If Phones4U have supplied a phone to containing parts Apple say are counterfeit and the phone won't work you have excellent grounds to make a complaint to Trading Standards and ask them to investigate - its hardly your fault that you've been supplied with faulty and counterfeit goods and from a legal standpoint Phones4U have an obligation to supply you with genuine and working goods.

A post dated cheque or one which you won't allow them to cash, or which you've sent to an ombudsman still means that your going to be late in paying your bills with all of the attendant risks that poses. You can only take a complaint to ADR if it has been ongoing more than eight weeks or if Orange have supplied you with a deadlock letter to allow you that, as I've said if they as a business make a decision not to give you an unlocking code this is not grounds for a complaint to CISAS, they can make a decision to say no to your request or insist that they will only offer a code under certain terms like only issuing unlocking codes to customers who have registered that phone on the network for three months and you can't really do anything about it. The ADR schemes exist to deal with complaints about billing, network services and poor customer service - saying no to a customer isn't poor service generally either - the customer is not always right and you can't always give them whatever they want.

It would be courteous to ASK them to pay you a reasonable amount which in my view would be say £10-15 per hour, as it sounds like its their fault and it has cost you some time. I wouldn't send them a bill at this stage, you need to bear in mind you are their customer not their employee, an argument along the lines of I'm a stockbroker, surgeon, etc and my wages are £250.00 per hour, therefore, you need to pay me for my time as if I'm employed by you is likely to get nowhere with Customer Services. Yes you could ask that they cover your direct expenses, the going rate for this would be what it actually cost you.It's an oversight/error which is in the process of being corrected, it doesn't appear to be a fundamental breach of contract. Only you can decide whether you should pursue a claim against them. The telecoms industry is regulated by Ofcom, I believe Ed Richards is their CEO, however, Ofcom only track complaint trends for the most part, they do not usually take a view on or assist with individual consumer complaints. All communications providers have to be a member of an alternative dispute resolution scheme, 02 are a member of an ombudsman scheme - http://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html - you should be aware that there are rules on making complaints to this sort of scheme - you should follow the guidance on making a complaint in 02's Code of Practice - they have to publish a copy of this on their website.

I'll admit my geography and politics are a little rusty, but since when did Egypt become part of Europe or the EU? It seems that the Euro data limit thing is irrelevant.

Refusing to pay rarely gets you anything other than a lot of heartache - if they consider the money due they'll chase you for it - including trashing your credit file for the next six years if you don't pay it and instructing a dca to get the money from you.

Interesting reply - On what basis do you believe that a breach of contract has occurred? My understanding is that the phone does not form part of your contract which is for access to the network only - given that you bought the phone from eBay not Orange directly it would make your ground even shakier to insist that Orange supply an unlocking code for a phone you bought from someone else. On the point about ADR, you can't challenge decisions that a company has made about whether or not they will supply a product or service to you and the terms they impose, if you could everyone unhappy with the price of a phone or a deal they'd been offered would be able to use ADR to attempt to force price concessions from the networks. If they refuse to give something to you or insist on terms your not happy with then your choices are limited, you can accept their position and whatever terms they wish to impose, you could have the phone unlocked elsewhere, or you can attempt legal action at your cost and expense to get what you want. FROM THE CISAS WEBSITE:I have a complaint with a CISAS member, but they say I cannot use CISAS. Why?If your complaint is about one of the following matters, CISAS cannot deal with it........• Business decisions a company has made on whether or not to provide a product or service, and the terms under which they will provide a product or service.

Mobile phone contracts are service agreements, they aren't governed by an specific legislation rather they are governed by generic legislation which applies to any sort of service agreement - for example the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. Mobile phone contracts do not at anytime grant credit, they can allow you to incur a debt but attempting any line of argument that mobile phone contracts are subject to the CCA will get you nowhere - likewise attempting to argue that a default cannot be enforced as you didn't receive a default notice will get you very short shrift from the networks - there is simply no legal obligation for them to provide you with a formal default notice - that being said most networks do provide written notice that a default will be registered if payment is not forthcoming via their collections letters sent to your last known address, your bills would also indicate that payment was overdue - should the network appoint a debt collection agency the DCA will also inform you of the effects of non payment upon your credit file. The network have the capacity to report on your credit file as you consented to this when you entered into the contract, it is a standard term in all mobile phone contracts that they may communicate with credit reference agencies to inform them about how you conduct your account.

It is farily well established that customers are liable for any usage up until they report the loss or theft of the SIM card to the network, this is a prominent term in all mobile phone contracts, your in possession of the SIM and its your responsibility to safeguard it.You state that you plan to write to CISAS but they have a maximum limitation of £5000.00 for any claim and I presume that Orange's offer to reduce the debt is in full and final settlement, so I doubt you could accept their credit and then make a CISAS claim for the remaining balance. Additionally if you check the CISAS case study bulletins you will find that by and large they rule in favour of the networks in lost and stolen cases, I believe that Otelo do likewise so I don't think that arbitration will help you in this case. As locutus says if you've emigrated they cannot pursue you internationally for the debt, this would only become an issue if you returned to live in the UK, even then the debt would be statute barred and irrecoverable under the Limitations Act after six years, likewise non payment and any defaults will fall off your credit file in the UK after six years also.

A truly awful attempt at factual journalism - not really surprising given that its the Daily Mail, but still the article is riddled with errors and inaccuracies.

