Smart Tek Closed and ran away with my money like Mobile Express :( Any suggestions

Sunny2good

A MOBILE phone shop has left customers who signed up to an attractive cashback deal hundreds of pounds out of pocket.


Smart Tek, a mobile phone dealership at 328 Edgware Road, advertised deals offering customers a full refund for their phone bills after a specified period but has now gone out of business.
I signed up for one of Smart Tek's deals in August 2007 from their Green Street E7 branch, which offered cashback if i agreed to take on the costs of two mobile phones. I was promised that if i kept up with my bill payments and paid £50 deposit per handset, I would get a refund of the entire 18 Months bill + deposit back at the end of Month 6 (February 2008). So I took 4 handsets from them, paid £200 deposit (£50 each) and signed upto a £40 a month contract with Orange for 4 handsets (£160 a month Direct Debit to Orange) for 18 months.
So my total CashBack was going to be £3080 in February. But I went there in the beginning of February to see that the shop has now closed both its branches in Edgware Road and Green Street in November 2007.


now i know this is serious money, but before you start saying negative things, they are just down the road from me and i have been dealing with them for the past 4 years



I know many other people either in person or through online forums who are in this hard situation. I am a student and cannot keep up repayments of £160 a month to Orange who would not cancel contracts.
In January Smart Tek was taken over by new management who contacted all those still owed money and promised to honour any outstanding payments.


But the letter from Mr A Patel (The new Manager, writing with a return address of a PO BOX in bristol) also said that before customers were repaid they must provide a whole range of personal documents including a copy of the signature on their cash card, proof of employment in the form of their payslips or P60 and their passport details to prove their residency.
These demands only created further confusion among customers and raised concerns about possible fraud and now an attempt to do an identity fraud. Emailing the new company office or writing to them has had no response so far.


I contacted trading standards but they asked me to contact consumer direct. When i did, they replied saying



"Consumer Direct can offer advice on consumer rights but cannot take action or intervene with consumer’s cases, if Consumer Direct receives a complaint against a trader, the complaint is then passed on to Trading Standards for information purposes. You could make a written request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, once this request is received it will then be passed on to the Office of Fair Trading who will see if there is any information on the trader that is available to the public. When making a request for information it is important to be clear about the company’s details and the information required, whilst quoting the above law.

The address to make the request to is;

Consumer Direct London
International House,
7 High Street,
Ealing,
London,
W5 5DB.


OR Further to the advice above, it may be advisable to seek more specialist advice with regards to any action that you can take against the network provider. If you cancel payment to the network provider they may hold you in breach of contract, which may result in further action being taken. It may be advisable to contact the Law Centre Federation to see if you have a Law Centre in your area. They can be reached on 0207 387 8570. If they do not have a centre in your area or are unable to help you may need to consider obtaining advice from a solicitor."


Can someone please tell me what the right course of action is? they haev not only ran away with cashback but with my deposit as well.


secondly, i have read about people in similiar situation who dealt with Mobile Express. do one of you guys have any suggestions for me.


Thanks,



Sunny

shortguy4u

Same thing happened to me...awful situation...i heard good things about them too before i took my contracts out with them.

Please let me know if you get any advice on whether something can be done or not.

Thanks

Quentin

All you can realistically do is approach the network(s) the phones are connected to, explain the situation and see if they will allow you to reduce your tariff (if you read the threads regarding other companies who have gone out of business you'll see there has been some of the networks who have been sympathetic).

madness2ne1

Hello sunny and others. I am in the same situation as you. I too dealt with them for over three years at their Edgware Road Branch and had many contracts with them that went smoothly.

I currently have four 3G lines for which I pay £240 a month for 18months! I received the same letter from Mr Patel and I naively sent all the information they requested in the hope that someone really did buy the company and that we may get our money back in the end.

I explained everything to 3G who in the end said they could offer me only £100 cash back per line - ONLY if I further extended the contracts for another 18months ( I was gob smacked).

Anyway, I am really confused as to what to do as well as I am going to be £4K out of pocket. I find it really SAD that 3G won't allow us to terminate the contracts given the extreme situation.

Anyway, if any person is reading this who went through the same situation with another company like Smart Tek then please do let us know f you had any success in getting any money back.

In the mean time do you people think it would be something that we can tell the police (they must have special departments who deal with big fraud like this) and try and get them to investigate, since they requested us to send copies of a lot of personal information, i.e. passport, marriage cert, bank statements..

FROM NOW ON I WILL NEVER SIGN UP WITH SMALL COMPANIES LIKE THIS.

I think they planned this and just held on for 4years....

Thanks.

idoesthis

My uncle had this problem with another phone shop.
I phoned orange and explained the situation.
Maybe say that you currently have no job and are renting out a flat...
Say things like it's a choice of buying food to survive and books to study or paying the phone bill...
Try to speak to the manager too...
They won't terminate your contract but they should reduce the price (better than nothing?)
Hope that helped.
iDoesThis!

whitemouse75

why would any of you need 4 lines? you arent out of pocket, you just didnt get something for nothing, so lesson learned is dont take out contracts you dont want/cant afford