Hi
I am another victim of the lost pages scam for the second claim. CoolNewMobile have claimed a page is missing from my bill though it was in the envelope and sent recorded delivery. I have reported them to Birmingham Trading Standards and for what its worth BBC Watchdog.They have also ripped my wife off at the same time with the same scam on the same day. After all it is a nice earner for them. Each person on average will be ripped off 200 to 300 pounds so if they scam 10 people a day that will be a nice 2K to 3k PROFIT.
What can we do other than to get a solicitor to validate our paperwork before we send it or better still the solicitor posts our claims? This is ridiculous. We our now just under 700 pounds worse off. It is THEFT. There is no other way of describing it. These professional thiefs have scammed us and reading these posts many others also.Please all report these thiefs to your Trading Standards and they will contact Nottingham Trading Standards under whose nose these thiefs operate. I have also informed my network supplier of the thiefs.

I'm another victim of the "you have a page missing" FRAUD - there are several people on the MSE forums who're in the same predicament.  The envelope was sent via special delivery so my thoughts are it's pretty easy for them to claim a single lost page of the bill!  Short of videotaping the whole event of placing the bills + paperwork in the envelope and handing it in at the post-office I don't know what else is left.

Worse still - I have SIX contracts taken out through CNM; at £480 each I'm looking at a total loss of around £3000 if they decide not to honour the other cashbacks.  There MUST be a way through this - the mobile operator that SOLD CONTRACTS through this SHODDY reseller MUST have  some liability for this!


I've yet to hear from them regarding the other contracts - but the prognosis isn't good - I suggest we all band together somehow.  I'm certainly not going to get shafted at their whim!

*****WARNING****** Moneysupermarket are showing special deals from COOL NEW MOBILE and PHONEBOX DIRECT. Both of these companies are connected to none other than MOBILE AFFILIATES LIMITED, if you click on the contact us pages of both these websites the name appears and the address is the same ; PO Box 8895, Bingham, Notts, NG13 8XA. MOBILE AFFILIATES LTD appears to be linked to another company called MOBILE MEDIA SYSTEMS LIMITED(same registered head office address) incorporated in May 2002, the previous company name being VIPERTEL LIMITED. Why the name change i dont know, maybe the previous brand built up a bad reputation - i can't think why?

With Moneysupermarket in the process of floatation, why risk the reputation of being associated? 

 

My god this gets worse who's there to help us??

I am another who is a victim of their 'you did not send in the tariff page' scam a colleague witnessed my putting the relevant docs in the envelope....

Right - can someone (or many people) try this next time they're claiming for cashback.

VIDEOTAPE THE ENTIRE EVENT IN ONE GO AT THE POST OFFICE of you placing the relevant paperwork (zooming into it where necessary) into the envelope, sealing the envelope in full view of the camera and handing it all into the post office for SPECIAL delivery in full view of the camera.  Simultaneously sign off on it with a solicitor or something.

THEN - when they claim the paperwork is missing - don't even beat around the bush - take them to court - give us the relevant case number so we can all cite it as THE example of the sort-of fraudulent activity that's taking place here.


I have a half mind to go over there right now and raid their bins to find any shredded bills.

Great minds think alike. A friend of mine is going to do this when he claims.

If anyone is going to take things further please see the mobile forum posts re Phonebox Direct - there is some info on there re Trading Standards  procedures and online claims etc , as well as more unhappy customers .

Hi there, i'm another one scammed by coolnewmobile...i've received a letter from mobile affiliates, that's say that my 2nd   cashback form has been sent late...that's ***!! i've sent it in rec. delivery on the 14 july, and as stated in my T&C i got 1 months period to send it, so it was 25 days, but they've changed the T&C without notice...from 1 months to 21 days!! That's ILLEGAL!! So now they say that the claim is void....£336 loss! No way that's my money and i did all right, in my email i've got the terms stated in 1 months, not 21 days!! They are just a scam company, they are making a lot of money with this fraud action, and they need to be shut-down!! So what can we do to have justice?? Any suggestions will be very appreciated

Regards

Ivo

if you go to the mobile phone forum (not ask the expert forum as this thread appears in) and read through the thread titled Phonebox direct (thread is now locked for posting but you can still read it) it may help since others have suffered similar unfair treatment. i think they may alter terms in the hope that only a small percentage of people will follow through a complaint, then even fewer still to legal recovery. 

