Postal strike & cash back

yoblack

Hi,

As you may know next week and the week after there will be two 48 strikes by royal mail, 5,6 and 8,9th October. Unfortunately for me that will exactly overlap with my cash back claim. I must admit I didn't calculate the rm factor in when I took the offer.

So now I'm looking at alternatives. I took an Orange contract with buymobilephones.net I already received the first cash-back from them. I have to send next cash-back claim after 14 days from the day stated on the 8th bill. The date will be 1st October. From experience the bill arrives around 7-8 days latter. That means will exactly fall in the middle of the strike. I suspect I will have it then by 10&11 October. Send it quickly to buymobilephones. It should be with them by 12&13. But what if I don't receive the mail ....

Is it possible to phone up Orange and ask them to move my billing date for another date ? Will buymobilesphones.net make a fuss about it ? They shouldn't as it is not their problem. How about if I post the letter on 12 or 13 and they receive it after 14th. Am I still entitled to the cashback ?

Any opinion & experience welcomed.
Thanks,
Yo

mobilejunkie

Yes. NEVER choose a company which ONLY gives you 14 days from the date of the bill to get it to them - and never go with a company which doesn't even tell you that until AFTER you've ordered!

You could call them and ask of course. I doubt they'd be sympathetic (the t&c are designed to trip you up) - but if they are I would suggest getting written confirmation! I also suspect from memory they don't allow internet bills, otherwise you could go to internet billing t give you 13 days.

yoblack

Hi Mobilejunkie,

I knew that 14 days are accepted by them and I would not expect them to be sympathetic. I see this as a hunt. They are after my money I'm after their money. As long as they are playing according to the rules I accept the risk. Now here they are not the problem. It is RM. I would not coment on them. What I'm looking after is how can I save my money as it is in danger. They don't accept internet bills. (not that it will be difficult to make it to look like a normal bill just you need to find the proper paper).
Now what I was thinking is to ask Orange to change my billing from the 1st day of the month to another date. I just read that then they will issue two bills .... grrr... that may complicate even further things, as I suspect they will send one on the 1st and the second one on the agreed date. I'm not sure how to proceed.
Any other sugestion that asking buymobilephones ?
Cheers,
yo

malamute

You can always send by other means example DHL or any other courier, all you do is phone them up and they will uplift envelope/package.
You can choose the level of delivery and insurance required.
It will cost you a bit more than RM but you have a lot more to loose if you fail to meet the deadline.

mobilejunkie

I'm not optimistic Orange could "pull" out one bill and send it differently to normal - and you'd have to get the bill before you can send it to the compnay. Even if you changed the statement dates you can't be certain of when the postal strikes will hit after the dates they've announced - or how delayed the post will be thereafter. If you accept the risk that's fair enough; personally, I think it's stacking the odds against you and leaving no back-up plan - things go missing or take forever to arrive normally and networks rarely send the bills out the day they are printed off. Not sure Orange WOULD produce two bills; BUT you might find the changed month one only has a small charge with the rest going onto the one a month later (been there/done that myself but under rather different circumstances - fairly recently, too!).

thesaint

yoblack,

There are a lot of 'What if's' in your question/s.

If your bill coincides with the strike, send it off as normal and take them to court if they refuse to pay out.

yoblack

thesaint wrote: »

yoblack,

There are a lot of 'What if's' in your question/s.

If your bill coincides with the strike, send it off as normal and take them to court if they refuse to pay out.

Hi Thesaint,

Well exactly that is the problem. The bill will be "issued" on the 1st, then it takes couple of days to arrive, form my experience 5 to 7. So essentially the bill won't be issued on the day of the strike but because of the strike it won't arrive. I'm not a legal expert but would I have any chances with this argument in the small claim court ? To send to them won't be a problem as I will use other courier but first I will need to receive it ...
Thanks,
Yo

Old_Gold

yoblack wrote: »

Hi Thesaint,

Well exactly that is the problem. The bill will be "issued" on the 1st, then it takes couple of days to arrive, form my experience 5 to 7. So essentially the bill won't be issued on the day of the strike but because of the strike it won't arrive. I'm not a legal expert but would I have any chances with this argument in the small claim court ? To send to them won't be a problem as I will use other courier but first I will need to receive it ...
Thanks,
Yo

This sounds as if it would fall under what was termed an unfair condition by the judge in the phones2u case. If you read up on that court case by searching this forum you should find the info you need.

thor

As far as I am concerned I think that the cashback companies will see the postal strikes as a great opportunity for them to lie through their teeth when questioned about receiving cashback claims. We all know that the Royal Mail are not the most punctual of organisations but if a company gets a claim voucher near a strike date they will believe that they can get away with saying that they only got it after the claim period and blame the RM strikes.

yoblack

Thanks Thor and Old Gold,

I'm also concerned that companies will try to use the trick to con people but *if* I receive the bill then I will make sure I won't use the RM to deliver it to them. But the big question is would I receive the bill or not ? Most probably not as it falls exactly in the strike time frame so I won't have the bill to send it by other means.
Now I tried to contact them via e-mail explaining the situation, but they keep repeating the T&C - no internet bills no delays, and since I asked them to propose any alternative they are silent. Not quite sure what can I do. I will try to ask them officially via mail(which may or may not be delivered), so to have something at hand in the small claim court but I'm really not sure if this is going in the right direction.

Thanks,
Yo

thesaint

dmg24 wrote: »

If there is a delay in you receiving your bill, or a delay in bmp.net receiving your bill, as a result of the postal strike, you will have no legal claim against bmp.net.

You agreed to the terms and conditions when you signed the contract, and within this was the tight timeframe for them to receive your bills. Any extension that bmp.net give you will be a goodwill gesture, they are under no obligation to do so.

Sorry I can't give more a more positive response, but that is the legal viewpoint x

As said before, an unfair term.