Hi

I found that the site previously being run by Mobile Affiliates Limited is now being run by the administrators. It has lots of useful information about putting in a claim to get compensation. It can be found at cool new mobile or at www.phoneboxdirectinformation.com

This also explains the administration process of the company.

Hi,

 I have just come across this forum and wanted to share my views you. I have a lot of knowledge on this subject and think i can help on the matter. The mobile phone cash back issue has become "the" biggest consumer issue in the current time. Many retailers have gone bust without paying their customers, some examples are:

dialamobile - 90,000 customers

phonebox - 39,000 customers

clickmobile and simply mobiles - do not know the exact figure but huge number of customers

Many more retailers are struggling to pay their customers.

The operators are the real culprits, some more than others. It appears that they are trying to put their agents out of business and are using underhanded tricks to do so. My belief is that customers and the agents are the victim of this issue. The operators need to be held to account for this problem and all customers must be paid what is owed to them and the responsibility lies with the operators. The operators are being ruthless and shameless in their approach. I saw a programme recently on watchdog and it was obvious the operators are acting very badly towards their agents and their customers.

Hi didn't you do well, T Mobile only offered me the reduction of £5.00 in my monthly bill. So Vodaphone sound like a far better Company.  I will however, in the light of what Vodaphone have offered be going back to T Mobile to see if they could match the deal. T Mobile also made out that they knew nothing of the problems with Cool New Mobile. I assume that they must have agreed for Cool New Mobile to sell their product

Please join all the other people that have been affected by protesting against the operators. I have set up a thread so we can get everyone together and then set a date etc.

Yes, that's why they went into administration. The company is winding itself up and if there's anything left after selling any assets and paying the administrator's fee, it is shared out among the people who are owed money. Some creditors get priority over others. You can be sure that the people at the top will have walked away with their salaries.

For the benefit of all I received this recent bit of advice from the Government dept that advises on Insolvency . . .As this company is in administration, I would draw your attention to paragraph 43(6) of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986, relating to a moratorium on other legal processes where a company is in administration.  It says that no legal process (including legal proceedings, execution, distress and diligence) may be instituted or continued against the company or property of the company except-
(a) with the consent of the administrator, or
(b) with the permission of the court.

It's certainly not acceptable to just say that the people who owe you money aren't going to pay while the people you owe money to must be paid. Good luck.

If you are offered the option to wait for the administrator to wind up the company and pay off the creditors, this option is unlikely to be worth considering. Companies go into administration because they are short of assets and by the time the administrator has taken a fee there is often nothing, or next-to-nothing, left for the creditors.

Rob,

Today Vodafone called me, that was a surprise as they have been awful so far.

The deal they are offering peopel like myself with a failed Cool New Mobile cashback is this

 

1. Keep paying you current monthly amount and we will give you 50% more calls and texts so for example I was on 500 mins and 250 texts and they offered me 750 mins and 500 texts for the same price of £35 per month.
2. Keep you current monthly allowance and we will half the line rental per month immediately – so £17.50 p/month
3. turn these down and you can stay as you are

There is no negotiation with the caller, take it or leave it.  I took option 2

 

I have spoken to OFCOM and trading standards and whilst there is no clear legal liability in these cases at this time there is still a liability for what an agent sells on your behalf 

I will be writing to Vodafone in any case to complain and see if the offer can be improved. As I will still be £300 out of pocket at the end of the contract

If you are getting stressed about debts, you should certainly have a chat with someone at your local CAB. They are sometimes busy so it might be worth phoning first.

I wonder if it is worth considering going down the road of saying something like "I've tried to sort this out with letters and phone calls to no avail. I am therefor deducting the amount of the cashback from my current bill and I will consider making furter payments when it has been confirmed if this is acceptable or not".

I cannot see how you can legally be expected to keep up payments to organisations who do not keep their side of the contract and who ignore communications. If contacting people like this, it is usually better to put things in writing so that you have a record, unless you have the facility to record calls (and actually speak to someone) as it is all too easy to hear vague promises made over the phone and expect things to sort themselves out.

My promised call from Vodafone CC retentions department at an agreed time slot on Monday morning never arrived.  Once again I had to chase them to sort out the Coolnewmobile mess and my financial loss of £420.

 

I managed to get through to VCC retentions after nearly 30 minutes on hold,  191 is included in your monthly allowance of minutes,  but boy did I hit a stone wall of resistance.  There was no way this “retentions” lady was going to help me.  Basically I was in contract with Vodafone and would have to keep paying, she would never downgrade a monthly contract until I had been with Vodafone for 9 months and I could not exit the contract unless I had less than 70 days to go.  Was I not aware that Vodafone advise against cash back schemes and that only 1 in 10 people get their money back. 

The only helpful thing she told me was that a member of Customer Care will be contacting all people in my situation to discuss the situation in 7 days.   She could not tell me what would be discussed and was the most unhelpful person I have talked to in months.

