Thread: My sons vodaphone account

My son stupidly ran up a large bill with his contract account.
which was terminated last november, i kept onto him to pay a little off every month, But this week he has recieved a letter from a solicitor accting on behlf of capquest, I need to slow things down while a strangle him and drain all his money off him.

I think there must be some charges added to his account as it has gone up rather than down since november last year and the account is closed

What is the best way forward

• SAR to vodaphone
• Dispute the dept with the soliciotr and Capquest which format.

All help would be appreciated

There will be charges added for contract termination, as he didn't keep his side of the arrangement. These are normal, and effectively mean he's been defaulted and the account calculated to reflect vodafone closing the account and passing it for collection.

You'll find it difficult you say the account is in dispute, as he's not bothered to complain about anything until the solicitor became involved. A SAR will do nothing useful to help challenge this, although it will simply show the sequence of events to closure.

Being hopeless with money isn't a valid excuse, so unless he can prove some type of error of vodafone's part, he'll probably have to bite the bullet and pay up.

Buzby

thanks for the sound advice, but I was trying to play for time while I stangled him and got some sense out of him and started to make some regular payments, to clear the balance, which has gone up some £500 from when he thinks the account was closed , but no records.

so the SAR was to get a copy of were the additonal monies had come from, plus he stated he has paid monies off but agin no records, not even bank statements which he is getting to aid the dispute for the full ammount and possibly charges??

Write a letter to the solicitor on behalf of your son giving them a form of payment plan to clear the debt.

Ensure the letter is from him and get him to sign it.

In the letter, put in a paragraph, in big letters, stating "I give my mother, <your full name>, permission to discuss my account with you on my behalf".

This will allow you to act on behalf of your son.

If there is a fax number, fax the letter to the solicitors, and phone them to check that they have got it.

Follow the fax up by posting it to them via recorded delivery.

Most solicitors are reasonable and only get nasty if they don't get any form of communication.

Your SAR will only show what vodafone added to the point of termination - once passed to external collections, they have their own fees and the SAR won't show this. There is every possibility vodafone have by now sold off the debt so the collections firm are treading it as their money. This opens a useful loophole where you ask them for evidence of his agreement, and if they cannot provide this, they cannot collect!

Buzy

Your making me happy.
Is there a standard letter format already avilable to send or should i just draught something up askibg for a copy of the agreement????

It's not an agreement (too easily confused as a 'credit agreement' which this won't be), simply write a simple letter to the debt collection agency stating that you are unable to reconcile the figures they state is owing, and you would like them to note that until you can verify the amounts, you are disputing the account in its entirety.

Then, in the next paragraph, state that you understand that the mobile phone service was provided under a service contract from vodafone, you would also like a copy of this along with any terms and conditions applicable to it. *

* That should hold 'em for a bit.

Interesting replies over the weekend and this morning.

Scotcall have sent the letter back we sent asking for copy of original agreement and the cheque for £1 , with a covering letter saying account handed back to original creditor.

Capquest have sent two letter

1. putting account on hold while they investigate 28 days
2. asking for £10 for SAR request to vodaphone

Which I find strange as we have done this direct to Vodaphone. and copied them so that they were under no illusion what we were doing

so will respond , asking them to produce a copy of the agreement as origannly requested and that we have asked vodaphone direct for the SAR.
Not there responsibility

If you enter into a dispute, it will be o2 who have to justify their figures. If you can find fault to challenge their figures and do so, it helps if you can pay the reduced amount. (However, if it was enforced contract termination for non-payment, it is difficult if not impossible to get this back - even though you did not use the bundled services).