Rob's Blog

After discovering The Mobile Outlet had gone bust, we decided to ring T-Mobile to reduce the tariff Abby was on since she doesn’t use all her minutes.

It says on the back of every bill we’ve received “You can move to a lower priced plan after your six months”, so we assumed this would be no problem. Abby rung customer services, who informed her that they changed the terms a while ago to mean you had to be with them for 11 months before you could change. After a bit of discussion Abby passed the phone to me. I pointed out that since it stated 6 months on the first bill, and at that stage we had the right to return the phone, the 6 months statement formed part of the advertising which made us continue with the contract.

The operator informed me there was nothing they could do, and that their systems wouldn’t allow it to be changed. I asked to talk to a supervisor. Initially she stuck to the same story and told me there was nothing she could do. That gradually changed to “If I could reduce the plan…”, eventually to “We will let you reduce your plan.”. They were totally unsympathetic to the fact our cashback fell through, despite the fact they were paying this company to sell their phones.

It’s only a saving of £10/month, but it’s some consolation. The lesson of the story is that even if they claim there is nothing they can do, and that their systems won’t allow it, that is a lie as they were able to action our request without even escalating the problem further. If you want to reduce your price plan, and you have it in writing that you can, stick to your guns and you will get what you want.

Please note, I have no formal legal knowledge, and they may have been in their right not to let us downgrade, but I doubt it. Let me know if you have similar experiences or problems.

In September last year, Abby bought a phone from The Mobile Outlet offering completely free line rental in the form of cashback.

The first cashback was due in January, but we heard nothing from the claim. I discovered today that Mobile Matters (UK) Ltd (T/A The Mobile Outlet) went into administration on 15 Feb. We’ve submitted a claim to the administrators, but I don’t hold out much hope, which means we are £420 out of pocket!!

The next step is for Abby to ring T-Mobile to see if they will reduce her line rental – I’ll keep you posted.

The Mobile Outlet site is not working at the moment, but I got the administrator’s details from Google’s Cache. If you can’t get those details, they ask you to send details to:

Begbies Traynor, Burley House, 12 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NF or by e-mail to mark.pintar@begbies-traynor.com

Another thing worth doing is signing the Downing Street Petition to make the networks responsible.

Let me know if you’re in the same boat. I’ll keep this updated if we hear anything from the administrators or T-Mobile.

[Update: 26 March] : Abby got an email confirming she was listed as a creditor of the company -it’ll be interesting to see what happens!

[Update: 2 April]: We managed to persuade T-Mobile to reduce the price plan – see the main post.