Left Vodafone within cooling period, still got billed, now chased by debt collectors

[Rob_Podarcis]

Hi all,

Would really appreciate some advice. 

I ordered a SIM only contract from Vodafone and cancelled it within a single day via the online chat. Chat details logged and emailed to me afterwards, and so I have written confirmation that the contract was cancelled, my Direct Debit would be cancelled, and I did not need to pay anything. SIM still arrived and I was asked to pay a month's bill. I tried calling Vodafone but after being on the phone for 45 minutes, on hold, I hung up and again used the chat. After an hour chatting it was confirmed that they had made the mistake and I did not need to pay. Chat conversation logged and emailed to me afterwards. I next receive an email from Vodafone asking for the month's bill or they will pass on my details to a debt collection agency. I went through the exact same thing again; phoned with no luck so went through chat, which was logged and emailed to me afterwards, with apologies etc etc. I have now received an email from CCS debt collection agency saying my details had been passed onto them from Vodafone owing a month's bill. I will not be paying this because if Vodafone are this incompetent when they aren't holding the cards I can't trust them to not be competent enough to return my money.

Does anyone have any advice on the best course of action I can now take with this? My credit rating has of course been affected, through no fault of my own, at a time I really do not need a bad credit rating (new baby, new house, etc etc), and they are still asking for money that I do not owe.

I'm not sure if the guys who deal with the online chat are purposely trying to inconvenience me or if they are simply incompetent. I'm not sure which is worse. Either way I will never be using Vodafone ever again.

I would really appreciate some advice on how to engage someone competent at Vodafone before I lose my temper and take them to court.

Thanks all.

Rob

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi @Rob_Podarcis 

There's some relevant information within the following link if you've not seen this in regards to cancelling before the 14 day cooling off period.

Returns-policies. 

My advice is to speak with the Vodafone Social Media Team's via Twitter or Facebook Contact-us-for-account-specific-queries and ask them for support and to also ask them check that no default has been added to your Credit File.

The Social Media Team's have a dedicated Credit File Specialist Team to check.

Also have a word with the debt collection agency, and they then should pass this back to Vodafone.

Check your Credit File via Experian or one of the other options for any markers or defaults.

I wish you all the best with this. 

[Farai]

Hey @Rob_Podarcis, We'd be more than happy to help you take a look at what happened here. As @BandOfBrothers suggested, please drop our Social Media team a message here and they'll be happy to get the ball rolling on this for you 👍

[Rob_Podarcis]

Many thanks both!