Hi

For any one who has a cashabck contract with Mobile Outlet, unfortunately the company has gone into administration.

The details are posted on their website, They are however encouraging you to write to them if you have money or contracts outstanding.

Could anyone advise if the Phone operators are offering any reductions in line rentals due to this, i recently received a monthly line rental reduction from Vodafone when another similar company offering cashback went bust.

Any advice greatly received. Good Luck

Andy

Andy,

There is another one of these just starting, see the thread 'Chatterbox: no cashback'. See also threads on CSS Mobiles (Bradford), Letz Talk (Leicester), Fonezone and Cashback Protest . . . .

In all cases the problem is the same. I suggest you join either Letztalk or Chatterbox threads and when you have read all the back postings make contact with the communications person to keep in the link to get support with your claim if you have reasonable grounds for one . . . .

KRs Funforus

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

However i have already gone down the small claims path. with a previous claim i was succesful but with this one Mobile Outlet kept fobbing it off. The claim has now been esculated to a warrant to recover the money but with the company going into administration it states that any legal claims against the company will not go ahead.

I am concerned that the claim was raised back in december when the company was still trading. I am owed £72 from a previous contract with them which finished in September 2007 and now owed a further £420 for the remainder of a new 12 month cashback contract. Dont hold out any hopes of receiving any now!!!!

The best i can hope is that the Network operator will take a sympathetic view and offer some kind of reduction.Vodafone have done this in the past when other companies have gone into administration.

The following is the Notice of Administration on Mobile Outlets website.

Mobile Matters (UK) Ltd T/A The Mobile Outlet - In Administration

Gerald M Krasner of Begbies Traynor, Burley House, 12 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NF and Julian N R Pitts of Begbies Traynor, Glendevon House, Hawthorn Park, Coal Road Leeds LS14 1PQ, were appointed Joint Administrators by the director on 15 February 2008. G M Krasner and J N R Pitts are licensed to act as Insolvency Practitioners by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Purpose and effect of Administration

In this case, the Company has ceased trading and our primary objective is to maximise asset realisations. You should be aware that whilst in administration the Company has the protection of a wide-ranging moratorium under paragraphs 40-43 of Schedule B1 to the Insolvency Act 1986. The effect is to prevent any proceedings, execution, distraint, legal action or 'self-help'€™ remedies being commenced or continued against the Company except with the consent of the administrators or the permission of the Court.

As administrators, we are not in a position to pay amounts due by the Company in respect of contractual obligations entered into prior to our appointment. Please send a detailed statement of any amount due to you at the date of our appointment and advise us immediately if you claim any security over, or title to, any property or goods in the possession of the Company.

Please also send details of any contract outstanding between you and the Company.

Administrators'€™ Proposals

We are required to send you a statement of our proposals for dealing with the Company within 8 weeks of the date of our appointment. This will set out, in as much detail as necessary, our views as to how the purpose of the administration can best be achieved. We are also required to hold a meeting of creditors within 10 weeks of our appointment so that creditors have an opportunity to consider and vote on our proposals. These time limits are subject to extension by the court or for up to 28 days with the consent of creditors. We need not, however, summon a creditors’ meeting under certain circumstances, but if this is the case our proposals will provide a full explanation.

Orders for Goods and Services

Please do not fulfil any orders placed by the Company prior to our appointment unless you receive our written confirmation that the goods are still required.

Please note that the joint administrators are not personally adopting any contracts which may have been entered into by the Company, nor do we accept personal liability in respect of them.

All goods and services provided to you by the Company after our appointment must be paid for in full and no lien or set-off may be exercised against debts outstanding at the date of our appointment.

Other Matters

If you are holding any property or monies belonging to the Company would you please inform me immediately and note that you are not authorised to deal with them without my prior written confirmation. If you claim to retain title to goods delivered to the Company or a lien over assets belonging to the Company in your possession, then please contact me as soon as possible with full details and copies of any supporting documentation.

If there are any matters which you consider I should be aware of regarding the Company'€™s affairs, I shall be pleased to hear from you. This request for information is standard practice and does not imply any criticism or course of action against any person concerned in the management of the Company's affairs.

