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Complaining to your mobile service provider for lack of service

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  • Complaining to your mobile service provider for lack of service

    Updated 05/03/2015 to cover new regulations

    There are several remedies to consumers who find themselves stuck in a mobile contract where the main selling point was the availability of services/network coverage.

    First and foremost, the consumer must raise a complaint with the seller, whether it is a specific shop operated by the network provider directly or a generic store such as the Carphone Warehouse etc, as soon as possible.

    If you agreed to the contract online, at a distance, or away from a trader's premises (for example, at home or at work) and are within your 14 day cooling off period you have the right to cancel under The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

    You do not have to give a reason, but you will have to pay for any usage during that time.

    If you experience sustained and prolonged lack of service, despite being assured your location was covered your remedy will depend on where you experience occurs.

    If there’s no mobile signal in your whole area and you’re constantly losing service, you may be able to terminate the contract for non-performance under the Supply of Goods & Services Act.

    A supplier must provide the contracted service with reasonable care and skill; if they fail to do this you may have the right to terminate your mobile contract for breach of that agreement with no financial penalty. However, always check the terms & conditions as many contracts make allowances for short losses of service.

    If the phone simply doesn’t work in your house but works outside, then the problem could be something within your home causing a poor mobile signal.
    It could be that the signal isn’t sufficiently strong enough, so you should ask your provider to carry out a signal strength check. Different operating frequencies are affected by different types of house construction; generally the lower the frequency (800MHz) has greater penetration and therefore works better indoors.

    Even if the T&C's allow for this, if you experience prolonged and continued loss of service you may still be able to terminate the contract.
    In many cases where customers have requested cancellation due to a loss of service, they have been told they must pay a termination fee. This is not the case if you’re terminating the contract due receiving a poor signal. So, the key point here is that you must be clear to say you’re terminating the contract due to a sustained and prolonged lack of service.

    Make sure you keep a record of when and for how long you’ve sustained these losses and present these to the provider to support your case.
    It's worth bearing in mind though, that cases such as these are not straightforward so you may need to be persistent. If you’re cancelling a contract due to poor mobile signal, you must be clear about this when speaking to your provider to avoid a termination fee.

    You must give your mobile provider a chance to resolve your complaint first. If it’s not resolved within eight weeks you should request a ‘deadlock’ letter, or you can use this letter template to send a letter of deadlock to your mobile service provider.

    Once you have a response from your mobile service provider, you can refer your complaint to the appropriate Ombudsman Service – either Communications or Cisas – see which one covers your network provider here.

    These are independent complaints schemes that will consider a complaint about a mobile service provider if you haven’t been able to resolve your problem directly. The Ombudsman can only deal with complaints about mobile service providers and not about other mobile phone retailers that ‘resell’ mobile contracts but don’t operate their own service (for example, the Carphone Warehouse).

    You can also contact Ofcom, the telecoms regulator. It cannot help with your individual problem. Ofcom monitors all consumer telecoms issues and can investigate a company if it finds serious ongoing problems with a particular provider.
    Contact the relevant ombudsman to find out how to submit a complaint. Both ombudsmen have different procedures – some may ask you to fill out a complaint form, while for others you need only write a letter outlining your problem.

    If it’s the latter make sure you include the following information:
    • Your name and address (or the name and address of the person making the complaint)
    • The name and address of the organisation the complaint is being made about
    • Details of what your complaint is about, including exactly what the company did that it shouldn’t have (or what it didn’t do that it should have done)
    • What you've lost in terms of personal injustice, financial loss, hardship or inconvenience
    • What you would like the organisation to do to put things right, and details of what you've done so far to try to resolve the complaint
    • Include copies of any relevant letters, emails, invoices or receipts



    The ombudsman will look at the evidence provided by both sides and may contact you for more information.
    Once the ombudsman has made its decision it will write to you and the company with details of the ‘award’.
    If the award is in your favour (they agree with your complaint), this will include details of what the company must do to put things right.

    **Things to consider before taking your provider to Court for failure to provide a service.**
    If you think you've been mis-led by your mobile provider, you should report the matter to Ofcom as well as your local trading standards department.

    Your mobile phone provider may have carried out an unfair commercial practice and be in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.

    As of 1st October 2014 consumers have new rights to redress under these regulations.
    These include the right to undo a contract and receive a refund, the right to a discount and an entitlement to seek damages.
    But in order for the new rights to apply, you must be able to show that a misleading action was a significant factor for you entering the contract.

    If you've bought your mobile phone or mobile contract directly from a service provider, contact the provider and complain that you've been mis-sold your mobile contract.

    Misleading action must be a significant factor: If you entered into a contract as a result of a misleading action or aggressive selling, you will need to show that this was at least a significant factor in your decision to enter into the contract.
    Innocent misrepresentation

    This is where one of the parties, when entering into a contract, had reasonable grounds for believing that his or her false statement was true.
    In other words, it is made entirely without fault. This type of misrepresentation primarily allows for the contract to be cancelled.
    The purpose of this is to place you and the other party in the same position before the contract had taken place.
    However, under Section 2(2) Misrepresentation Act 1967 the court has discretion to award damages instead of allowing you to end the contract if it deems it appropriate. It cannot award both.

    This would be judged on both the nature of the innocent misrepresentation and the losses suffered by the victim of the misrepresentation.
    Also remember that if you are a victim of a misrepresentation and a credit card was used to purchase the goods or service, then you may also be able to pursue a your claim against the credit card company under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
    Last edited by Tools; 5th March 2015, 14:07:PM. Reason: Updating
    Any opinions I give are my own. Any advice I give is without liability. If you are unsure, please seek qualified legal advice.

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