75ZT Community

One of my students has a phone on contract with O2 for which he pays £22 per month.

Being within the last month of his contract, he decided to change to a different company, fully aware that he would still owe a cancellation payment to O2. He calculated that it would be a pro rata amount for the two remaining weeks of his contract, which sounds reasonable to me.

He received a final bill of £322.

When he inquired he was told that they had no "mechanism" to charge him less than one months payment and the £300 was the "admin fee".

A further thought which occurred to me was that, if he paid monthly in advance, which he did, then he has already over paid beyond the end of his contract.

Nice way to say "Thanks for your business".

The £22 I can kind of accept. The £300 isn't any kind of fair reflection of their administration costs and unless hidden very carefully in the small print is wrong. Even then, I'd suggest it would be an 'unfair contract' and therefore open to being challenged.

Agree with you Duncan about unfair contract - tell them to take him to court.

Well, just had a look at their current contract. They actually say 'no more than the monthly fee for the number of months outstanding'.

Thanks chaps.

I had advised him not to make the payment but being a Saudi Air Force officer he was unsure as to whether this sort of behaviour was common in the UK.

He tells me that if he hadn't access to people at Cosford with whom he can discuss problems, he would have paid without question because the Saudi authorities are VERY hot on dealing with their countrymen who don't pay their bills.

I wrote him an "exploratory" letter to send to O2 and we await developments.

O2 sent a letter to my student writing off any remaining payments. Job done

Well done! Good result