Please send details of your claim to Begbies Traynor, Burley House, 12 Clarendon Road, Leeds LS2 9NF

Andy59

Andy,

That's why I was referring you to those threads. There is a much easier way. There is no point in spending money chasing companies going broke or actually in liquidation. The liability is the networks . . . as in all scams FOLLOW THE MONEY! . . . Who has the money (patter of little corporate feet in distance) Why, the networks have the money!

You need not go cap in hand for a grace and favour discount, they actually owe you the cashback unless you actually had two very clear separae contracts (and I'd lay odds you didnt). Principals are liable for their agents promises - read up on agency law, never been used as far as I can see in consumer matters but still the law and very appropriate for this situation.

Save your time and money and do it right! It works I have seen it, I have done it.

KRs Funforus

Hi Funforus,

I bought my contract via Chatterbox and have not received my cashback. I took your advice and wrote to Three who were my service providers by using one of the templates on the which.co.uk website. They contacted me straight away to tell me that they were passing on the information to their designated Cashback problems team. However, i have read on other forums that others have done this but have been unsuccessful. Three were unable to get them thier cashback, but offered £150 credit onto their account if they extended their contract by 6 months. Now £150 is less than half of what i'm owed! If they offer me this, what should i do? Can i decline the offer and continue to demand that Three repay the cashback?

All of your comments have been really helpful. Thank-you so much.

Anirmas

Hello Anirmas (and anyone else in the same situation),

If you are really really pressed then accept an offer but do it in writing and say clearly that you do so 'under duress'. You can then go on to claim what is owed but as you have technically ended the contract you may have given them some quibble room . . .

Whether or not you do that go onto the Chatterbox thread and contact Ashman who is coordinating evidence and the sending out of templates that you personalise and add the relevant evidence to. You then take these to compulsory arbitration, the bit the networks dont tell you about, and you may well see your money back.

In many of these cases the networks are liable for the deals struck by their agents. Its an obscure area of mercantile law seldom used in consumer affairs but that doesn't mean it cant be. There is a solid body of precedent (judge made 'common law') literally going back hundreds of years to prevent principals and agents obscuring responsibility and legging it with the money!

So, there you are, half a day of your time and you may get it all back plus your reasonable costs in pursuit! You dont need the courts, bureacratic, slow and expensive, this process to which the networks must belong as part of their license is much, much better!

Good luck, Funforus (and everyone else too!)

hi funforus im new to this forum thing but both me and my girlfriend have contracts with mobile outlet we have sent claims to administrator but not yet received a reply yet is it possible you could help me with getting the money back via the way you were explaining to Anirmas and writing directly to O2 i will definately do this as im also taken mobile rainbow to small claims for not paying sent online to them last week [these havent gone bust or are in administration yet!??] hope you can help me or point me in the right direction please!!! [i believe the fault is due to the networks who have used agents to do the deals knowing that if they go bust then there is no come back to them!]

Hi,

I have three contracts with them. At the moment I do not have any access to their website. In fact, the website is not available on the internet. Do you have any address or email address to write to them about my contarcts (money) outstanding.

Thenk you

mhb

Hi Andy

I too am really hacked off with this company. I followed the advise of the Trading Standards Service and wrote to them giving 10 working days to send the money they owe. I have heard nothing from them. My latest bills were returned to me by the postal service saying that the company are no longer at that address. I cannot open the webpage (www.themobileoutlet.co.uk). Is this the address that you've been using? If not, please could you send the link. I would love to see the page that invites people to write to them. I am owed around £400, which will increase by the end of my contract. Any advice?

Caroline

Caroline, Andy et al . . .

I think I have said this dozens of times . . . there is no point chasing a bust company for money . . . lack of it is why they have gone bust and it is highly unlikley that there will be any assets to sell to pay off creditors and in any case the liquidators come first!

However, there is a chance that the networks may be held to account. It depends on the circumstances. In the case of a couple of retailers they could not but in the case of several others they could. Vodaphoney and 3 appear to be the most devious and sometimes plain nasty and deceptive networks to deal with and they will offer you dreadful deals to try to wriggle off the hook.

Most people are likey to have a strong claim and anyone contracted to a network from August 2007 onwards an even stronger one.

Read this thread from the start to get a deeper understanding. Then, get in touch with each other and if one person from this group contacts me I will forward information, ideas and templates. They have worked elsewhere they may work for you. However, I'm not going to do all the organising for you (unlike all the outfits that are supposed to look after your interests I don't have my hand in the taxpayers pocket) so you need to get together so I can work through one person.

