Airtime contract cooling off periods ...

feisar32

Hi all


My apologies if this has been covered before ...


My wife has recently completed her phone + airtime contract with Three; as she was having trouble with her phone (which turned out to be a baseband component failure) she went in to the store just over a week ago to get a new SIM, during which they moved her onto a new SIM only contract.


As we discovered the baseband unit failure, my wife bought an iPhone 5C from eBay which the seller said was unlocked, but turned out to be locked to Tesco Mobile / O2. We've been trying for a days to get MobileUnlocked to unlock it (they failed) and the seller says he's spoken to Tesco Mobile, but they say it could be seven working days or more.


My wife is now considering cancelling the Three contract and getting a Tesco Mobile SIM only contract just so she doesn't have to wait any longer. Only problem is that Three have told her she can't do that.


I see from the Which website that, according to the Consumer Contracts Regulations: "if you entered into the contract over the phone, online or on your doorstep, you have 14 calendar days to cancel the contract."


According to the guy in Three store, this doesn't cover our situation because we did the signing up in-store. Given the wording above, I can see that he may have a point ... I just wondered if anyone could clarify for me ... ?


Thanks in advance for any advice given

mije1983

He is correct. No cooling off in store unless their terms allow for it. I'm assuming by what the employee said that Three don't have such a policy.

Rather than cancelling the Three contract, why not just return the phone and get another one?

feisar32

Thank you for your confirmation; I wasn't certain and rather than trust a Three salesperson wanted to come to the people who would know and who could be trusted ...


Looks as though that's what we're going to have to do ... only issue being that "money is no object" is not a term that applies to us and my wife has already been without her phone for ten days, so further delays in getting the seller to refund us then find another affordable iPhone is only going to raise her blood-pressure further, so was looking for the quickest fix. Cancelling the Three contract and taking one out with Tesco Mobile was going to be the quickest way of doing this, but as that's not an option, Plan B it is ...


Thanks again for your help

mobilejunkie

Why not return the phone under the Ebay buyer's guarantee and get another one which is unlocked?

feisar32

Could've done I guess ... but then my wife's patience is not unlimited and she'd already been without her phone for a while.

Happily the buyer sorted it and she's up & running again :beer: