Mobiles.co.uk - A Pain in the Hole!
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SpudRoberts
Posts: 3 Newbie
in Mobiles
Hello all!
I just wanted to post about the 'fun' I've been having with Mobiles.co.uk
On 13th February I signed up for a new phone contract, as I was due an upgrade after 4 years on a Samsung Galaxy S5 (the first time I'd gone the full term without breaking or losing the handset - well don me!).
After having a look online, I saw that Mobiles.co.uk were offering a decent deal on a Galaxy S9, so I went for it. It arrived a couple of days later on the Saturday morning and I was immediately concerned that after its first full charge it lost 5% of its battery life just turning on.
I let the battery drain, gave it another full charge and the same happened again. The 'new' battery life was worse than my 4 years old one.
So I contacted them to return the phone, initially as an exchange. They agreed to accept the return, but I had to drop it off at a DPD collection point - the nearest one being several miles away from where I live. I don't drive, but luckily knew someone who could drop it off for me. Phone returned and I was emailed confirmation that it had been received. All good.
Until I asked when the replacement phone would be shipped and I was told that they had to test the one I'd returned first to confirm that there was a fault, then it would be up to 5 working days before I had the replacement delivered. After the next day delivery of the original phone, this seemed a pretty bad service - especially as I was due to go on holiday for 2 weeks that weekend.
So I called them up and asked if there was any way of guaranteeing delivery of the replacement phone by the Saturday and they said there wasn't. Not wishing to be tied into a contract for a phone I no longer had or one that I hadn't received, I advised them that instead of issuing a replacement I'd like the contract cancelled. This all went through and I was back on my previous plan on my old phone (I checked this with EE). All sorted and I could look at upgrading again when I got back from holiday.
A few days into my holiday I received an email from Mobiles.co.uk telling me that my new phone had been delivered to my address and signed for. This confused me in a couple of ways: 1) The order had been cancelled the previous week and 2) there would have been no one there to sign for it. It eventually came to pass that it had been delivered next door, but only after contacting the courier myself.
I got in touch with Mobiles.co.uk to ask why a phone had been sent and they said that I hadn't cancelled the contract at all - even though I had a record of this via email, and EE had put me back on my old contract. They eventually (after I'd shown them their own emails) agreed that the replacement had been sent in error, but I needed to send back the replacement handset by 13th March or I would be invoiced for it. I pointed out that I was on holiday until the 16th, so couldn't returned it until I got back.
They then said that I could have an extended "grace period" (very kind of them), but the phone would need to be returned on the 18th. Not wanting to have to go out of my way to help them, I said that using one of their collection points wasn't convenient for me so they could send DPD to collect the phone - any evening or weekend after I was home again. Obviously I couldn't do this during office hours due to being at work.
17th March; I finally pick up the replacement phone from my next door neighbour. I contact Mobiles.co.uk and let them know, and also offer to start the new contract again as of that date. It would certainly prevent a lot of messing about on both sides.
On the 18th, while I was at work, I received a text and email from DPD telling me that they'd tried to collect a package from my house but no one was in. I was then emailed again by Mobiles.co.uk telling me that I would be invoiced for the full cost of the phone. They have subsequently been told what they can do with their invoice...
Anyway, to cut a long and boring story short, there are a few bullet points:
- What right do Mobiles.co.uk have to threaten to invoice me for something that they sent to me in error? I have a record of my informing them that I was cancelling and not seeking a replacement device and this was at least 2 full days before they contacted DPD to arrange shipment.
- The delivery also went to the wrong house and was signed for by *unreadable signature*. It was only my honesty which told them that I'd bothered to go and collect it from my neighbour at all.
- I have given them a pretty big window to schedule collection of the package, specifically ANY evening or ANY weekend. They have declined to do this - even claiming that DPD don't offer this service. (They do - I've used them before)
Other than not wanting to make an 8 mile round trip to the nearest DPD collection point, I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I've told them I don't want the phone, and given them plenty of opportunity to come and collect it. This is entirely their error after all.
Do they have a right to invoice me for this?
A couple of other points I've noticed in dealing with them:
- As soon as I asked if I had any legal agreement with them they said that they couldn't answer that, only their legal team could. So I asked to speak to them and was told that "the legal team don't have a phone, so can't deal with customers".
- Also they emailed me details of their Complaints Department - which can only be contacted by letter. After a small amount of detective work I discovered that this department does not exist! It's just the customer services team, which is very interesting if it's them you want to complain about!
Sorry this was so long.
I just wanted to post about the 'fun' I've been having with Mobiles.co.uk
On 13th February I signed up for a new phone contract, as I was due an upgrade after 4 years on a Samsung Galaxy S5 (the first time I'd gone the full term without breaking or losing the handset - well don me!).
After having a look online, I saw that Mobiles.co.uk were offering a decent deal on a Galaxy S9, so I went for it. It arrived a couple of days later on the Saturday morning and I was immediately concerned that after its first full charge it lost 5% of its battery life just turning on.
I let the battery drain, gave it another full charge and the same happened again. The 'new' battery life was worse than my 4 years old one.
So I contacted them to return the phone, initially as an exchange. They agreed to accept the return, but I had to drop it off at a DPD collection point - the nearest one being several miles away from where I live. I don't drive, but luckily knew someone who could drop it off for me. Phone returned and I was emailed confirmation that it had been received. All good.
