Closed account issues

[JacobW]

Hi, 

I need some help. The long and short of it is that I had a Contract with Vodafone before I turned 18 which was in a Family members name as I wasn't old enough to hold a contract. I had two contracts at the time. One phone and a tablet contract. 

When I turned 18 I called Vodafone and asked to transfer them both to my name and a new account which the guy on the phone said would be fine and carried out the correct credit checks etc. A few months later I receive a debt collectors letter in the post with an outstanding bill in excess of £160+. I contact Vodafone and they informed me that this was my tablet bill and that my family members account had been closed when the lines were transferred which took away any means of paying for that bill. I am now 21 and this has been going since I was 17, I had paid for the tablet for around 6-7 months before attempting to transfer to my name. I have paid the Debt collectors on multiple occasions, however my concern is this, I have now had this contact for nearly 4 years, with no way of paying for it for at least 3 of those years, as it is a tablet I do noot have the number nor do I have the device any longer. I have no clue what the bill has increased by per month it was originally £23 a month and I have no clue what is left to pay to close the account. Without this information I seem to just be handing Debt collectors money every few months and frankly Vodafone have failed to provide a way for me to pay the bill by prematurely closing my family members account. 

I have taken multiple steps of trying to avoids this by speaking to representatives on the live chat and over the phone and even in Store which I had been informed that 100% the line would appear on my current account and would take 24 hours to appear, guess what.... It didn't appear. 

Surely it is not on that I am not provided means to pay for a bill let alone having to pay late fees and debt collectors fees without the information of knowing what is left on the account. 

I am a reasonable guy and pay what I owe however I'm tired of throwing money at a wall and getting no where... As far as I know the contract is over and has been for some time and I am just paying a monthly rate out of contract. 

Any advice? 

[BandOfBrothers]

This sounds like its not going to be a simple task to work through. 

The original account holder would have needed to be involved to authorise the transfer too I assume. 

Have they tried to speak with Customer service. 

Please let the Social Media Team here catch up with your post and they'll help you with this situation.

Unfortunatley this may have been reported on your Credit File as a default which lasts 6 years from the default date. Paying off the monies wouldnt remove it but would change its status from something similar from Outstanding to Settled. 

However if the Default is found to not be warranted then they'll remove it. 

I wish you all the best with this situation. 

[TJ]

@JacobW I'm sorry to hear about the problems you've been having with this account for so long and appreciate that you want to get this resolved once and for all.

We'll need to investigate further to get to bottom of what's happened here. So you can get in contact with our credit file specialist directly, I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch.