Unfair T&C's for Cashbacl deals

cxf

Hi,

last September I had the misfortune (isn't hindsight a wonderful thing!) to chose a Orange Half Price Line-rental cashback deal from mobiles.co.uk (now part of CPW I think).

Anyway, the phone was ordered on 19/09/2007, I went to Canada for week and then registered the phone with Orange on 3/10/2007.

First bill for Cashback was to be bill number 6.

So, in their Cashback T&C's they say:
"For the avoidance of doubt the month 6 bill will be the bill dated in the month that is six months after your connection date"

So, by my reckoning 6 months from October 2007 is April 2008, so I duly sent in my April bill - to my surprise I get an email saying:

"To claim your half price line rental, we would have needed to receive your bill dated 26th March 08 by 25th April 08. We received your bill dated 26th April 08 on the 12th May 08.
As per our terms and conditions the correct bill must be received by us within 30 days of the bill date. Unfortunately we are unable to authorise your claim."

Turns out they class "Connection" as the date the phone is dispatched from their warehouse, not when it actually connected to the network.

So, given that there is a hidden distinction in their T's&C's between "dispatched" and "registered on the network" - what chance do the experts think I've got if this goes to court?

To make things worse (or better) I ported the number from Vodafone, and was using it on that network until 3/10/2007 - so how am I supposed to guess that it is "connected" to Orange in September???


Small claims court here I come???


Thanks in advance,

Chris.

nellytheelephant

I would have thought 6 months later would be March.

You were connected at the beginning of October so - October, November, December, January, February, March x

cxf

From their own T's&C's at their website (www dot mobiles dot co dot uk)

"For the avoidance of doubt the month 6 bill will be the bill dated in the month that is six months after your connection date. E.g. If connected in January, the sixth month is July so we need to receive your bill dated in July within 30 days of the date of that bill."

So by their own maths, October + 6 = April.


Chris.

mobilejunkie

All this is extremely familiar. People not researching and fully understanding it beforehand should never order from this company. They get worse by the day. Try reading the numerous E2Save and OSPS threads and my guide:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=558661

That's far more likely to be helpful than anything a cpw subsidiary says in emails or on the website - and especially by telephone should anyone waste their time and money calling them. Nowadays going into these things armed for a court claim is standard operating procedure.