Carphone Warehouse - a rant

[Claw75]

Well, a couple of months ago my old phone (Motorola V3) went tits up on me.  Took it down to the Carphone Warehouse and managed to wangle an upgrade as my contact was almost up anyway.  Salesman asked me what I'd be using my phone for - phone calls, texting and internet browsing I said.  We settled on a contract of £30 per month with enough text and call minutes for my needs.  Salesman asked about my internet browsing, and I gave an estimation of how much time I would spend on there - a couple of hours a month total.  I said it'd been costing me £3 a month or so.  He said that I could get a £10 per month unlimited usage bundle added, but agreed that my usage would probably come up as much less than that if I paid per session, so I didn't take it up.

Just looked at my April phone bill and absolutely gobsmacked - £116.  Don't usually check my bills to be honest, so went back to look at last month's bill and that was £70 as well.  Just been on the phone to customer services who weren't much help - all the charges are correct and are probably due to the graphics capacity of the phone (he reassuringly told me he had the same phone and same problem!).  He said he could offer me a bundle for future usage, and I asked if he could give me a bundle on a retrospective basis as a gesture of goodwill.  Apparently all he could offer me was a £10 goodwill payment.  He suggested I go back to the store and take it up with the manager there, but can't see that getting me anywhere to be honest.

I really feel like I was misled when I was sold this phone and contract, and clearly would have taken up the £10 per month bundle offered if I'd known the actual costs I would have incurred, and I intend to write a formal letter of complaint to the branch and the Head Office.

Anyone else had any similar problems with CW or any experience of getting any joy in complaining to them?

Rant over - feels better now it's off my chest!!

[GlasgowBandit]

I have being having major problems with Orange lately!  I'm not impressed by their customer service.

I think the ebst course of action is an executive complaint, send a recorded delivery letter of complaint to their chief executive I have found this tactic worth while it was suggested to me by some legal eagle as the ebst course of action.  Generally they tend to lump it off on their complaints department straight away but they dont like the mess and normally demand a resolutions pretty quickly.

[Claw75]

Cheers Bandit,

I've just typed out and sent a complaint email while I was on a roll.  I've sent it to the email adress for complaints in the T&C.  If I don't get any joy from that I'll definitely follow your suggestion and escalate it.

[mex]

To be fair he offered you a bundle based on the info you gave him, you didn't take it, did you take in an old bill?, if not then its not the salesmans fault.

[Claw75]

To be fair he offered you a bundle based on the info you gave him, you didn't take it, did you take in an old bill?, if not then its not the salesmans fault.

Sorry - this bit is a little unclear.  I was not offered a bundle.  He asked how much I use and I told him.  He said something along the lines of "I could offer you a £10 bundle for unlimited usage, but at the amount you are using you will be much better off just paying as you go along".  I said that it wouldn't be worth taking up the bundle in that case, and he agreed.

[RED-DOG]

Suse my ignorance, but can you really get unlimited web access for £10pm?

What sort of stuff can you do? Can you email, surf, play poker?

[Claw75]

Suse my ignorance, but can you really get unlimited web access for £10pm?

What sort of stuff can you do? Can you email, surf, play poker?

I guess the bundles available would depend on your provider.  I've seen on Orange's website, for example, that they do a '2 month free browsing' offer, after which you can get unlimited evening and website browsing for £5 a month.

I've never attempted to play poker on my phone, guess it would depend on the phone model and if you could download the relevant software to it.  I'm sure someone more technologically minded will be able to answer that one!

[RichEO]

Suse my ignorance, but can you really get unlimited web access for £10pm?

What sort of stuff can you do? Can you email, surf, play poker?

Usually those sort of cheap unlimited bundles are just for mobile phone stuff. So no connecting with your laptop. But I don't know the specifics of this one.

[nirvana]

Write direct to Charles Dunstone, had him keynote at one of my conferences back in the day .. extremely customer focused.. see if he walks the talk (excuse the cliche!)