Scammed by my mobile provider...

[TheGreatSoprendo]

I've been a customer of my mobile provider for 10 years or so, but they've really pissed me off this weekend. Let's call them Sodabone for ease of reference.

Last May my contract was coming to an end and I was looking to upgrade to a new phone and a 4G contract. I compared what Sodabone were offering against what I could get elsewhere and they weren't really competitive. I decided I'd move to another provider to get a better deal so I called Sodabone to cancel. During the course of the conversation it transpired that because of who I worked for, I qualified for a 20% discount. This meant Sodabone were competitive with the best deals on the market and I wouldn't have the hassle of moving. Great! All I had to do to get the discount was fill in an online application, which I did and all was well with the world.

Fast forward to November when I received a call from Sodabone offering to up my data limit from 4gb to 10gb and include Spotify Premium for an additional £4 or so (I forget the exact figure). This seemed like an excellent deal, almost to good to be true, in fact. I quizzed the guy for a while and he assured me it would just be the £4 extra (or whatever the exact figure was), no catches. So I agreed to go ahead with it.

Fast forward again to last weekend. I have a bad habit of setting up direct debits for bills and then not paying much attention to the bill details month by month, especially when they come via e-mail rather than a physical paper copy. Last weekend, though I was looking through my bills and noticed they were much higher than I expected and after digging around, established that the 20% discount hadn't been applied since November.

I "spoke" to someone on Sodabone's live chat and they said that the discount was taken off in November when my plan was upgraded. Apparently I needed to re-apply for the discount after the upgrade was applied but, of course, I had no idea that was the case because the person that called me to offer the upgrade neglected to mention it, even when I quizzed him on the cost. The live chat person assured me that the discount could be reapplied and gave me the contact details for their Employee Advantage Scheme to arrange this.

Having sent an e-mail last Sunday asking that discount be re-applied and backdated to November, I got the following response from Sodabone this morning:

Sodabone said:

I have reviewed the account for number 07*** ****** and can see that as we had not received discount application request within 30 days of upgrade, VEA discount is not applied on the account.

The day when we launched the scheme, all the terms and condition were communicated along with online request of discount application form within 30 Days of new connection/ upgrade/ recommitment of contract.

We understand your query, but as per policies and norms of our company we are unable to apply discount on the contract.

Please understand that we will not be able to make any amendments to discount rules in the fairness to all of our applicants who have been declined on these grounds as these are mandatory requirements of the offer.

Further, if you upgrade/recommit your contract in future please apply within 30 Days for discount via link below directly from the work email address and we will be happy to assist you:

www.vodafone.co.uk/vea


I hope the above information is helpful.

To say I'm angry at this response is an understatement.

They say the terms and condition were communicated along with online request of discount application form within 30 Days of upgrade but having sifted through my e-mails and paperwork, there's absolutely nothing that mentions any requirement to re-apply for the discount. Frankly, the whole thing feels like a bit of a scam to strip my discount by the back door and bump up my monthly bill by a lot more than I was expecting.

Interested to hear people's thoughts on this and any suggestions on next steps.

[Sheepshanks]

TheGreatSoprendo said:

Interested to hear people's thoughts on this

I feel angry just reading it.

TheGreatSoprendo said:

...and any suggestions on next steps.

Ask for details of their formal complaints process, then go through the relevant Ombudsman if that fails.

[TooLateForAName]

Ask for the original call recordings and begin formal complaint.

longer term - vote with your wallet and move supplier.

[TheGreatSoprendo]

TooLateForAName said:

longer term - vote with your wallet and move supplier.

Thanks chaps. The above goes without saying....

[Rick101]

Frustrating.

Make any further communication in writing, not email, letter. Always seems to get a better response.

I got out of the bed with the devil several years ago and went to PAYG. Never looked back. Contracts are great until they fk you over, which is just a matter of time. You have nothing to fight with and may well end up with a black mark on your credit history.

One if the worst industries imo.i would never get under contract with them again.

[surveyor]

Don't tell us.

Tell the boss!

Vodafone UK
Mr Jeroen Hoencamp Chief Executive
Email [e-mail]
Telephone [phone]

[kiethton]

I'd be very tempted to do a direct debit chargeback, calculate the amount you should have paid and pay them the total sum.

They will chase you for therest, your well then to do one...far easier having the cash in your account and the ball in your court. Gets it sorted immediately and they will give up eventually, especially as this will illicit a response from somebody higher up the food chain.

[bigandclever]

TheGreatSoprendo said:

To say I'm angry at this response is an understatement.

They say the terms and condition were communicated along with online request of discount application form within 30 Days of upgrade but having sifted through my e-mails and paperwork, there's absolutely nothing that mentions any requirement to re-apply for the discount. Frankly, the whole thing feels like a bit of a scam to strip my discount by the back door and bump up my monthly bill by a lot more than I was expecting.

Interested to hear people's thoughts on this and any suggestions on next steps.

