Vodafone’s four years of bills for a mobile phone I never owned
I WENT into a Vodafone shop to ask about upgrading my phone and was asked why I had two numbers.
After investigation it turned out that I had been paying for two numbers for four years. Vodafone says it can only credit my account for the past six months, in addition to stopping future charges for my phantom number.
They say it was my obligation to bring the matter to their attention earlier, even though it was their error and not mine. D. B., Edinburgh. It seems that when you transferred your number to Vodafone a temporary number was set up to facilitate the change. this should have been cancelled as soon as your own number was moved over, but instead Vodafone left it active and monthly charges racked up.
Vodafone admitted it made a mistake, so why on earth wouldn’t it refund your four years of payments without quibble?
Well, it has now apologised and refunded all four years’ payments. In addition it has added a goodwill payment of £150.
I would add one point. We all have a duty to check bank and credit card statements. January is an ideal month to do a runthrough, check all is as it should be and investigate anything that seems unusual.
If you’re unsure about something, get in touch with the organisation concerned, or if you don’t recognise a payment, contact your bank or card provider. I LIVE in sheltered housing and have had problems with Eon since they installed a new meter in February 2016. It’s been read but I’ve never had a bill.
Eventually I received a letter to say I was late paying. I called customer services, where they went through security details but insisted my birth date was December 1929, which it is not. They then refused to speak to me. I have called again but can’t get a response.
I agreed to pay £51 per month but when I called back again to try to sort things out, the person who had set that up no longer seemed to be there.
I am now facing demands for more money than I can afford.
This is causing huge amounts of stress and I was recently admitted to hospital for a week after a suspected heart attack. Mrs M. H., Buckinghamshire. YOU have made numerous attempts to resolve this issue.
Bizarrely, on November 14 last year, you received a letter from eon saying they’d stopped working on your complaint because they hadn’t heard from you.
All I can say is they can’t have been listening. You had written to them clearly stating your position on march 13, september 12, October 8 and November 20.
eon has apologised for what it describes as ‘shortcomings’ in its service. Your payments have been set at an amount you find affordable and it has applied a credit to your account by way of apology. I BOUGHT the property next door to me and let it out. British Gas changed the meter at the property in September 2016 but did not allocate the new meter number to the tenant’s account, keeping the old number and its reading to calculate future bills.
When the tenants left in December that year, they gave British Gas a reading, but the final account must have been wrong so subsequent bills have been incorrect. Despite many letters to British Gas it refuses to accept its mistake, will not implement recommendations from the Energy Ombudsman and does not correspond, apart from threatening letters. J. E., Surrey. BrItIsh Gas disputes many of your claims. It accepts that the meter at this commercial property was exchanged on september 9, 2016, and that its records incorrectly recorded the date as December 25, 2016.
It says the ombudsman advised that it needed to provide you with £100 as a goodwill gesture, correct the meter exchange details, set up a direct debit on your account and obtain the details of your new tenants. British Gas says it paid the £100 and corrected the meter exchange details.
however, it asked the ombudsman to extend the deadline for the resolution three times as, despite requests, you did not provide information to clarify who should be billed from the date the tenant left. Nor did you provide information for the direct debit. the ombudsman’s complaint was therefore closed.
British Gas says it has still not received this information, so the bill for December 23, 2016 until January 5 this year has been sent to you as the landlord.
this shows the correct new meter details and the amount currently unpaid. British Gas says it offered to set up a payment scheme but it has not heard back. It also asked for the new tenants’ details but you have not supplied these.
the ombudsman had already investigated before you contacted me, but you had not co-operated with its decision.
If you won’t give British Gas details of your tenant, you can’t be surprised if it sends the bills to you instead.