Until I asked when the replacement phone would be shipped and I was told that they had to test the one I'd returned first to confirm that there was a fault, then it would be up to 5 working days before I had the replacement delivered. After the next day delivery of the original phone, this seemed a pretty bad service - especially as I was due to go on holiday for 2 weeks that weekend.
So I called them up and asked if there was any way of guaranteeing delivery of the replacement phone by the Saturday and they said there wasn't. Not wishing to be tied into a contract for a phone I no longer had or one that I hadn't received, I advised them that instead of issuing a replacement I'd like the contract cancelled. This all went through and I was back on my previous plan on my old phone (I checked this with EE). All sorted and I could look at upgrading again when I got back from holiday.
A few days into my holiday I received an email from Mobiles.co.uk telling me that my new phone had been delivered to my address and signed for. This confused me in a couple of ways: 1) The order had been cancelled the previous week and 2) there would have been no one there to sign for it. It eventually came to pass that it had been delivered next door, but only after contacting the courier myself.
I got in touch with Mobiles.co.uk to ask why a phone had been sent and they said that I hadn't cancelled the contract at all - even though I had a record of this via email, and EE had put me back on my old contract. They eventually (after I'd shown them their own emails) agreed that the replacement had been sent in error, but I needed to send back the replacement handset by 13th March or I would be invoiced for it. I pointed out that I was on holiday until the 16th, so couldn't returned it until I got back.
They then said that I could have an extended "grace period" (very kind of them), but the phone would need to be returned on the 18th. Not wanting to have to go out of my way to help them, I said that using one of their collection points wasn't convenient for me so they could send DPD to collect the phone - any evening or weekend after I was home again. Obviously I couldn't do this during office hours due to being at work.
17th March; I finally pick up the replacement phone from my next door neighbour. I contact Mobiles.co.uk and let them know, and also offer to start the new contract again as of that date. It would certainly prevent a lot of messing about on both sides.
On the 18th, while I was at work, I received a text and email from DPD telling me that they'd tried to collect a package from my house but no one was in. I was then emailed again by Mobiles.co.uk telling me that I would be invoiced for the full cost of the phone. They have subsequently been told what they can do with their invoice...
Anyway, to cut a long and boring story short, there are a few bullet points:
- What right do Mobiles.co.uk have to threaten to invoice me for something that they sent to me in error? I have a record of my informing them that I was cancelling and not seeking a replacement device and this was at least 2 full days before they contacted DPD to arrange shipment.
- The delivery also went to the wrong house and was signed for by *unreadable signature*. It was only my honesty which told them that I'd bothered to go and collect it from my neighbour at all.
- I have given them a pretty big window to schedule collection of the package, specifically ANY evening or ANY weekend. They have declined to do this - even claiming that DPD don't offer this service. (They do - I've used them before)
Other than not wanting to make an 8 mile round trip to the nearest DPD collection point, I think I'm being pretty reasonable here. I've told them I don't want the phone, and given them plenty of opportunity to come and collect it. This is entirely their error after all.
Do they have a right to invoice me for this?
A couple of other points I've noticed in dealing with them:
- As soon as I asked if I had any legal agreement with them they said that they couldn't answer that, only their legal team could. So I asked to speak to them and was told that "the legal team don't have a phone, so can't deal with customers".
- Also they emailed me details of their Complaints Department - which can only be contacted by letter. After a small amount of detective work I discovered that this department does not exist! It's just the customer services team, which is very interesting if it's them you want to complain about!
Sorry this was so long.
0
Comments
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Quick battery loss is normal with a new handset for two reasons. It's using more power than in normal use and adaptive better is establishing. This is mentioned in the documentation. You may well have found that had you used it as normal for a few days the battery life would have improved significantly.
Also a sure way to ruin a modern battery is to fully discharge it.
Not defending the website but It's not at all unusual for a company to refuse to talk to you, except through a trained team, when you mention legal action. As you'd need to send a Letter Before Action it's correct of the business to give you the address at which documents can be served.0 -
Had an S9 and it went back during 14 days, same problem re battery drain and also had an issue with receiving 4G, which was no problem on my old phone. Sometimes the products released are just not good enough, problems left to be discovered by the users, end of. My ISP was really on the ball though and I had no issue with them like SpudRoberts had, with his. Common decency cost's zero.0
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Quick battery loss is normal with a new handset for two reasons. It's using more power than in normal use and adaptive better is establishing. This is mentioned in the documentation. You may well have found that had you used it as normal for a few days the battery life would have improved significantly.
Also a sure way to ruin a modern battery is to fully discharge it.
Not defending the website but It's not at all unusual for a company to refuse to talk to you, except through a trained team, when you mention legal action. As you'd need to send a Letter Before Action it's correct of the business to give you the address at which documents can be served.
I think the battery was problematic, as it seems that it's a known issue with a lot of S9s.
As for the legal action, it was actually their customer services team who threatened me with with that rather than vice versa. I just want them to collect the phone at a time when I'm at home so I can hand it over!0 -
Common decency cost's zero.
Exactly!
To be honest, if they had acted a bit more professionally and with a bit of courtesy, I'd have been willing to go out of my way to find a way of returning the parcel to them. But they've been rude and told multiple lies, so as far as I'm concerned they can come and get it from my house at a time that suits me.0
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