Help! Vodafone are ruining my life

[oversteer]

Hi there, for two years I've been working on a software development project at home and living off savings. It's fair to say

that the project has turned out to be more complex than originally foreseen but nonetheless is 85% complete and should

have the potential to become revenue generating with 3 months further work.

 

Following a recent marriage separation everything has been thrown into turmoil and I quickly came to the conclusion that

it would be necessary to get a job to provide me with an income. I got an interview with a company (a leading global brand)

who liked my skillset and were happy about the fact that I'd developed these skills in a non-commercial environment because

of my extensive past history.

 

Because the division of the company is involved in the finance sector (a lot of my experience has been in financial services)

a pre-requisite of acceptance for the position is that I pass a credit check. I figured this would be pretty straightforward as

I have no mortgage (house owned outright) and no borrowings. So it came as a hammer blow when I failed the credit check

as was told by the HR department that I would be ineligible for the role. It's hard to describe the sense of disappointment I

felt when the one great chance I had to lift me out of the terrible situation I'm in was dashed to pieces. It's been the worst

5 months of my life (I'm 47) by a very long way and so to have picked myself up off the floor and taken positive steps to

get back on my feet, only for it to turn out to be all for nothing is a bitter pill to swallow.

 

I applied for and received a statutory credit report from Experian which showed a default of £66 for Vodafone and another

for £139 for Capquest (formerly FTC), both the default dates being the same 04/10/09. I can remember the situation very

clearly. I had been on contract with Vodafone since 30/07/02, and I'd had a very lengthy contract with them prior to this

(I first had a mobile in 1994 and had always been with Vodafone). The contract in question was £50/month and due to a

change in circumstances I realised that it no longer made economic sense to continue with the agreement so I set about

cancelling it.

 

It turned out that whilst you could do just about everything on the Vodafone website one thing it was not possible to do was

cancel a contract. This is obviously purely for the cynical reason of making it as easy as possible for people to spend money

with the company and as difficult as possible to stop spending money. After much digging around on google I found an

address to which I had to send a letter requesting cancellation, and this I did. The contract included a one month notice period

and after one month the funds were still being withdrawn from my account.

 

So I wrote another letter which pointed out that I'd already written to them asking for the contract to be cancelled. Another

month later a sum of slightly more than £50 is withdrawn from my account again. So I wrote a third time, and you guessed it,

they're still taking the money out of my account.

 

At this point I reckon that I'm approx. £110 out of pocket so I had no choice but to cancel the direct debit. Then I recollect

Vodafone debt chasers phoning me up and sending me letters. I politely but firmly explained that I felt that they owed me

money and not the other way round. It would seem that they sold the debt off to a factoring agency Capquest, and that

the single debt is now logged twice on my credit report.

 

The thing is that I moved house in October 2009 and Vodafone were not included in the list of people I notified about my new

address, so the existence of a credit default has come as a most unpleasant surprise.

 

Due to my marriage separation I can't easily access the letters I wrote to Vodafone however I believe that they still exist on

a partially working laptop that is in my ex-wife's possession. We communicate only via solicitors so it would be a fair amount

of hassle to get hold of this evidence, not to mention that the graphics chip on the computer is on the blink and to get it

working for even a few minutes requires that I have to heat up the laptop by putting it somewhere hot.

 

So, all in all I feel very badly treated by Vodafone, can anyone suggest what I could do to get these notices removed from

my credit file? The one positive at present is that the hiring manager at the company has indicated that if I can get the credit

situation resolved in 3 weeks (which seems unlikely) then I'm still in with a chance to get the job, and oh boy do I need it.

 

Thanks.

Edited July 24, 2012 by oversteer

[locutus]

OK, first and foremost, lets get the webteam on this case. Follow this advice

Hi CAG members,

We thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves and to assure you all that our presence on CAG is with the very best of intentions.

vodafone UK has recently introduced a dedicated Web Relations Team which is keen to seek out customers who’re having difficulties with their accounts and feel that they have no other place to turn to than CAG and other consumer forums and blogs.

Naturally, it’s not possible for us to help directly with account specific queries on CAG and as such we would encourage those members who feel we can help them to contact us privately at customer.care@help.vodafone.co.uk quoting ‘WRT135 – CAG Forum’ in the subject line to ensure that it reaches the Web Relations Team.

