Scammed by my mobile provider...
Discussion
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:
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.
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. 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.
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.
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?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. 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.
Quick update on this. Having submitted a detailed complaint to Jeroen Hoencamp, their CEO (thanks to whover posted his contact details), I have just received a written response from his office which says:
- They (conveniently) no longer have a copy of the call recordings relating to this.
- My employer is not one of those eligible for VEA discount (no mention of why it was an eligible employer when they were trying to stop me leaving but isn't now I'm trying to get them to reinstate the discount)
- They're very sorry about the service I received, it clearly fell below their usual standards, blah, blah, blah...
- ...but, that said, they won't be reapplying the discount to my account.
Indeed. The approach I'm considering is to send a letter (as opposed to an e-mail) to the CEO marked P&C and sent Special Delivery. I'll tell him that the response I've received from his office is not acceptable and that I signed up for a 2 year contract on the basis that a 20% discount would apply for the duration. They sought to make a change to my account, knowing full well that this would lose me my discount, but failed to tell me until it was too late to get it reinstated.
Therefore, if they won't reinstate the discount I'd like to cancel my account with immediate effect. If they don't want to do that I'll be raising a complaint with the Ombudsman, but also raising the issue with Martin Lewis @ Money Saving Expert, the Personal Finance editors of all major national newspapers and BBC Watchdog to help ensure that others aren't caught out in the same way I have been.
At the same time, I'll send them a Subject Access Request for call recordings and any system notes relating to both my renewal and the subsequent amend to my account.
Thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome!
Therefore, if they won't reinstate the discount I'd like to cancel my account with immediate effect. If they don't want to do that I'll be raising a complaint with the Ombudsman, but also raising the issue with Martin Lewis @ Money Saving Expert, the Personal Finance editors of all major national newspapers and BBC Watchdog to help ensure that others aren't caught out in the same way I have been.
At the same time, I'll send them a Subject Access Request for call recordings and any system notes relating to both my renewal and the subsequent amend to my account.
Thoughts/comments/suggestions welcome!
Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff