Talkmobile PAYG closing down

icdavis

I think we should all take this up with our MPs and get this changed.

I consider a mobile phone to be a utility along with gas, electricity and water. If I paid ahead of time for gas or electricity and the provider changed - e.g. Sainsburys Energy changed to British Gas - and my contract was ended by the company any credit would be sent to me via a cheque. Mobile pay as you go contracts should be the same. Any unused credit should be sent back to the customer as a legal right. It is the customer's money and we should not let these large telecom companies take and retain other peoples' money just because it suits them.

Inigo_Montoya

Ending up switching over my fathers phone to O2 Classic as he was moaning that i always switched him to mobile operators that were an issue e.g talkmobile & delight mobile (latter started removing unused credit after 90 days)

Bought a 99p phone with £10 O2 credit from CPW - after a couple of days the £10 credit hadnt been added so went into the shop & they added the credit manually - another 24 hours later another £10 was added

In my eyes the extra free £10 is karma for the small amount of credit lost with delight mobile & talkmobile & vodafone not honouring the free bundle deal

Kenman

I've successfully transferred two phones from Talkmobile to Vodafone PAYG, but had to contact the Vodafone chat line on both occasions to get my "free" £10 bundle. The agent implied that they didn't offer this automatically. I still can't understand how long it will last, but it would take me around three months to use it up. I'm still fuming that Talkmobile stole my remaining credit, and have complained via Resolver, but all that comes back is a standard message refusing to give me my money back.

gwapenut

Disgusting - it's legalised theft.

Is there a body which oversees the ombudsman? How can it be legal to breach the terms of a contract entered into by confiscating money paid for a service with no expiry date?

While it may not be so clearcut to expect credit to last for years and years through thick and thin, I do think it is reasonable to expect a low-cost PAYG tariff credit to last for more than 2 months.

Is it worth talking to credit card companies who you paid for the credit through to try a chargeback? They are after all jointly liable for monies.

It would be a real shame if vodafone lost more than they had stolen because of a spate of spurious free sim orderings to random addresses ....

But ... surely, this is also true fraud "obtaining money by deception", because Vodafone executives themselves allowed topups 1 month before their announcement, knowing that the people topping up were unaware that they might not use the credit before it is stolen?

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons

gwapenut wrote: »

Disgusting - it's legalised theft.

Is there a body which oversees the ombudsman? How can it be legal to breach the terms of a contract entered into by confiscating money paid for a service with no expiry date?

The body which overseas the ombudsman is the law and parliament.

I have complained to an ombudsman before. They tend to take the side of the firm they regulate.

Generally the ombudsman will check you have been treated "Fairly". If you think you havent been treated "Fairly", then try the ombudsman. Vodafone have offered customers a £10 free credit. The ombudsman will probably think this is a fair offer if you have £10 or less credit remaining......

If you had a credit greater than £10, then I think it is worth pursuing.

Mind you, you probably have to go through Voda's complaints process before the ombudsman will look at it.

BTW. I got my "Free £10 credit" after about the fifth call to their helpline!

Castle

Nicholas-bloody-Parsons wrote: »

Generally the ombudsman will check you have been treated "Fairly". If you think you havent been treated "Fairly", then try the ombudsman. Vodafone have offered customers a £10 free credit. The ombudsman will probably think this is a fair offer if you have £10 or less credit remaining......

Problem is that the £10 free credit only lasts 30 days and it's 30p per minute on their PAYG rates. Three for example charges only 3p per minute and with no expiry date, (providing that you make a chargeable call every 180 days).

TreasureTrove

Ho folks. I think confusion about the missing free Bundle problem for Talkmobile transfers to free Vfone simcards may be because the freebie Bundle doesn't actually show up as credit in cash terms if you text *#1345#, but rather as an "allowance" in d/load and minutes etc. You can check if this is active by setting up "myvodafone" online for your phone number, or or by ringing Vfone on 2345.

If there's still no BV Bundle allowance shown then try an online support chat. I did that and one of the agents applied the Bundle for me, after a couple of security checks including checking the Talkmobile voucher code. My phone still doesn't show cash credit but the account does show the £10 BVBundle and I've been able to send texts.

Pmatt

Like many others here I only found out about the Talkmobile PAYG closure by chance, no email, no text received. In July I asked for a refund as I was not intending to use the phone any more. I received an email reply on July 18th to say that a refund would be sent by cheque. Nothing has been received. I have no intention of transferring to Vodafone as I spend a year previously resolving an issue with them. At present the "Help" line say they can no longer access the PAYG accounts so can not or will not help. I refuse to telephone from a landline as the call will cost more than my credit refund so I have emailed a formal complaint in line with their complaints procedure. No response so far.
Will eventually contact the Ombudsman but not expecting much as their solution to the problem with Vodafone offered me less than Vodafone were willing to give me.

I have lodged a complaint with Ofcom as Talkmobile failed to give due notice but Ofcom do not deal with complaints directly - a strange form of regulation in my view and pretty useless when dealing with the telecom charlatans.

butterflymum

For anyone considering the Ombudsman, you could remind them of and refer them to what happened when Asda mobile changed providers back in 2013. We had a couple of PAYG phones with them at the time and received remaining credits back via an Asda gift card (the other option was a credit voucher to whatever value you had remaining, for use on new network):


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24626017

Life_goes_on_2

Had 5 numbers with TM on PAYG, with credit of 17.80, 17.50, 7.23, 5.70 & 4.93
Opened 5 Resolver cases, and after being told a number of times they don't do refunds, I received a cheque for £47.46
Just chasing up the £5.70 that they missed.