14 day cooling off / Vodafone / unfair terms?

thrifty2023

Folks hello & goodmorning,

Backstory: Vodafone broadband only customer since Feb 2022, 24 month contract expired Feb 2024, I signed on to a new 24 month contract on 13 Mar 2024. Realised I wanted to cancel as I might leave the country before then, so got in touch with Vodafone to request cancellation of the contract under 14 day cooling off period and revert to my previous contract/service under a rolling month to month arrangement.

Vodafone have refused. They won't revert me back to my old service/contract because it was copper connection. Everyone has to be upgraded to fibre. So my new contract from Mar 2024 is fibre and my only true 'cancellation' option is to burn the whole agreement with Vodafone and get in a new service. 

In principle, Vodafone probably not doing anything wrong but the skewed application of the 14 day cooling off period seems unfair. If I had not signed on the the new contract on 13 Mar, what would have changed? It seems ridiculous that I can't go back to my old contract/service. 

My ideal outcome is that I remain with Vodafone on a monthly rolling basis rather than on a 24 month contract. Have only about another 5 days before 14 day cooling off period expires. Have sent in a complaint to Vodafone as well because 2x customer service reps originally said I can switch back, then refused. 

Please your thoughts, help, advice! 

iniltous

TBH , cooling of periods for recontracting customers is a grey area , the cooling off period was designed to allow people that may well have been pressured into entering into a contract, time to reconsider if they entered the contract freely or were coerced, recontracting, especially if the consumer made the enquiry about recontracting isn’t the same situation, your added issue is that your recontracting took FTTP as a consequence, and VF are correct in that you cannot return to your previous FTTC service as it’s no longer available, has the new FTTP service actually been installed yet , or you cancelled before the installation date ? 

I think morality, it’s you that are responsible, if there was a possibility that you would not be around to fulfill the contractal obligation, taking out a new minimum term was always reckless .

From VF point of view , there are costs involved in them providing the FTTP , they don’t charge separately for this but it’s amortised over the contract term , so rather ( for example) charging £100 upfront, it’s around £4 of monthly fee , that’s why , in part why most providers need a minimum term to cover these costs .

In short , you probably need to pay up or suffer the credit rating hit and potential repercussions , unless the FTTP service was never actually installed as you cancelled not just within what you consider to be a cooling off period but before any actual visit , you may have a better argument in that case