KRs Funforus

KRs Funforus

I jumped in at the middle of the thread, as that's where my Google search for 'Mobile Outlet 2008' took me. So I registered and hit the reply button (first time user). I have now read the other bits of thread and am very interested in your comments re aiming at the mobile phone company itself (in my case Orange).

Other Mobile Outlet customers

I'm happy to co-ordinate with KRs Funforus. Who's going to join me?

Caroline

Hello Caroline,

If you click on my name on the left you can get my profile and on that is a contact address, if you email me I'll send you a collection of useful information, templates and stuff!

In the meantime I'd suggest you open a 'throw away' webmail or email account for this purpose and put it on your profile for people in this group to 'sign on'. If you want a google mail account which allows for detailed internal searching (useful to find the right document) just ask me and I'll send you an invitation to open one.

. . . And to everyone - you need to collect paperwork, order forms, flyers, screenshots of the website before it evaporated, copies of the Terms and Conditions all of which may and probably will be needed to make your case. The sooner you start the sooner a result . . . in my case it took me just under four weeks, a few pounds for printing and postage and that was it - My cashback and a token for inconvenience were paid.

If you have had or have conversations with your networks write up the notes especially who spoken to, when, which call centre and what the detail of the conversation was. It is not unknown for networks to fail to record conversationa and agreements.

If you have not already done so start the ball rolling by calling your network and asking them to pay the missing cashback as 'principles' responsible for the actions of their 'agent'. They will politely tell you to *** off and that they have no contract with you to do so. You then point out that you had no contract with their agent, in law a consideration is required to establish contract . . . It is they by way of commission and not you who paid a consideration and therefore you expect them to make good the failure of their agent. They are unlikey to give in in which case ask them to agree that you have reached deadlock.

If they say yes ask them to put it in writing and send it to you. Don't just trust them to do that write up your notes than write a short letter confirming the conversation and repeating the request for the agreement that there is deadlock. Yes it's a hassle but the best bureacrat wins!

Also, you need to research which arbitration scheme your network belongs to. Go to the websites for CISAS and OTELO and check membership . . .

You will probably be offered a deal or deals, many of these are punitive - especially Vodaphoneys and 3's but it is up to you whether they are acceptable. In any caseif you accept under duress - you are simply broke - you can say so and put it in writing in your acceptance, you can then continue with your claim.

And that's it for now.

Kind regards, Funforus (but not for greedy scammers!)

OK. I've got an email account set up for this - please see my profile for details if interested. It would be good to share info. I have copies of all paperwork (incl terms & conditions, etc) but do not have screen dumps of the (no longer existing) website. Any interested parties please get in touch asap, as I wish to move forward with this straight away.

Thanks to Funforus I now have some very useful template letters and further info relating to such claims, so we're all tooled up and ready to go.

Let's do it

Caroline

gayyyyy just reached the "120 days" marker for the first cashback to be sent off. and now this lol!!!
i want to join the good fight, took outa contract nov 22nd for 12 months on O2 for a samsung u600. Let me know how you guys get on.

Phoned O2 and spoke with them, guy on the phone didn't know about it but they have a department set up for dealing with this so he has emailed them and i will get a call within 5 working days ~

Oh well Dave, you are in a slightly better position than most, your contract was entered into some four months after the networks promised that they would clean up their act (see the Code of Practice for selling mobile phone contracts on the Ofcom website). Make sure you secure any documentation, screenshots of what you signed up for etc. etc.

I'd be very surprised if O2 dealt with you quickly and in a straight manner. Remember, unless you clearly entered into a separate contract with the reseller and parted with some sort of 'consideration' then your contract is only with O2 - 'though you can expect them to deny this hotly. This means that you must pay them but also that they must pay what their defaulting agent promised . . .

They should also advise you that you have recourse to an independent arbitrator . . . again, I bet they wont because unless they agree with you - in which case there is no dispute - they will say that because they don't agree with you you must be wrong therefore there cant be a dispute (yah, boo, sucks . . . ) These people are big on you owing them but pretty evasive and shifty when they owe you.

Contact Caroline (above) and start the process as you mean to go on. Make sure you log all the details of any calls for future reference (networks are not beyond denying content or even existence of calls) and try to insist that everything is done in writing.

Good luck - some of us have got our money back but its hard work sometimes so you may need the luck!

Funforus