at the moment and would appreciate your help and knowledge.

I used to be a Vodafone customer on my mobile and a few months after the end of my contract decided to cancel. I did this via carphone warehouse and as bad luck or incompetency wold have it, it didn't go through because I received yet another bill from Vodafone. I called them up, they apologized and said they would cancel the contract for me. To cut a (very) long story short I had to do this FIVE times and every person would say "oh the previous guy you spoke to did not put the cancellation through let me do that for you now" (It wasn't as smooth as that, I had to spend hours on the phone).

After the fifth time I decided this was getting silly so wrote them a letter explaining the situation to which they replied that they have not had any request from me to cancel. Other than a name of one of the five people I talked to and my phone logs I have not retained any more information about who I was talking to and no one would ever agree to send me a written confirmation of our discussion despite my numerous attempts.

What is the best way forward here? Is it just my word against theirs? Surely they can't get away with just saying they never heard from me?

Many thanks in advance
Alex

mobilejunkie

Contact the Web Relations Team as instructed on the Vodafone Complaints Thread.

ajc1g11

Thanks for your quick reply. Do you think that they might have a different approach to the problem given that the letter from Vodafone claims I have never asked them to cancel?

Thanks again.

grumbler

ajc1g11 wrote: »

...Surely they can't get away with just saying they never heard from me?

I think they can, especially after writing cunningly in the T&C:

11. Ending this agreement

a) Either you or us may end this agreement by giving the other 30 days’ notice in writing. Your notice must include your mobile number and the signature or appropriate security details of the account holder.
...

ajc1g11

Thank you grumber. Surely that defeats the purpose of having a call center if they can just deny you every calling them??

grumbler

In fact their outsourced call center is spurious. It's good only at giving runaround, fobbing off and making things worse.
Only accidentally they can do something useful.

ajc1g11

Yup, completely agree. But surely they can be held liable for what they tell you over the phone right? Am I living in a dreamland?

grumbler

Can you prove what they told you?
If you can, then complain in writing and demand a full refund refund. If they refuse either complain to the ombudsman or submit a claim to the SCC for all 'unfair' charges and keep doing this until they stop charging you.

ajc1g11

Would it be possible for me to prove what they told me if I request my account notes? (Assuming they did note what they were actually telling me and not just drawing a smiley face on a piece of paper)?

SnowTiger

ajc1g11 wrote: »

Would it be possible for me to prove what they told me if I request my account notes? (Assuming they did note what they were actually telling me and not just drawing a smiley face on a piece of paper)?

It would be odd for them to write in the notes customer called to end contract and not action the cancellation. But this is Vodafone we're talking about.

However, it would be interesting to see what the notes say about your five calls.

Oddly, T-Mobile used to insist that contracts were ended by phone. That was written in to their T&Cs. I attempted to end a contract by letter and got a letter back telling me to call them. After calling to end a contract they would send a confirmation text message which offered some reassurance.

IMO the best way to end a mobile phone contract is to get a PAC and use it even if you don't want to retain the number.