Vodafone bill incorrect every month - can I cancel?

[kempc23]

I have had a sim only account with vodafone business for about 15 months now. The bills have been incorrect for at least 7 of those months. I stupidly agreed to another 12 months contract around 3 months ago, but I really cant afford to be spending 20-30 minutes on the phone each month sorting out their mess.

 

When I signed up originally, I was given 12 months free spotify. After 6 months, I started getting charged £10 a month. Each month, I would ring up, have to explain everything again, and they would put a £10 credit on my account to cancel out the charge. Each month I was promised it would be sorted for the next month, but it never was! This caused a lot of unnecessary admin for me. This went on for at least 4 months.

 

When I phoned to cancel a few months ago (I was out of contract), they were very apologetic, and promised me I would be billed correctly. They offered me a decent deal, which included a £50 credit, plus 6 months free spotify. The first month it was billed correctly.... but last month it was incorrect. I spent over half an hour being passed around trying to sort this out, and eventually spoke to somebody who promised he would fix it.

 

Yesterday I received a bill, and not only does it not have the £10 credit to reverse last months incorrect bill, but I have also been charged £10 for spotify AGAIN. Also, I have been charged for 11 days eurotraveller, when I was only abroad for 8 days that month!

 

I am sick to death of this, and do not have the time to have to sort out this mess every single month. Am I able to cancel this without any penalty? I have given them many opportunities to bill me correctly.

[kempc23]

I sent an email to Lee and received an automated reply with the following reference-

 

#8331028

[BankFodder]

In principle you can cancel without any penalty as long as you write to them, explain what the problem has been, how long it has gone on for and how much of your time it has taken you. You would also have to give them a time limit – say 14 days – to remedy the problem and to write to you with confirmation that it is remedied or else you will cancel. If Vodafone then failed to meet the deadlines that you set, you could then cancel.

 

The only problem is that Vodafone is a dinosaur and a bully. They will not pay any attention to you and although you would be acting completely lawfully in terminating the contract because of the continued breaches, they will not see it that way and they will just suspend your account, blight your credit file, get in the debt collectors and generally smash up your life. This is the way that many of the big companies handle things – especially the mobile phone operators – and especially Vodafone which on this form any rate seems to have made an art of mismanaging people's data, providing them with minimal services and causing them huge problems.

 

I'm afraid that the correct way to deal with this is to send in the letter which I have suggested above – but on no account cancel any direct debits or cease making payments. If Vodafone failed to remedy the problem within the time limit set, then your only remedy will be to sue them for their breach of contract. Vodafone are fundamentally flawed in their systems and in the customer service and this is the only kind of language that they will understand.

 

Of course this means that you will have to keep on paying for a service that you no longer use – but your County Court claim would get all this money back plus compensation for the aggravation that you have suffered over the months.

 

Why on earth you signed up for another 12 months, I really do not understand. I suppose that Vodafone has got lots of satisfied customers – but I have to say that I expect that there are many customers who suffer in silence, and certainly the risk of being badly hurt by Vodafone seems to be fairly high.

[Lee Vodafone Company Rep]

Hi kempc23,

 

I've got your email and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

 

Kind regards,

 

Lee

 

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