Talkmobile being stubborn/ their terms and conditions not adhered to.

[rise49]

Hi,

Hopefully you can help or give advice on what to do regards talkmobile and their total lack of understanding regards the issue I have at the moment. I have chatted online to them and was told they had escalated the matter and I should expect a call with 48 hours. After 2 weeks of no reply I rang them, The gentleman on the phone was firm and I was not put onto his supervisor/manager to discuss the matter. They stated they do not offer an sort of payment plan and the sum needed paying straight away or the phone will be cut off, it has already been cut off for sending texts or ringing people, although texts phone calls are still coming through o my phone for the time being.

 

 

Here is the issue I have. My 16 year old son has issues with gambling, He maxed my credit card 6 months back to the tune of £800, which I couldn’t claim back as I had left my card for him to have easy access to. I would have paid anyway as I feel I am my son’s dad so have a duty to pay off any debts as he is still a Minor and worried he may get done for fraud if I make a complaint??.

 

 

After this I have blocked all sites on my router and made sure he has zero data on his pay monthly sim (I spoke to the lady when setting it up and she put a note on his record to allow 0 data on his 3G phone) My son rarely goes out and when he does he goes to his friend’s house who also has the same issues as my son regards betting and having spoken to their parents they also have full blockage on adult related sites, and his phone is very old so has no option to connect to the internet.

 

 

My phone was coming up for an upgrade and I chose talkmobile as they had a Sony Aqua for £12.50 per month which I felt was a very good deal. However my son used my phone to access gambling sites via my 4g and paid for these gambiling sites via my phone, I hadn’t a clue you could do this so did some talking with talkmobile and it was with is a company called Boku who deal with gambling sites along with other sites which are much more legitimate. My main issue is he raked up £400 and the only reason I knew is when outgoing calls were blocked. I told the webchat team that when I signed up I had a £50 maximum limit (this is in their terms and conditions) so how could charges go all the way up to £400 and I not be informed of an issue on my account, I asked for a breakdown and all charges were to Boku.

 

 

As I said at the start, it is my son that has caused these charges so it only feels right I pay for his errors, I have made sure my son has paid for his stupidity and had both his mobile phone and laptop removed indefinitely at least until this matter is resolved. I asked talktalk for a payment plan and they refused outright and demanded full payment, I will not be able to pay £400 in one go, so I checked all their terms and conditions and these two stood out the most which may help my case??

 

 

Their Age restricted content states that :-

 

 

Your Talkmobile phone is automatically set to block access to all age restricted content.

Age restricted content is anything that has been classified as 18+ by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), or any 18+ sites that might contain any of the following:

• Adult humour

• Pornography

• Alcohol/tobacco

• Gambling

• Violence/hate/racism

• Weapons

• Cult/occult

• Illegal drugs

• Personals/dating

• Chat/instant messaging

We block this content in accordance with the OFCOM code of practise and UK and EU regulation in order to protect underage and vulnerable people from potentially harmful content.

The content block means that you can protect anyone under the age of 18 from seeing any potential adult content. This could be useful if you have children who have Talkmobile phones, or if anyone underage has access to your phone.

 

I checked the age restriction policy and pornographic sites were blocked but no gambling sites at all were blocked. Is this a breach of their terms and conditions??

 

They also have an allowance limit in their terms and conditions which state :-

The allowance limit is designed to protect your account from someone using your phone fraudulently. Once you hit £50 of billed usage we'll restrict your services. This means you won't be able to use your phone but you'll be able to receive inbound calls and texts. To remove this restriction you need to make a payment to bring you below the £50 allowance limit. Then you can carry on using your phone as usual. Is this another breach of their terms and conditions?? as they allowed my account to go all the way up to £400 until they cut me allowing to make calls or send texts, thus making me aware and getting into contact with talkmobile, at no time did I receive any correspondence from talkmobile.

 

 

As I stated at the beginning I feel I should pay for my sons issues with gambling as he is a minor and I have a duty or care (I am in contact with a charity who have said they will may with his issues) the issue is talkmobiles refusal to even get in a discussion regards a payment plan which has really annoyed me mainly due to ineptitude on their part and my fault for leaving my phone lying around so my son had easy access to it. but with the age restriction block on I felt it would be fine.

 

I know this is long winded but I have no clue of the law and was wondering if it was worth writing to their complaints department to hopefully resolve the matter and sort a payment plan out??

 

Also is there a template letter at all that covers things like this?

 

Thanks for your help and if you have read all of this you will need a cup of tea lol.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Kirk

[fkofilee]

Hi Kirk

 

Welcome back to CAG....

 

A prezzie for you, use wisely.

 

[email protected] - MD Of CPW

 

Send a letter / email stating they have breached their own T&Cs... and also about the poor CS you have received, If its worth it, try moving to another network. Giffgaff for example

Once credit is gone then its their issue, might beable to teach YS some discipline (Not a crack on your parenting skills )

[rise49]

Thanks for the reply and details of the MD address. I am stuck in a 2 year contract with so not sure I will be able to get out of that unless we can come to some sort of agreement, I also need my phone number for work related issues. Last night they were threatening adding a no payment default on my credit file so not the most friendly of call staff to deal with.

 

I will send an email to the MD and also a recorded letter to their complaints department. The sorry thing is I was willing to pay at £60 per month but was given a stern no. the guy was so rude I told him outright his terms and conditions were broken so they will only get my 12.50 per month charge until it is sorted.

 

Regards My son you are right, I thought he had sorted his issues out since spending £800 on my credit card over a year ago, but this has opened my eyes he really has an issue with gambling and I am worrying when he gets to 18 he will be free to do as he wants to.. Luckily I found a charity who can help and I am making sure I take half his paper round per week just to show his actions have consequences. Also the no laptop, phone and tv off at 9pm is really annoying him, but he needs to learn to use these items correctly

 

Thanks again for the reply.

 

Any advice from others who may have been in similar positions will be a big help.

Edited May 30, 2016 by rise49

[Bazooka Boo]

Certainly wothy of escalating the complaint within their own complaints procedure, and exhaust it, highlighting their abysmal (yet again) customer service, quite how they still have a licence to operate is beyond me!

 

Keep everything in writing/email, talking to one of their phone drones is about as much use as indicators on a submarine, they all read off a script, hence the standard commission based response, ''We can't do payment plans'' Yes you can, and YES you will.