Vodafone taken £556.72 from account with no warning.

slipthru

My friends 18 month contract with vodafone ended in march this year and he wanted to get his pac number and move to O2, i called on his behalf and they offered to halve the price he was curently paying for the deal he already had on the stipulation that he took out another 18 moth contract, they told me at the time that he had a 30 day cooling off period to think about whether he wanted to take this deal, a few days passed and he recieved a letter in the post but was unhappy that it did not state the actual price of the new contract and asked me to phone them back.

He was also unhappy about the ammount of text messages, so i renegotiated a new deal with them, i again confirmed that he had a new 30 day cooling of period. Which i was told yes to.

Two days later he decided that he was not happy with the deal and asked me to request his pac code so he could leave. I phoned up and requested the code and told them that he was not interested in the new 18 month contract as they did not suit his needs.

Move on two months down the line and he noticed that £556.72 had been debited from his account, he called his bank who advised him to call vodafone, which he did, they told him that he had a contract with them till nov 2009 and that they had sent him a bill on the 27th may informing him that they would be debiting this amount, which he never recieved.

Can anyone offer any advice on how best to proceed?

RadoJo

Sorry if I am missing something, but why did he not call himself?
Either way, unless he cancelled in writing, it may be difficult to prove that he did not want to proceed with this new contract - if he received something in writing from them but did not respond in writing, they have proof that they were contacted about his contract, but he has no proof that their offer was rejected.

All the same, £556 seems an astronomical sum, and unless paying up front was part of the deal, it seems a pretty hefty figure to leave out of the information your friend was sent!

slipthru

I phone on his behalf because he is 70 and is quite ill at the moment and does not like dealing with them.

Surely my phoning up and telling them that he had thought about it and didn't want to take contract and would like his PAC code was enough to say that he was not interested in the contract.

There was no mention when i called for the PAC code that he was now stuck in a new 18 month contract and would have to pay £556.72 or write to cancel. Had that been mentioned then we would have made sure that everything was sorted out before moving to O2.

Bamber19

I'm not sure you're entitled to contract on his behalf, in which case it would seem the contract that he had previously with them ended when it wasn't renewed, although many phone contracts have an auto renewal unless you actually tell them you wont be continuing with them included in the original contract.

slipthru

He spoke to them each time on the phone to confirm i could speak to them on his behalf. So i can't use that one unfortunately.

scottishlass

slipthru wrote: »

He spoke to them each time on the phone to confirm i could speak to them on his behalf. So i can't use that one unfortunately.

Do you have the name of the person you spoke to or even the dates and times?

What does it state on the last contract that was sent out regarding the cooling off period? ie. did it say you could phone or you would have to write etc?

slipthru

The very sad part of all of this is, that i wrote everything down each time i spoke to them, different call center person each time and he no longer has that information, we searched for it yesterday. He has a habit throwing things away constantly.

I have asked him to see if he still has the letter but even that i think he has shreaded.

Vodafone said they would listen to all the call that were made. So i guess that is all we will have to go on.

Hopefullyuseful1

Hi,

I can understand that you're anxious to get this sorted, £556.72 is alot to be taken in one go.

If you decide not to continue with your upgrade you have 14days to let us know and to return the handset. Once we've received the handset back the contract will revert back to the original end date and you can then request the PAC.

Did you return the handset and was the PAC issued?

I think the best thing will be for me to have a look at the account for you, please can you complete Vodafone's Online Contact Form and include the Code FIT135 to ensure that the email is directed to the forum team. Please include as much information as you can so that I can access your account and include the web address for this post.

As soon as we receive your email we'll be able to look into this for you, don't worry I'm sure we'll be able to get this sorted for you.

Hopefullyuseful1
Vodafone UK

slipthru

Hi, thanks very much for your reply, i will email the information over a bit later on.

slipthru

The situation is now resolved, got a full refund and the account is now closed. :T

Thank you very much, Hopefullyuseful1for your help with the situation.