my iphone 3g woes.

[easygoingeezer]

Will try not to rant.

Registered my interest in the 3g iphone upgrade when asked, few weeks later gets my text at 07:59 to log on and order, 6 hours later no joy and 3 other people trying for me as well.

Ahh well.

Gets another text to say go to o2 shop or Carphone Warehouse, goes to carphone and they say out of stock untill Friday 11th but they arn't doing upgrades they don't think, another guy chips in, oh yes we are.

Telephone my Carphone Warehouse shop just by my office and slightly out of town I ask

"Are you doing iphone 3g upgrades for existing iphone customers"
answer " yes we are its out of stock but I am checking the warehouse and will ring you when they have then and reserve one, then come in and upgrade"

So I go to the shop with my current iphone account number and phone number, he types it in and confirms my address, he asks me what tariff
I am on now, I say I want to move up a tariff and buy the 16g phone for £59.....ok says he.
What card do you use to pay your current iphone, i show it to him and he uses it to do a credit check, I asked him if this was necessary for an existing client, he said "yes it is". He then gets me to sign for my new 18 months at £45 and says "this is your new number" I asked why I had a new number and he said "you just plug your phone in to your itunes and your old one will move over" ok says I.

Still puzzled and walking out the door I say to the manager " I am not going to end up with two contracts am I?" No your not says he.

Guess what I have two contracts one for £35 a month with 12 months left and one for £45 a month for a new phone that I havn't got yet.

I go back to the shop after speaking to customer services who confirm I have two contracts and that "off the record" they get more commission for new contracts this isn't an isolated case. Just as I am walking in to the shop the guy that was serving me points and shouts "YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT CLEAR YOU WANTED AN UPGRADE" I said if thats the case how do you know thats why I am here. He swore blind I never told him it was an upgrade and his collegue then joined in, eventually after I pointed out that he got my address and details from my current iphone account number and I confirmed it but didn't tell him it he moved to "well I didn't realise till nearly the end when you asked about the new number", eventually this moved up to "half way through" and then " I got confused becausde it was busy".

The upshot is I have no phone and demanded it cancelled, they refused to do this untill the phone was delivered to the branch, after another row they have refunded my £59 and "say" its a half cancelled contract untill they can scan the phone that was allocated to me.

So now I wait with everyone else for an iphone, I am waiting to see if the £45 gets taken from my bank and I have no confirmation that the new contract is cancelled.

So my advice is don't trust anyone that sells phones in stores, they are just little thugs that will gang up on a customer for the sake of a commission and acuse customers of lieing if they need to.

I might get in touch with ofcom about it.

It seems hard working people seem to get legally mugged these days by little thugs selling phones, electric, gas, insurance the list goes on and on and on.

[limmy]

Sorry to hear what happened, they are well out of line and would have known EXACTLY what they are doing.
My oh works in a phone shop and he would never treat customers like that. In fact he is very honest to what customers are entitled to and always tries and beats competitors offers. So he makes little profit from each deal, but has plenty of them.
In the business carphone are notoriously bad for ripping customers off and he gets many complaints about them.

[Whitequeen]

I NEVER get my phones from a shop for just that reason, EGG.
It's disgraceful!!

Here's hoping you get it sorted quickly. :thumbs-up

[Sneezy]

And when you phone up to complain you get put on hold for ages:mad2: Hope you get a good result in the end :nonono:

[georgemac]

EGG my wife's friend had a terrible time and terrible treatment from Carphone Warehouse - not a shop but phone sales - she was an existing customer, upgrading a handset and agreeing a new contract, and what the guy (salesperson) did was unbelievable. After hours on the phone, I think she eventually managed to get the upgrade canceled, only after lots of hassle and stress and being passed from pillar to post.

After hearing her story, I would not go near CPW, and think you should try emailing Charles Dunstone, CPW owner with your experience. These are the aims of CPW (http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/commerce/servlet/gben-server-PageServer?article=MAIN.UK.INTERNET.HELPINFO.COMPI NFO.CEO) - think you can email the CEO charles.dunstone@cpw.com

Good luck and hope you get it sorted.

[stellakop]

Sorry to hear about the trouble you have had, I would email watchdog on the BBC, I bet your not the only customer this has happened to recently.

Luckily the majority of these people in stores are honest and up front with customers but like in every line of business you will always get the greedy ones who try and mislead customers into offers and deals they dont actually want.