I think if ‘we’ are relying on the good will of companies like Vodafone then it will very much depend upon getting a helpful person on the phone if the Phone companies don’t produce a helpful policy.

I would still like sone help if anyone has guidance on getting a County Court Judgement against a company in administration, will this help and do i try to find out the MD's of Coolnewmobile or against the parent company, but then again they are a limited company 

 

hye thanx maxsteam and ROb for your replies

what happen is i am thinking to finish the contract but as i agreeb with the 18th month contract so i have to pay for the phones for all 4 phones for atleast 18 months

so please give me some resonable suggestion please to make my life easier , i am really getting streesed and ill because of this tension

when i call freefone people they dont pick up the phone so what shall i do my 2nd bill is here and now its £704 somthign i have to pay and my bank is charging me money aswell because i dont have enough funds in my bank

can i go to the citizen advice beaureu of bradford and cancel the contract with their help or if you kow any other suggesstion please let me know

im so streesed up you guys dont have a idea what shall i do

my all sim's are locked i mean not working because of the payment and i cant do anything except calling them

 

please do give some advice must be appreciated

 

Thanx alot...

 

Personally if I was in the position of these victims I would not send bad money after good and I would be happy to stand up in court and say that I would happily pay the contracted monthly fees if there was some indication that the contract will be honoured and the cash back paid. Before getting to the stage of talking about court appearances, I would put my position in writing to everyone involved - the admnistrator, the network, anyone involved in collecting payments and so on. I appreciate that many people prefer to do what they can to avoid appearing in court. My atitude is that if someone wants paying, they need to do what is being paid for.

The first line of this thread states that there is a "contract with Cool new mobile". If the network wants their share of the deal, then they need to take that up with the administrator of Cool.

This is bad advice - the network holds the contract and they will advise that you have broken the terms of your contract. The network position will state that you have entered into an airtime agreement with them and that the cashback issue is between you and the retailer (unfair I know, but this is a legal perspective).

If you cancel the payments your network will invoice you for the entire cost of the remaining contract eg 6 months at £35 line rental - if you do not pay this they will commence court proceedings - you will also lose your mobile number and your credit rating could be affected.

The only course of action available is to contact your network and request that they terminate your contract OR at least downgrade your contract to one which you are happy to pay/offer a discount off your bill.

In these cases the network are in a very strong position and will hide behind their contract terms re: retailer responsibility for cashbacks, out of our control etc etc.

Hopefully we will be able to convince the networks that this is unfair - however it will not be easy as they are not likely to give in....

If you want to cancel the contract, contact your bank and ask them to stop the payments. Be aware though that when you started the contract you agreed to make payments for 12 months (or whatever). You should only take this course if you are not getting, and are not likely to get, what you paid for.

Every contract has two sides - if you have been keeping your side of the contract but the other side hasn't been keeping their side (after being given a reasonable chance to do so), then you can reasonably tell them that you are witholding payments until you start getting what you  paid for. If the company is in administration, the chances of you getting what you paid for have greatly decreased.

Please see statement from Vodafone regarding the administration of this company:

Vodafone UK has been made aware that the Mobile Media Group (also trading as Cool New Mobile and Phone Box Direct) has gone into administration. Vodafone UK will be working with the distributor, Dextra Solutions, and the administrator to ensure all consumer enquiries are dealt with as a priority.

In the case of Dialamobile we set up a freephone number and email address so that affected customers could log their details with us. We then called each customer and discussed the options with them on an individual basis.  

 

In the current case, and as in the case with Dialamobile, Vodafone UK believes that it has enforceable airtime contracts with these customers. If Vodafone customers have a query about the impact on their airtime contract then they should call 191 from their Vodafone phone.

 

As this is a recent development, Vodafone UK will be working with the administrator and Dextra Solutions to ensure any impact on the consumer is minimised. Vodafone believes that it has enforceable airtime contracts with these customers and will consider offers to customers on a case by case basis.

 

As Vodafone UK believes the affected customers have enforceable airtime contracts in place, Vodafone UK does not expect customers to leave before the minimum contract term expires.

General info:

Vodafone UK is following the industry Code of Practice for the sales and marketing of subscriptions to mobile networks recently introduced by the Mobile Broadband Group and supported by Ofcom. We will continue to communicate with our dealers and distributors and remind them of their responsibility to follow the Code. We take our obligations to follow the Code seriously.

We believe that our tariffs are attractive enough not to need further reductions.  There are many other factors to consider such as network quality and services, handsets etc when devising packages for customers. However, Vodafone UK encourages competition in the mobile industry and dealers  and distributors are at liberty to devise their own offers to attract customers as long as they do so within the industry Code of Practice. We continue to communicate with our dealers and distributors and remind them of their responsibility to follow the industry Code. We take our obligations to follow the Code seriously.

We will keep you posted regarding developemnt from other networks