The guidelines you refer to appear to me to be relevant to CCA regulated contracts only, this isn't one of those types of contract so arguably they don't apply. The consent is generally phrased in such a way that it is relevant to the matter of any payments due under the contract. Even if they are no longer supplying services if they still consider the sums due under the consent you gave when you entered into the contract they can generally continue to record info. The CRAs would accept a notice of connection from you stating that the sum owed is in dispute and this would have to considered by anyone checking your file in the future, but I think that notices of correction aren't permanent notices, they drop off your credit file after a month of so (I could be wrong), whereas info recorded by Orange will stay on there for 6 years. This is something that you need to sort out with Orange directly I think, either ring them again and calmly explain your position or email them or send them a letter setting out your thoughts, generally its better to have records if the dispute escalates though and you need to prove you have contacted them at a later date.

Yes they are able to report your payment history to a CRA, you consented to this when you entered into a contract with them - its a standard clause in all mobile phone contracts, that being said Orange's actions seem to be excessive, whereas yours seem perfectly reasonable. If the amount you owe is in dispute they shouldn't report you to a CRA, they must have some sort of way of stopping this when a bill is in dispute otherwise everytime they made a billing mistake they'd screw up someones credit file.

Your only entitled to compensation from a Data Protection standpoint if you can prove that a breach of the act has occurred and that you've suffered damage(s) in the legal sense as a result of that breach - I can't see that you've established that you've suffered any damage at the moment so expecting to receive ANY compensation let alone a substantial amount is premature and extremley optimistic at this stage, the Orange rep is frankly an idiot. It sounds to me like neither you, the courier, Orange or the ICO have investigated the matter in any detail, report your concerns to the latter three and ask them to investigate the matter initially and apprise you of their findings, once they have conducted an investigation then you can decide on what your next course of action will be.

You will need to provide them with the proof, this isn't the sort of thing they will just take your word for so I wouldn't write to them until your able to enclose a copy of the bills.

Sorry I just parroted what I thought were the results, I wasn't fully awake so I was probably mistaken, I also didn't do any sums or consider the implications of my comments. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/complaints_procedures/annexes/annex8.pdf is the Synovate report I was talking about. That is the other Ofcom report I was talking about on ADR. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/complaints_procedures/statement/statement.pdfThey aren't the most interesting of documents and I don't have the time to go through them again at the moment.

There is some research on the Ofcom website by Synovate that states that 87% of people interviewed following arbitration (so Otelo and CISAS) considered their complaint to be completely resolved. 57% considered it to be partially resolved.

On what do you base that opinion?The last report I saw on CISAS which was published by Ofcom indicated that 60+% of claims receive a favourable resolution for customers from memory, whether that is a settlement by the network or a decision in their favour. It was a couple of years ago since I read the report though I could be wrong.

Minors and other people without capacity can contract to some extent for essentials, food, clothing etc, but a mobile wouldn't fall into that category.Mobile phones don't generally form part of the contract which are agreements for supply of network services, the offer to supply a mobile phone is an inducement to enter the contract, not the contract itself, so can a minor solicit receipt of a phone by agreeing with a T-Mob salesperson that it should be sent out? I suspect not, but it's a difficult one, the text you quoted above mentioned "on behalf of a person", if the minor agreed to receipt of the goods they are not strictly speaking unsolicited because the son on behalf of the op solicited them (if they have capacity), the goods themselves are incidental to the contract which strenghtens the op's position to retain them, but it's something I'm not 100% sure on. Not sure if I'm making sense or just rambling here though.

Yeah the Unsolicited Goods Act was what I was thinking of, the question becomes whether or not the goods were solicited (it seems the son agreed to the dispatch of the goods so this could be construed as on the ops behalf) and whether a minor without the capacity to contract can solicit goods? Also relevant would be who the goods were addressed too I think. Something the op should take some professional legal advice on if they have access to a legal advice service I think.

T-Mob are talking nonsense, the "contract" as they refer to it doesn't exist, a third party can't enter into a contract on your behalf and a minor who lacks the capacity to contract certainly can't. I'm not even sure that they have a legal right to have the goods back.

If you want to post the emails up that's your decision, as others have pointed out the contents might be privileged, also if you do decide to post up any emails remove any personal data from it, yours and the person(s) your corresponding with.

Lets hope you don't have to return to the UK anytime in the next six years and require credit because Orange will have destroyed your creditworthiness

OK after undertaking some further research some contracts have a usage limit in some cases, you don't get credit on a mobile phone contract so you don't get a credit limit, that being said, Orange do refer to it as a credit limit but that's just a poorly drafted contract IMO. The contract makes it clear that even if Orange do set a usage limit they aren't obliged to bar you if you exceed it, and they are not hard and fast limits in the same was as one on your credit card. I'm not certain the op could rely on this limit to claim that they were only liable to a certain extent. "We may set monthly credit limits for Charges. We may (but do not have to) Suspend some or all of our Services if you go over a credit limit. You should not use a credit limit for budgeting because the amount you owe is not capped or limited by any credit limit we set."

Were talking about roaming data here not UK data, roaming data is not included in any tariff that I'm aware of and as the networks get billing data in batches from the network your using whilst abroad I doubt any of them undertake to limit usage. They can get billing data for roaming particually in obscure places days, weeks or in extreme cases months until after you've used the service, that being the case they can't cap expenditure whilst roaming, in many cases by the time the networks get the charges its too late to place a cap.I'm not going to comment on the specifics of your complaint with Orange because I haven't the time or paitence to review the 70+??? posts you've added to the forum about it. But here's some advice for free, if Orange have set out their postion and you can't or won't agree with it either take the matter to arbitration if that option is available, take the matter to court or let the matter lie.

To be fair to Voda they seem to be doing a good job on here and the site team seem pleased to have them on here.