Vodafone

sdduk

Sorry but it is your thought by like the others have said... You have to give 30 days notice when you want to finish your contract it doesn't just finish it will continue.
The 12/24/36mths contract is a minimum term and automatically goes to a 30 day contract unless you finish it.
It looks like you just stopped paying for the contract and took out a new one with a new number.
Again as the others have said if you would have got a PAC Code and moved your number to another network the contract would have finished automatically and you wouldn't be in the predicament you are in now. 
Also it will probably affect your credit rating now because you will have a late payment on it.

Neil49

Regrettably, and as you have now realised, you made a mistake by not formally ending your contract with Vodafone. Simply cancelling your direct debit doesn't cancel a contract it just means that you aren't paying them. 

It's not Vodafone's fault that you didn't cancel your contract so all you can do is keep trying to negotiate a settlement with them and explaining that you hadn't realised that the contract was still in existence. The fact that there was no recorded usage will possibly help in that respect. You need to contact Vodafone directly and not the debt collectors (who are doing what Vodafone has instructed them to do).

You may come to some agreement but at some point you may have to accept that legally you owe them the money in question and pay the full amount. 

d123

LizHaze said:

Nowhere in any of the documentation I was given does it say that I needed to cancel the contract.  I have read it and re-read it.

I presume you didn't open and read the welcome pack which was linked to your order confirmation?

4.2.2. Subject to Clauses 4.2.3 and 4.2.4 and without prejudice to Clause 4.2.1 above or to any other rights we have under the terms of these Conditions, either party can terminate this agreement at any time by giving the other party no less than 30 days written notice of such termination.

4.2.3. In the event that the Subscription Services come with a minimum term contract, without prejudice to our rights in Clauses 1 and 4.2.1 above, we will not terminate the Subscription Services during such a minimum term.

4.2.4. You may terminate the Subscription Services within such a minimum term but if you do so other than in exercising your rights under Clauses 1.6.1 and 4.2.1, we may charge you a cancellation fee.

LizHaze

Yes I did, but I read this as referring to cancelling during the the minimum term.  I am not a lawyer.  I’m someone who has dealt with a mobile phone company who have always been transparent and helpful, and foolishly assumed that other companies would behave in the same way.  I know better now.  The phone co-op are now assured of my business for ever - you get a two year contract with them and at the end of the two years they stop taking your money.

The mistake I made was to assume that because I made the order through mobiles.co.uk, and paid the first payment to them, that they were the company I was dealing with.  I would argue that it wasn’t made clear to me that as soon as I had made that payment I was a customer of Vodafone.  It’s a bit like buying a Hotpoint washing machine through John Lewis, then being a Hotpoint customer as soon as your money changes hands.  I had no contact - at all - with Vodafone during the period of the contract, though mobiles.co.uk contacted me many times!  I realise now that I should have contacted Vodafone - not mobiles.co.uk - as the contract drew to its close, and then I would have been able to renew it/end it/upgrade.  

I’m not otherwise a stupid person, and I think that I should have been given better information at the time I signed up.  I think MSE could make it clearer, and I’ll ask whether this can be done (I’m not blaming MSE, just think it’s something that could be improved).  I also think that a two year contract should be what it says.  If I take out, say, a twenty five year mortgage, I expect to stop paying at the end of the twenty five years.

However I have given some forum-ites pleasure in pointing out that I have been stupid, as well as contributing to the profits of a struggling corporation, so my time has not been entirely wasted.

stragglebod

You want everybody's mobile phone to stop working after the minimum contract term? Do you think that there might possibly be any minor downsides with that?