Mobile Phone Contract problem.

[Cozwin]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some advice.

Signed up to a contract in phones4u on the orange tariff Dolphin 20, i.e. £20 a month, however my bill came through yesterday and it says £20.99 plus vat total £24.66, however i was never once told that the £20 didn't include vat, and my previous contract with 3 included vat so i had no reason to believe this did not.

Do i have any leg to stand on kicking off wise via customer services?

24 month contract, so paying £4.66 more then i intended for 24 months doesn't sound very fair to me.

[azrael316]

Check the contract paper work. if VAT isn't mentioned as not beiong included then your good to go in kicking off a cust services.

Otherwise its a case of "Caveat Emptor" im afraid...

[Muns]

The 24 month Dolphin 20 package costs £20 including VAT

Check your bill to see if they have added charges for something else (eg. picture messaging bundle, support, satnav bundle etc). The line rental excluding VAT should only be £17.02.

Could also be a pricing mistake.. call Orange and ask them about it.

Dunno if it is relevant now but you can cancel your contract within 14 days.

[Cozwin]

on the actual contract page they showed me and ive signed etc, it doesnt mention it at all, it has a gap to put total contract price which they didnt fill in.

However there is a generic orange print out page stapled to the lot that is so small i can barely read it, i bet it has something in that, but i wondered on the verbal contract side of things seems as i was told £20 a month... noone said plus vat.

[Rob_B]

Ring Orange & query, check the tariif on their site beforehand. Sounds like they may have added something (insurance/bundles?)
I was going to make a comment about P4U being cowboys but I imagine most shops are like that nowadays, I'd suggest if you can get the option to get ot of this then try looking online & consider Quidco/etc to save yourself some cash.

[mallett]

Was that your first bill? Sometimes I've found that they can charge funny amounts for the first one as they charge for a month and a few days or something silly like that.

A call to Orange would confirm or deny this, and if that isn't the case then it sounds like they might have added something like insurance, like others have said, Orange might be able to tell you this.

Just a note, are the bills coming straight from Orange or are they going through Phones4U?

[Funkstar]

Was that your first bill? Sometimes I've found that they can charge funny amounts for the first one as they charge for a month and a few days or something silly like that.

This.

Check the billing dates it could well be that this bill covers slightly more than a month.

T-Mobile were really good about this when I upgraded a couple of months back. They told me my first bill would be higher due to the upgrade kicking in part way through the previous month.

[Cozwin]

possibly, ill look into it, but vat still added on top? still sounds wrong as i wasnt told that.

[Spud1]

Well you will always have VAT added on top, because..they have to charge it.

So your normal rental wil be that £17.02 a month + vat = £20 dolphin tarrif.

Add in a week or so's usage which is another few £ + vat and you hit your £24.66.

As has been said, check your billing dates and just ring orange for an explanation if it still doesnt add up - your bill should clearly show the period your line rental was charged for.

[Funkstar]

There will always be VAT on top of the line rental, it's just a case of the base price on the bill was £20.99 instead of £17.02

So you just have to find out where that extra £3.97 comes from.