Disputed Vodafone debt £690.60

[Disco Dave]

Hi All

This is my first post of many (£50,000 + of debt all unsecured) as I finally take control of my finances I will need your help and support.

Current amount being claimed by SRJ Debt recovery £690.60 £300+ data charges disputed.

History

I was a Vodafone customer from 2004 I think till March 2008. During this time I renewed my contract yearly to obtain the latest handsets. My tariff included all the calls I had ever needed and had a fixed price bolt-on that covered all my data charges. I had used the roaming service before and although the bills had been high (£300 +) they had always been paid in the past.

Problem

In Feb 2008 I went on a diving holiday in Tenerife, just prior to my holiday I telephoned customer services to make sure roaming was still active and to check the costs, no reference was made during this call to data charges. When I got to Tenerife I received the normal text message welcoming me to Spain and informing me of the costs for phone calls and text messages. The holiday went off without issue I made and received calls and texts and my phone behaved normally, giving no indication of the bill that was being run up silently in the background.

The first I knew of a problem was when I received a call from Vodafone accounts informing me that I had gone over my credit limit and needed to make an immediate payment. When I quizzed the girl it turned out that there were in excess of £350 worth of data charges whilst I had been away on holiday, I told her that I hadn’t used the net whilst I was in Spain and she finally agreed to start an investigation and placed my account on hold for 7 days. We finally found out that my phone had been checking for email every half hour (although none were ever received) and the charges were totally down to this.

This was a service that I had setup on my phone 10 months or so earlier and was only ever used in case of emergency and had always been included in my package with no additional charges so i had totally forgotten anout it.

I immediately disputed these charges on the basis that the costs hadn’t been notified in advance and that all data charges had always been included in my normal monthly payment and also that I had no knowledge that the charges were being incurred. I pointed out that I had received a text that clearly detailed the cost of calls and texts but made no mention of data charges, had they been detailed in advance this may have caused me to check that the data side of the phone had been disabled.

We have been in deadlock ever since, I have requested a copy of the contract and the terms of the data bolt-on but all they have sent me is some copy invoices.

Can they enforce this debt without a copy of the contract or CCA?

I could do with stalling them for a few months till I make a informed decision about my overall financial position. But SRJ are threatening the county court or Sheriff’s court action .

Anybody got any thoughts that may help?

Regards Dave

[buzby]

Oh dear.

 

The trouble is data roaming charges are horrendous - and it is always suggested you disable all data access whilst you are abroad. As you know, it doesn;t matter in the UK where the charges are more reasonable, but your problem remains, and any negligence was on your part for not cancelling the data - and if it was checking 48 times daily, the costs would have been horrendous, especially as most of the cost would have been in setting up the connection to ping your email account, get a response and go quiet for another half-hour.

 

They are fully entitled to their money, and all you can do is throw yourself at their mercy and ask if they can provide some form of discount on the bill as you plainy are a responsible user, not expecting your phone to silently 'mug' you whilst abroad!

 

They may offer you a deal on a goodwill basis, but they've done nothing wrong, and whilst data charges are being looked at within the RU, it'll be too late to assist here I'm afraid.

[Lee Vodafone Company Rep]

Hi Dave,

 

If you'd like to Web Relations Team to take a look into this to see what can be done to help you feel free to email us your details by following the instructions in our pinned thread http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed/213340-vodafone-webteam-customers-problems.html

 

Thanks,

 

Lee

 

Web Relations Team

 

Vodafone UK