Definitely keep complaining at them, I agree it's a pain in the arse they didn't explicitly tell you. Unfortunately the basic terms of the VEA are pretty clear, you will have agreed to them at some point:

Sodabone Employee Advantage terms said:

9 General information on the Offers
If you change or upgrade your plan you need to reapply for the Offer. If you don’t reapply within 30 days of such changes to your plans you won’t qualify for the Offer.

[TheGreatSoprendo]

kiethton said:

I'd be very tempted to do a direct debit chargeback, calculate the amount you should have paid and pay them the total sum.

I have already cancelled the direct debit and will be informing them that I won't be making any further payments until this is resolved to my satisfaction. What do you mean by a direct debit chargeback?

[Sheepshanks]

TheGreatSoprendo said:

I have already cancelled the direct debit and will be informing them that I won't be making any further payments until this is resolved to my satisfaction.

That's a really bad idea. They'll just pull the shutters down and send the debt collectors after you.

[bigandclever]

TheGreatSoprendo said:

I have already cancelled the direct debit

Yeah ... that's not the most sensible move.

[numtumfutunch]

I had a similar issue with a satellite TV provider

Spoke to their call centre on an unrelated matter and offered a free gift extra package for 3 months with no catches

All great until I came to cancel the trial to be told I had to give notice and couldn't immediately leave resulting in significant cost

No joy from foreign call centre but judicious moaning on social media got the debt dropped

[Aviz]

Your thread just prompted me to check, 3 months after upgrade I realised I don't have EAP either. On line chat and they fixed it straight away but I have to present my id at local voda store which is a bit of a pain

[sonarbell]

surveyor said:

Don't tell us.

Tell the boss!

Vodafone UK
Mr Jeroen Hoencamp Chief Executive
Email [e-mail]
Telephone [phone]

^^^^^ As he said.

I had some major issues with BT Broadband awhile back. I contacted the "Man at the Top" on a Sunday afternoon. He replied within 2 hours and on the Monday I had a very polite lady call me with all her contact details. Engineer came out 2 days later and all was sorted. They even rang me back a week later as promised to make sure all was still ok....Happy Days.

[bad company]

Make a complaint, ask for the recording of the sales call. They are very likely to back down.

Don't see much point in changing. I'm with O2 who are no better.

[Motorrad]

I love reading these threads.

People who could do better being in thrall to the worst sort of company and then whining when they get ass raped by the scum of the earth.

These s exist for one reason: to extract the maximum amount of money from their sad victims.

[randlemarcus]

I have had this recently. Google AskJeroen, exec resolution team. Worked for me,but I am a good overspending ARPU customer and this obviously ticks their boxes

[zollburgers]

Sodabone did very similar to me a few years back and I won't touch them again.

I rang to cancel my existing contract to go to pay as you go (since I had a free work phone) and they offered me a great deal and so I stayed with a contract. Except it turned out to be a 6 month discount, which I was not told about, and I was locked into a 12 month contract. I complained a lot and they extended it 3 more months.

I hope they enjoyed the extra few pounds they fraudulently extracted. I changed providers and jobs and am back on contract with someone else.

[mjb1]

Sheepshanks said:

TheGreatSoprendo said:

I have already cancelled the direct debit and will be informing them that I won't be making any further payments until this is resolved to my satisfaction.

That's a really bad idea. They'll just pull the shutters down and send the debt collectors after you.

Sheep is right, unfortunately. The very same company shafted me similarly - charged my debit card and took the same payment by direct debit as well, so double charged me. I argued with them for months, did direct debit indemnity claims and got the money back (every month, when they took the money again and again). I wrote to the CEO (it isn't him directly, they have a whole office full of customer service people that just deal with complaints to the CEO). They had a 'case' open while they tried to locate the payments, so they knew it was all in 'dispute', but they never did find the money in their bank accounts.

Anyway, while all this was going on my account was repeatedly suspended preventing me from making and even receiving calls (bear in mind this is a business account as well). Each time it took hours on the phone, being passed around departments to get the account bar lifted while they continued to investigate. Eventually they went the whole hog and totally cancelled my account - to the extent that my account number wasn't even recognised by customer services' computers any more. I had to go to my nearest branch of their shop and pay in person (the disputed amount, again, and show my original bank statements to them, so they would accept the duplicate payment. They didn't even refund me - just credited onto my account (and it took months to use up the credit with my monthly bills). No apology, no compensation, nothing. Unfortunately for me, they are the only network that has the coverage levels and network reliability that works for me in my area.

Best bet is to reinstate your DD, stay up to date with what they say you owe. If you really want to pursue it write to them demanding a refund and then start a moneyclaim against them.

[TheGreatSoprendo]

Motorrad said:

I love reading these threads.

People who could do better being in thrall to the worst sort of company and then whining when they get ass raped by the scum of the earth.

These s exist for one reason: to extract the maximum amount of money from their sad victims.

Awww, bless, you say the sweetest things.