Talk Mobile - Returned a phone within 7 days but they want me to pay £438.

Amps

Amps

Amps

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Talk Mobile - Returned a phone within 7 days but they want me to pay £438.

I recently ordered a Desire S from Talk Mobile on the £18 a month for 24 months tariffs but on delivery of the phone it became apparent that I didn’t get a signal from my house so the next day I contact talk mobile to enquire about the return process. They advised that I can only return the phone to a Carphone Warehouse store and not directly to them. As I work Monday to Friday I couldn’t manage to return the phone until the 22nd July. The phone its self was delivered to my house on the 18th of July. So I retuned the phone well within the 14 days allowed under the distance selling act.
The day I returned the phone I contacted talk mobile an hour later and they confirmed it had been received verbally. So on that basis I confirmed that conversation by email only to be told on the 27th of July that the phone had not been disconnected and that I was to ignore all letters from talk mobile I was also instructed to cancel my direct debit.
“Thank you for your email. I was sorry to hear that you had not received a call back regarding the disconnection of the mobile contract, please accept my apologise for this.
I have checked the details and can see that you took the contract out on the 15th July and then returned it to store on the 22nd July within the 14 days return period. The account should then have disconnected due to the return. The account has stayed active and continued to send bills out to you. I am sorry for this error.
I have now requested the account be disconnected and the charges on the account removed. I have also cancelled the direct debit on the account to ensure we cannot take payment. If you receive any correspondence about not having an active direct debit set up on the account just disregard this, these letters are sent out automatically and do not reflect your personal circumstances.
I hope this is a satisfactory outcome to your issue. Please accept my apologise for any inconvenience caused to you. “
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So on the 29th of July I received a bill for £24.60. I contacted talk mobile again to confirm that this bill would be credited I received no response until the 5th of august. The response is as follows.
“Dear XXXX,
Thank you for your email.
I am sorry to hear of the problems you are experiencing with your account.
The Talkmobile account has not been disconnected. Having looked into this further, I can see that this is because when you returned the contract to the store, they did not apply this to the system correctly.
Because of this, the only way to disconnect your account now, is for the store to pay off the rest of the contract in full. They will need to provide you with a cheque for the amount of £438. This is the fee for the contract until it was due to end in July 2013.
I have sent an email to XXX in the XXX branch who processed the return for you to advise him that he will need to raise this cheque for you.
When you have received the cheque and it has cleared, you will need to call customer services on 0870 071 5888 to make a payment for this amount. Your account will then disconnect within 48 hours.
I am sorry that this is taking longer than expected to resolve. For us to disconnect this for you, the amount above will be required to pay off the cost of the contract in full.
If you require any further assistance, please reply to this email.
Kind Regards”
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I am completely at a loss at how to resolve this on contacting them they continually fob me off advising that they will get someone to phone me back but they dont and they not longer appear to answer my emails. Additionally the local store as you would imagine don’t want to part with the £438 as instructed by their customer support team.

Can anyone advise how I can resolve this and how I stop this effecting my credit rating?
 
Go in store and talk to them directly.

Why waste time emailing when you could sort it out in person? If they try to fob you off then get them to ring the customer support.

Do this on a weekend if you work.
 
The contract was taken out with Talk Mobile online and not carphone warehouse , the same group but seperate companies. Carphone warehouse instore pull the "we dont have access to their system" card.
 
[TW]Fox;19778999 said:
It seems the store has messed up and must therefore rectify this.
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[FnG]magnolia;19779043 said:
Go in to the store and speak to someone face to face if the phone/email options aren't working out.
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Do this.

Get the store and talkmobile to liaise directly with each other. It is their mistake and you should not be liable or responsible for rectifying it.

Not sure I understand this £438 rigmarole, surely Carphone Warehouse can deal directly with Talkmobile?
 
Amps said:
The contract was taken out with Talk Mobile online and not carphone warehouse , the same group but seperate companies. Carphone warehouse instore pull the "we dont have access to their system" card.
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They can contact CS instore. I had similar issues with CW and O2 with a faulty handset and CW setting up the wrong contract.
 
Castiel said:
Not sure I understand this £438 rigmarole, surely Carphone Warehouse can deal directly with Talkmobile?
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I pointed out to thier CS that under the The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 I have forfilled the requirements for returning a product and my contract with them should cease. At this point I got told they will phone me back and the call ended..
 
Amps said:
I pointed out to thier CS that under the The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 I have forfilled the requirements for returning a product and my contract with them should cease. At this point I got told they will phone me back and the call ended..
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I understand what they are asking you, however I do not understand why they cannot resolve this inhouse.
 
Surely if it's CW's **** up then you've done your part and they should quibble over the £400 themselves!? :confused:
 
I don't see why you should be in any way responsible for a mess up on their end. Seems you did everything you needed to do, wonder how the store messed up the cancellation?
 
I contacted Talk Mobile today to be told that customer cannot phone the cancellations department. They will contact me.
So completely unable to contact anyone who can help me from their CS.
 
Distance selling doesnt cover mobile phone contracts, when i took out a contract through an agent you only have 7 days to change your mind not 14, im not sure if thats standard.

When i cancelled i had to get a reference number from the place i bought it from and had to phone T-Mobile myself to get it cancelled.
 
I paid £50 for some Nokia phone on a contract with Vodaphone (direct) in about 2004-2005. The phone had a common fault and in the 2-3 days from ordering the phone to finding the phone faulty, my current network decided to reduce the phone from £150 to £30 as an upgrade. I returned the phone and was meant to pay for nothing but calls which would have been pennies. I never got the £50 back. I rang every month for 10 months and each time they said

"yes we owe you £50. I'll get finance to issue you a cheque. It will take 28 days so don't phone before then"

Good luck.
 
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