Ive had a similar problem in currys with a salesman all nicey nicey when i wanted to buy a new £100 microwave then he tried to sell me the 5yr cover plan for an extra £70, believe me with 2 kids and a family it wont last 2 years. Suddenly the smiles vanished and he walked off. greed greed greed.:angry:

Cheers
Paul

[AndyJ]

They are known in my circles as the carphone whorehouse.

Sorry for your woes mate. I'll post my 3g upgrade woes after Ive cooked tea!

A.

[limmy]

They are known in my circles as the carphone whorehouse.

A.

SNAP! :pgig: And that includes previous employees! :confused2

[pepsicube]

I bwlieve if Dollar are reading this thread then a nice job offer will be on it's way to a certain carphone warehouse employee!
You're right they're all the same.

[SimonB]

I've had awful experiences with CPW and O2 in the past and would never ever touch CPW again.

Its a shame T-Mobile didnt get the Iphone contract, their Customer Service is second to none.

[andyhayley]

Sorry to hear of your problems EGG, if I were in your position Id definitely have a rant, feel free.

We use CPW any more, nothing but trouble. Not that O2 direct are much better, they dont seem to know whats happening.

Apple / O2 / CPW just seem to have really messed up with this launch / upgrade, if the phone wasnt so good as what it does do they would lose people hand over fist.

[AndyJ]

I believe if Dollar are reading this thread then a nice job offer will be on it's way.

Oh that's so, so true... :)

A.

[Hal]

EGG, rather than waiting for the direct debit to be presented (which is likely to happen) monitor your bank account and when you see it set up contact your bank to cancel it. If they then they try to claim under it, it will be bounced along with a fee charged to them by your bank. That will focus their minds.

[Dabies]

I won't touch CPW with a barge pole, and I really recommend that nobody else does either.

When I called to cancel my contract when it had come up for renewal, they offered me it for free for 12 months to keep me as a customer, the tariff included around 100 mins, so I was foolish enough to accept and gave the phone to my fiancee who rarely uses her PAYG. The deal was they paid around £100 into my account and then they would take out £10 for the first ten months of the contract. But for some reason, which I suspect was a way of the advisor earning a bit more commission, the phone was put on a £40 tariff.

Due to me having problems with my bank at the same time I didn't find out about this until some time later by which time they had already taken more than the allocated £100 out of my account. As soon as I realised I contacted CPW and they apologised and assured me that it would be rectified and that I would receive the appropriate credit a.s.ap. Then another £40 was debited from my account, I instantly cancelled the Direct Debit (which in hindsight I should've done as soon as I noticed a problem), then ensued about 4 months of arguements with the customer service department, waiting for management to call me back (as they were never in the office when I called), once I talked to a manager he said that the credit would be applied within the next week, true to form no such thing happened and I was then told that a more senior manager needed to authorise it as the level of credit had exceeded a certain level (due to the CPW not doing anything for months on end), and during all this period I kept on getting threatening letters and phone calls from the credit control department, who promptly got told where to stick it. :d:

I finally ended up speaking to a very nice customer service advisor who managed to get it all sorted within a couple of days, and who was the only member of CPW staff who actually ever phoned me back when they said they would. After all this they had the gaul to try and get me to sign up to a new contract. :mad2:

Sorry to ramble on, I just like to take every opportunity to give the CPW a good bashing. :d:

I hope you get your iPhone woes sorted EGG, I'm really wanting to get one, but I think I'll wait until the initial madness calms down a bit, but I think I'll definitely be heading to an O2 store and not CPW. :d:

[AndyJ]

I realised, based on a post above, that your bank will receive a DD form/request prior to your DD actually being requested.

Call them and tell them not to accept it.

A.

[easygoingeezer]

Well, the £59 had come out of my bank and yesterday I got a bill for £45
for my first months contract. I telephoned o2 CS and they passed me around a bit as they couldn't quite comprehend why I had two contracts
and how to cancel without me having to pay, or morel likely no one wanted to be responsible for what might happen, lol. About an hour later
I was assured the contract was cancelled after someone eventually believing that I did NOT have the damn phone in my possession, I was apologised to and told that under no circumstances should I have been sold a new contract AND I wasn't the first person CPW had done this to on 3g launch day, he said there was no way it could have been accidental if they got my personal details off screen from my existing account number.

Have cancelled the DD that popped up on my account this morning but also notice the £59 has been put back.


Still not got a new 3g phone though.