Victoria's Blog

Disastrous mobile phone sale in Stevenage at T-Mobile

My sister was spending £30 to £40 a month on her PAYG mobile phone on the Virgin network, so I convinced her to swap networks and also go on a contract. We have 3 other mobile phones in the household on T-mobile as is her boyfriend too, so, with my sister on T-mobile, our calls would be cheaper. I looked on line and recommended that she go for the HTC Wildfire phone on the £20 per month contact for 24 months. She seemed happy about doing so, but unfortunately wouldn’t use the online shop and so we went to T-mobile in Stevenage one Saturday in June to purchase the phone.

The store was very busy and we waited about 10 minutes which was no problem. The girl that served us was a little odd and very gobby. She had fake nails on and was finding it very difficult to type. She had to get one of the other assistants to log her on to the computer (so we have no idea what her name was as there’s a guys name on the paperwork). She didn’t seem to know how to use the computer and typed in my sisters’ name and address wrong! During the sales process she told us that we would have to have insurance and that for the first three months the insurance would be free. After that period we should either cancel or the payments would start and we would be charged £6.99 per month. I told her that we didn’t want insurance as we could buy a sim-free phone for cheaper. She told me that a new phone would be £500 and that the insurance wasn’t optional! (That pissed me off a little as I know for a fact they are £220). But anyway, we signed all the documents and left.

It’s now two months later and we went through the process of trying to cancel the “free” insurance at the weekend. First of all they told my sister to ring back on Saturday (she phoned on Thursday) as it couldn’t be cancelled until then. She then tried to cancel on Saturday and was told at about 12pm that the computer system was down and that they’d phone back when it was back up. It was getting pretty late by the time we realised that they simply weren’t going to phone back, so she phoned again. This time someone answered and she got the insurance cancelled, but the lady on the phone was very rude and was trying brutal sales tactics. The lady on the phone told her to make sure she got the bank to cancel any standing orders to complete the cancellation. Now I’m fairly sure that any reputable company would cancel standing orders and direct debits for you!?

The next day my sister logged on to her bank and went to the standing orders page only to find that the so called “free” insurance was not quite as free as the sales lady had led us to believe! They had already taken two payments! We cancelled the standing order straight away. But the phone calls alone to the insurance company have cost £10…

My sisters’ boyfriend and I were enraged that this could have happened but the documents my sister had signed were in London.

Today I phoned my sister to know what was on those documents and she told me that no where does it mention that insurance is free for 3 months. Her boyfriend phoned the store yesterday and spoke to a lady who said that they never quote insurance as being free. He asked for her name which she quoted as being “Saya.” He then asked to speak to the manager and was astounded when she said she was the manager. He asked her why if she was the manager, she would need to use someone else’s login for the computer system and she told him to “f*** off” and put the phone down!!

He then phoned the complaints department on 150 from the phone and spoke to a not very helpful member of staff. They said that the only way to complain is to go in to the store that sold the phone and talk to the manager or to write a letter to the complaints department at T-Mobile.

Needless to say I’m absolutely furious and so is my sisters’ boyfriend! So much for customer service…

We shall be contacting the complaints department at T-mobile, Watchdog, Ofcom and Trading standards as soon as possible.

I shall post updates as and when we get responses.