Vodafone disconnected me, but are still charging £50 per month!

TheInsider_3

I was recently made unemployed and hence had trouble paying my £50 per month contract with Voda.

They cut my account immediately and it's been that way for a few months. I am still receiving a bill for £50 which is adding the to outstanding balance, yet they aren't providing me with a service. I can't use the SIM and don't get the free minutes or text.

Can they do this? Surely I only agree to pay the £50 in return for them providing me with a service. Right now I'm being killed as I'm having to use PAYG to make calls regarding new jobs etc., as well as cover the contract cost eventually.

They've told me I have a couple of weeks to pay the entire balance of I will be charged over £500 and have my contract terminated. Given I only had the contract for two months this is going to be a hammer blow.

peterstannard

Why were you disconnected? Were you still in your minimum contract term when you were discounnected?

TheInsider_3

peterstannard wrote: »

Why were you disconnected? Were you still in your minimum contract term when you were discounnected?

I was disconnected (in a soft sense, not literally had the thing terminated) in terms of making and receiving calls due to not paying my bill on time.

Since then I've had no use of my SIM, but still get £50 per month charged to my now swelling balance.

Yeah, I'm still in the contract. Another 14 months to run. But by "contract" I assume they have to honour their side of the agreement to warrant me paying the £50?

espresso

TheInsider wrote: »

Yeah, I'm still in the contract. Another 14 months to run. But by "contract" I assume they have to honour their side of the agreement to warrant me paying the £50?

You are contracted to pay for your minimum contract term i.e. another 14 months, however you owe them money, so why should they allow you to run up further debt?

TheInsider_3

espresso wrote: »

You are contracted to pay for your minimum contract term i.e. another 14 months, however you owe them money, so why should they allow you to run up further debt?

They are allowing me to run up more debt. Each month it's £50 greater.

I am effectively paying, yet not receiving any service. Or I will have paid retrospectively for something I was never given, at best.

Old_Gold

I think you need better advice than the average helper on this site can give you. It sounds as if you are locked into this contract and it could only be at the discretion of the network to give you some respite. Talk to a legal expert fast.

custardy

basically you are under a minimum 12/18 month contract.
as such the only get out clause is to pay the whole lot off.
one way to lower that amount is drop to the minimum monthly contract then arrange a settlement fee on that.
also consider selling the phone to pay off the contract
vodafone are honouring the contract,the service is there for you once you bring your account up to date.
i would call and ask to go through to a supervisor and ask what options you have.
say theres no way you can £700+ so can you cpome to an arrangement.
if you expect vodafone to just release you then you are out of luck.
if it was that easy we would have a new phone every few months

espresso

TheInsider wrote: »

They are allowing me to run up more debt. Each month it's £50 greater.

You committed yourself to paying your monthly rental when you took out the contract only four months ago and they can take legal steps to get this from you.

I am effectively paying, yet not receiving any service. Or I will have paid retrospectively for something I was never given, at best.

You presumably received a smart top end phone on a £50 per month contract, which is yours to do with as you please i.e. sell it to pay off what you currently owe and get a cheaper replacement. Find out when the earliest that you can reduce your monthly payments is, which may be after 9 months into the contract.

PinkPig

I think they sound fairly justified to me. You agreed to pay them £50 a month - it was your own responsibility to consider whether or not you could afford that.

From their point of view - you have agreed to pay £50 a month, why would they decide to stop charging? However you haven't paid them, how could they possibly keep letting you use the service when they've no idea if and when they'll get paid? It might seem like they're penalising you twice but there's really nothing else they could sensibly do. You shouldn't have agreed to a contract - especially such an expensive one - without the money to pay for it.

faza20

Your account is currently suspended due to none payment. Whilst your account is suspended, you'll continue to be charged your monthly line rental.
If you wish to resume your service, you'll be required to pay the outstanding balance in full.
There may be the option to cancel your account, however the cost implications depend on whether you're still in commitment. If you're in commitment, you'll be charged the line rental charges from the date of cancellation to the end of your contract. This is known as an early termination fee.
If you're no longer in commitment, you'll just be charged 30 days notice.
Its worth pointing out that whilst you're in arrears, you'll be going through a debt cycle and will terminate automatically after a period of time if no payment is made.
The same will apply if this happens - if you're still in commitment you'll be charged a termination fee that equals the remaining line rental costs on your account.
I'd recommend that you get in touch with us so that we can look into your account for you. We have a specialist collections team who are there to help with customers arrears and we can point you towards them for assistance.
Here's how to get in touch:
If you use the Online Contact Form on the Vodafone website to us an email, including FIT135 anywhere in the body of the text, it will be picked up by myself or one of my colleagues.

Badger_Lady

If "cutting you off" also meant "no longer charging you £50pcm", we'd all do it - take out an expensive contract with a top-end phone (worth maybe £500?), then forget to pay for it until we were cut off. Woo-hoo, free phone!

Sadly, you are tied in to your contract (as all the kind people above have pointed out). Speak to the telephone provider, tell them you can no longer afford to keep up the contract, and see what they say.

There may be a penalty for cancelling early, and you may have to return the handset, but you can't afford to ruin your credit rating and get further into debt by letting this roll on and on.