Thanks for the reply, i've already sent a complain form online to Watchdog, and i hope that all the people here will do the same, these scums need to be taken down, they are making a lot of money, just imagine £336-400-500 every one, how many people here, and how many that they didn't report it...i'm really *** off now, that's not acceptable at all, becouse if it was my mistake, but it's not!! the changed the T&C from 1 month to 21 days...i was already out of time when i downloaded the form form them, and i didn't read that, was the same as the 1st one, but probably doesn't matter for them, if  it was inside the 21 days, they'd say that was a missing paper...like the others here..so in 1 way or another the won't pay out!! We need to keep all in touch for that, we'll need to pay back this company with a very hard life..

Regards

Ivo

Yup - me too.  I am a Phone Box Direct 'customer', and sent in my second claim and was told that page 2 was missing from my bill.  Which is incredible as I stapled the bill together.  I am in no doubt the page was removed by PBD or is just the policy to tell claimants the page is missing.  Surely this is fraudlent but because I cant /prove/ this to be the case I am stuffed too.  So I guess I contact Trading Standards too.... I am interested to hear how things progress for everyone else. 

I have just sent an email to BBC Watchdog about this matter too.
 

 I think a lot of people are put off progressing a legal action by the "your word against theirs". Under fair trading legislation i would expect it to be the duty of the trading Company to prove their administration was and is in perfect order rather than the customer. Im confident they can't do that.

I notified my network operator too, as indirectly these situations ultimately could affect their brand reputation by association. A named customer services representative replied promply and curtiously (yes, the propper way) , part of the response is below;

"..............Customer loyalty is a key priority at Orange and it is not in our interest for third party retailers to miss-sell our products and services to consumers. We encourage our customers to contact us if they suspect that the third party has deliberately misled them.  We have a clear code of conduct in place that such retailers are required to adhere to and we monitor our relationships on a day to day basis, treating complaints with the highest level of scrutiny. If a third party retailer is found to be acting inappropriately or misleading our customers we will take action against them..............."

So it is worth letting them know too. It wont get your money back but it can have an impact on helping to prevent other innocent people falling into the trap.

 

Yup, I've let T-Mobile know the score too - but they seemed less keen to want to know or do anything about it.  In fact - the Customer Support representative had no idea why I was calling them!  When I told them that Ofcom mentioned that I ought to be contacting them they kinda seemed puzzled.  *shrugs*

I've also let Quidco know the score, as well as a few other cashback sites.  They gave me the usual speile of "we take complaints seriously blah blah" - I pointed them to the forums but the links are STILL there - obviously they don't take complaints that seriously at all.

Thing is if you're LOCKED in to a telecoms contract that was MIS-SOLD then there ought to be some legal ramifications for the telecoms company in the first place!  Someone needs to pay and I'm certainly not letting people disappear into liquidatory obscurity at my expense!


Trading Standards let me know that the simple fact of sending the bills in the first place, on time, via special delivery _is_ enough to demonstrate that we've legally done as much as we could to ensure the contents are correct and present (or something to that effect.)  Afterall they're SIMPLY using this as a method of knowing that we're still with the mobile phone company on the same contract.  If they wish to cancel contracts based on missing pages they will have to demonstrate that our contracts are over or altered from the original; since that is not the case we should by default win.

Or something to that effect!  The woman at TS worded it much better ;)

I guess the thing to do is tell as many as possible. When I came to take out the contract with PBD I did a bit of surfing to see what I could find out about them, to try and avoid any problems.  At least if someone were to do something like that now with all these forums then they'll be alerted to avoid them like the plague.  I have little hope of seeing my money back.  I imagine bankrupcy (sp) will be declared and they will disappear......

But based on what the TS said to you Yabbas does this mean that they are going to do anything on our behalf?

Thanks for the note about contacting the provider Fortune Cookie - I hope my provider is as positive :-)