Mis sold new contract

[Farm-girl]

I was due an upgrade and after discussing a new contract with a sales advisor, I decided that the contract on offer was a poor choice compared to other competitive mobile providers. I asked to be put through to the 'leave' team and request my code, so that I could leave vodafone. I have been a customer for around 5 years. A lady in the 'leave' team was keen to give me an alternative offer and although she couldn't match the competitive price, she offered me an 18 month contract which she bargained was a better deal as I would be paying less than being tied in for a 24 month contract. It was not a flexi contract, where i was tied into vodafone but could upgrade to a new handset. This was an 18 month one where i could leave if required or move to sim only.

 I agreed to the terms of contract offered for an 18 month contract. The new phone arrived the following day without paperwork and an email also the following day detailing the account details. Unfortunately I had not been offered an 18 month contract but a 24 month one. I spoke to customer services for 40 minutes who told me that 18 month contracts do not exist. I explained that the plan had been mis sold and that a recording of the conversation would serve as proof. I explained that I was aiming to leave vodafone and I will cancel my contract unless the 18 month contract is honoured. I was offered a £10 goodwill gesture but they would not honour the original contract offered. I am appalled that the terms of contract are not being upheld. Surely a sale is legally binding? This is unethical, and I am shocked that at their response. I will telephone tomorrow to arrange to cancel my contract.

[AnnS]

Hi @Farm-girl

There seems to be some confusion over the contract you have been sold, first your mention SIM only where there has been no handset supplied with the contract and you then mention the phone arriving the following day.

Contracts with an included handset are 24 months, the network does not offer 18 month contracts, indeed if you check the tariffs from the website you will be able to see the contract tariffs offered.  The terms of the contract, together with the contract end date would have been emailed direct to you within the first 7 days probably sooner after taking out the contract, if you did not agree or want to continue with the contract, you would have had the option  of cancelling within 30 days.

As your new contact would probably have met the necessary criteria, you would have had the option of a flexi upgrade, this may have been mentioned to you by the advisor, this would have given you the option of upgrading early to a new phone paying an early upgrade charge after only 6 months contract duration.

There is further information on flexi upgrades here:  What’s a Flexi-upgrade and how do I get one?

Customer Services should be able to clarify the contract terms and give an explanation.  However, as you have already decided you are not satisfied you are within your rights to cancel under the 30 day return and revert your tariff to pre upgrade status. 

[Farm-girl]

I have edited the heading as I mistakenly chose the wrong heading and have now removed the sim only text. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The contract was for a handset.

With regards to tarifs,  I was unaware at the time of the call about the lengths of contracts. I took advice from the sales team and I was offered and was sold an 18 month contract. If the 18 month contract was not available for the network, why was I offered and sold this? When I received my confirmation email the following day, the contract details differed to what I was offered and sold. The term flexi upgrade was not mentioned by the sales advisor.

The emailed written contract does not meet the criteria or match what the sales advisor sold.

I now have the option of cancelling the contract which I intend to do, but the real concern here is that vodafone have mis sold a contract and have knowingly mis advised in order to secure a new contract. The verbal agreement contract greatly differs to what the written contract is. That is plainly wrong and yes I am dissatisfied, but this should not be allowed to happen, otherwise sales advisors will be able to promise any kind of tarif to secure a deal, perhaps they hope that the customer will overlook the written contract or accept it rather than make a fuss. Either way it's unethical and a matter for the omnubusman. 

[BandOfBrothers]

I agree @Farm-girl that the Vodafone Agents have to be crystal clear and very careful on what is being put on the table as a person then makes a choice based on that info given at the time. 

Yes agents will from time to time get it wrong and then it's up to Vodafone to decide whether they can honour that offer or do something differently to get as close as possible. 

If the alternative isn't acceptable then we have a 30 day cooling off period thankfully to come away from the contract / upgrade fee free. 

I'm sure the Vodafone Social Media Teams here give this feedback to the relevant department so that ongoing training can happen. 

A persons account notes should hold what was offered too. 

The Communications Ombudsman is there for arbitration if a person and the network come to a stalemate and a deadlock letter has been issued and or 8 weeks has elapsed from an official complaint. 

This service is usually handy if a person is stuck in a contract and can't walk away without charges but thankfully you can. 

I wish you all the best with this situation. 

[AnnS]

Hi @Farm-girl

You were never sold an 18 month contract, Vodafone can't make up a contract and sell a product not available.  You were sold a 24 month contract with the option of upgrading at 18 months with the flexi upgrade option. The agent would have read out all the terms, it's standard procedure to make sure you understand and are clear on everything agreed at the time. This was confirmed to you in writing by Vodafone. 

Full contracts with a phone are 24 months on all networks. 

The forum team will get to the thread and clarify the terms of the contract and help where they can. 

[Farm-girl]

I was sold an 18 month contract. The sales advisor was desperate not to lose my custom so offered me this, because I had asked to leave vodafone with the cost of the upgrade plan. I was not offerd a 24 month with the option of a flexi upgrade option, Unless you were party to that conversation or have listened back to that conversation then you can't tell what I was sold or mis sold. If you keep repeating that mantra it's not going to change the fact that is was mis sold and mis advised. I also asked for something else to be removed from the plan which wasn't. Its incompetent and unethical behaviour. Your replies are unfortuntaely unhelpful.

[hrym]

Hang on for the forum team, who should be able to unpick this for you.   It's possible that there was a discrepancy between what was said and what you understood - if so, it may be that the wording needs to be made clearer to avoid this in future.

I'm certainly surprised that you would have been offered an 18 month contract as (as has been said already) they don't exist.   If I was offered such a thing, I might query it, but you'd need to have a reasonable familiarity with the tarriff structure to do so.   It would also, imho, not be unreasonable to think that the retentions team might have access to things that are not publicly listed.

For myself, if I'm looking to upgrade, I normally check what's available and then see what sort of deals I can get on it.   Some things can sound very attractive on the phone, but turn out to be less so when you start analysing them with a calculator.

I doubt that anyone is going to be able to give you the deal you believe you were offered, so it might be a good idea to cancel it, regardless of how this goes forward, just to make sure you don't find yourself locked in.   I hope that wouldn't happen, but certainty is a valuable thing.

[Alex]

@Farm-girl It's definitely true that we don't offer 18 month contracts. Our SIM only plans are for 12 months and phone plans would be 24 months. 

If you called up, then there might be a possibility of us listening to the call to review what was discussed and see if you were misadvised by one of our agents. 

I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch with us directly, as we'll need to access your account to look into this 🙂

[LukeG]

If you were mis-sold a deal over the phone by the loyalty team, be aware that this isn't an isolated incident.  You can look forward to weeks of communication back and forth without any progress on vodafone's side.  I'm 3 weeks into a complaint and I still havent received confirmation of my GDPR request for the recording and i'm still waiting for my call to be listened to.

In my initial calls i was told that a recording of my initial call definitely exists, however they were at pains to say that this may in fact not exist now that i've pursued it for 3 weeks and they'll apparently be listening to it on my behalf.

[Mohd]

This is the same thing that happened to me just now. Adviser sold the contract saying it’s 18 months and now saying it’s 24. Adviser called Martin. 

When I asked them to listen back to the call they said the call was not found. 

I am looking to take this to court.