Citizens Advice issue word of warning on mobile cash back deals
February 7, 2007
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Citizens Advice have urged mobile customers signing up for cash back deals to do so with great caution.
Some contracts ’appear’ to be cheaper since they ‘claim’ the customer will in all likelihood’s claim back a large chunk of their monthly bills, however in reality these deals are contracts between the customers and the company selling the phones, NOT the actual service provider. More often than not, when the customer is ready to call on the cash back scheme, they often find there has been small print in their contract that they were not aware of and quite often find themselves out of pocket, rather than recouping their outlay.
Citizens Advice have even seen cases where the company issuing the contract has gone out of business and the customer is tied in with the service provider for a considerable period of time and at considerable costs.
One example they quoted was when a customer signed a contract with a monthly cash back deal of £65, thus reducing the cost from £75 a month to £9.99. Six months later the company had collapsed, and the network provider was demanding the full payment of £75 a month.
Another example was when a customer missed the deadline for applying for his first cash back instalment and this in turn invalidated all future payments. The clause was indeed a term in his contract but this had not been pointed out to him when he signed up to the deal.
As with any financial undertaking, the advice is clear-always check the small print and ask plenty of questions, ensuring you are fully informed with all the facts in order to avoid nasty shocks and expensive outlays further down the line.
As ever, often if a deal seems too good to be true, then quite often, sadly, this may be the case.
Rather than be lured into cheap payments and promises of money to be returned at a later date, perhaps paying just a little bit more at the beginning can sometimes believe it or not prove the cheaper option in the long run.
Written by Peter Kenny · Filed Under News Banking
hello
I have just been scammed by mobile connections ‘IACN’ supposedly an ‘islamic’ charity concern …
I am a disabled pensioner
who was lured into taking out
2 mobile phone contracts in January, with the promise of full cashback of £70 per month, the first 2 months were paid. but nothing since March 2007
now I am at a complete loss, as I hardly use any of the minutes of my contract, air time provider T Mobile are by no means showing any means of concern or compassion about this, and are still demanding their £70pm or I will be placed on the ‘bad creditors’ list,I simply cannot afford this vast sum of money £840.per year, without the cash back benefits, but no one, seems to want to help or know about the situation.
I just have no idea what to do, as the cashback monies were for paying my domestic fuel tarrifs and everyday bills and expenditure.
thanking you for your time.
My cousin had three contracts with mobile connections. Since mobile conns. disappeared, has been being asked by orange to pay £120 a month. He cancelled his direct debit and now he is being treated as a debtor. Despite the fact that he has never signed any contract with orange itself, orange still claims that it has a binding contract with him. My cousin repeated asked for a copy of the contract that mobile connections claim he has signed, but they have so far paid no attention to his request and kept asking him for £120/month.
I think this is more government’s fault than anybody else’s. All customers who have been affected should sue the department that had given mobile connections the licence to operate such a company. How on earth is this possible? Was the owner of mobile connections mad to agree to pay the phone bills of its 90000 customers. Of course it was a scam from the beginning and the government should have asked the owner as to why he wanted to pay people’s telephone bills. Nobody asked them, and yet they got a licence to open such a shop.
In my opinion all customers should sue the government for their negligence.
Best regards,
Haris