When emailing us we would also ask that you either provide us with a link to your post or thread – if you’ve posted in another member’s thread please also provide your CAG username so that we can check what your query is.

[oversteer]

OK, first and foremost, lets get the webteam on this case. Follow this advice

 

Thanks, I've sent a mail with a link to this post.

[locutus]

Excelent. You should shortly recieve an automated reply. Post the reference number in the subject line in this thread, that will help vodafone match your details with your forum post.

[oversteer]

Topic title updated as requested. Thanks.

[locutus]

That's excelent. Lee (who normally deals with issues on CAG) can trace you from the reference #9533737 and it keeps his job easier

 

Issues such as yours are all too common here on CAG. Giving Lee his dues, he normally gets these things sorted quickly. If you keep us up to date with how things progress it will help others in the future

[oversteer]

Sure thing, I guarantee that I'll keep this post fully updated and I hope that the information will be of help to others in the future.

 

Thanks very much for your help, it's much appreciated.

[Lee Vodafone Company Rep]

Hi oversteer,

 

Thanks for raising your concerns with us and for following the guidance provided by locutus.

 

Having checked your email reference number I can see that my colleague Heidi picked things up during my absence.

 

Please be assured that we've got your most recent email and as such will get back to you as quickly as possible.

 

Kind regards,

 

Lee

 

Web Relations Team

 

Vodafone UK

[oversteer]

Thanks very much for the response Lee. Regrettably when Heidi called last week my phone was turned off as I was in a meeting

at the time but I look forward to speaking with someone soon.

 

Regards

[Lee Vodafone Company Rep]

You're welcome oversteer.

 

Although I wasn't able to reach you yesterday I'll try again today.

 

Thanks,

 

Lee

 

Web Relations Team

 

Vodafone UK

 

[2Grumpy]

Another example of Vodaphone using defaults as a method of debt collection.

 

You will probably need copies of the letters that you sent to vodaphone if you want to sue them for the lost income from the job that their actions prevented you from getting

 

Previous posts don't suggest that, at best, Vodaphone do anything other than remove defaults as a "gesture of goodwill" - and they only do that if they are presented with evidence that they are in the wrong.

 

In your case, if Vodaphone don't remove the default but you are able to access the letters at a later date, you will be able to show that Vodaphone didn't take the first opportunity to start putting things right and maybe take them for even more ...

[oversteer]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I spoke to Lee from Vodafone yesterday and it turns out that they have copies of the letters

I sent, presumably scanned in. What it turns out happened (I'd forgotten some of the finer detail) was that I'd requested

a PAC code and they don't close the account until PAC code has been used.

 

From my perspective I'd written asking for the account to be closed and after one month they were still taking money from

my account. Because I was trying to save money and not spend even more, I was waiting for the original account to be

closed before using the PAC code to transfer my phone number to another service provider. The last thing I wanted was to duplicate my outgoings.

 

So in a way I was in a catch-22 situation. Lee has indicated that Vodafone will do a quality assessment on this case but this doesn't sound like it's going to happen quickly enough for me. There's also no guarantee that any findings will be in my favour

however I'm quietly optimistic. As far as I'm aware I'm still in with a chance to get this job if this all gets resolved very rapidly,

and it will be a crying shame if that doesn't happen.

 

Another point I should mention is that there were two phones on the account mine and my ex-wife's and this is the reason

for the two default notices, however I was under the impression that it was two phone numbers but one account, and the

letters requested the cancellation of both the phone numbers so I don't see why one should be £66 and the other £139.

 

Thanks for your support.

[2Grumpy]

You would have thought that they would have replied to your later letters to remind you that you had applied for a pac code.

 

This scenario appears here fairly frequently - it sounds as though the process isn't working particularly well

[Lee Vodafone Company Rep]

Hi oversteer,

 

Thanks for updating the thread following our conversation earlier in the week.

 

As promised, I'll get back in touch with you as soon as I can.

 

Thanks,

 

Lee

 

Web Relations Team

 

Vodafone UK

 

 

[Human Writes]

You would have thought that they would have replied to your later letters to remind you that you had applied for a pac code.

 

This scenario appears here fairly frequently - it sounds as though the process isn't working particularly well

 

Complain to Ofcom about it, it's the process they approved and which all of the networks use. If you ask to transfer your number, the onus lies with you to ensure that it does happen, but they should send you something in writing to confirm if you don't use the PAC the number will remain connected.