Phones Don't Get Done Get Dom

'I'm Dominic Littlewood and I'm here to champion your consumer rights.

'In fact, taking companies to task has become my goal in life.'

Do you think she deserves her money back?

I said yeah.

'Any problem, no matter how big or small,

'I'll help you get the service you deserve.'

I just still cannot believe that they would come out

to a 19-year-old lad,

they were just going to drive away and leave him.

'Whether it involves getting your money back...'

I'm looking for about £20K to sort this out once and for all.

'..or taking on your contract conundrums.'

They said it was commercially acceptable,

well, it's not acceptable to me.

'Whatever the issue, I'm here to help.'

On today's programme:

What happens when you start

getting billed for a mobile phone that you've never had?

I then phoned O2 and said, "Look, we've never had the phone

"so we are not going to pay for a phone we've not had."

Credit rating. Do you really know what that means?

Well, we go behind the scenes to find out the best way

to manage your score.

A credit score is a simple indication of how likely it is

that you'll repay any credit you're applying for.

Holidays in England, we're encouraged to take them,

but if you haven't taken out insurance, where do you stand?

I hoped that Centre Parcs would make an exception to the rule

and postpone our holiday.

I'm tackling your consumer issues to make sure you don't get done.

Mobiles phones - it seems we can't live without them these days.

They're an integral part of our lifestyles.

Whether we're using them to text, phone calls,

surfing the internet, even watching TV.

With 94% of British adults owning a mobile phone

it's big business for the numerous companies out there

offering a variety of makes, models and contracts

so that you can choose the right deal for you.

But I've heard from some of you

whose mobile phone purchase has rung up nothing but a huge debt!

Take the Andrews family in 2012.

20-year-old son Matthew wanted an upgrade

and he turned to mum Louise to help find him a phone.

Normally we'd go in store to get my phone, but it looked cheaper

to do it online, so we went online to do it that way.

Matthew was looking for an iPhone 4S

with a two-year contract at a sub £30 a month commitment.

The family came across a deal from online site mobiles.co.uk,

a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse.

I was getting the handset for free.

I think it was 2gb of data, unlimited texts and 7,500 minutes.

And I think that was for £29 per month, I think.

The 24-month contract was being provided by O2

and with such a good deal on the table

Matthew and his mum decided to go ahead with ordering the phone.

Everything was quite clear, wasn't it?

And it was quite easy to use from a browsing point of view,

looking at what we were wanting to buy.

But what happened next made the family wish they'd

gone down the old fashioned route and bought in store.

With any order that you do online you've got

the option of having it delivered to a works address.

I was quite happy for that to happen because I've had

so many parcels delivered to work when I've ordered things online.

But actually entering the address proved to be the downfall

when the website did not recognise her work address

and defaulted to another nearby one.

It wouldn't allow me to change it at all.

We removed the option to have it delivered to work.

Because it seemed to be too complicated,

nothing like I'd ever come across before

when I'd ordered anything online.

So she changed her options to have it delivered the next day

but this time to her home address.

But that's when the confusion arose.

I said to Matthew, "I haven't got a confirmation page,

"that's really weird,

"I don't know that that's actually been processed properly."

Having changed the delivery address to their home,

but not receiving a webpage confirming the order

they were unsure if it had gone through,

so Matthew checked his emails.

Normally you get a confirmation email from any company, saying,

"This is your order, this is what you've paid,

"this is when it will be delivered," sort of thing,

just like an online receipt. We didn't get one of them

and then I continued to check all through the day

to see if anything was going to come through about when it was scheduled

to be delivered or anything like that. That didn't come.

And it wasn't only an email confirmation the family didn't get,

the new phone didn't arrive the next day as promised.

Or the following days after that.

I really did just assume

that the order just hadn't been properly completed.

But a month later an email did arrive

from O2, with a bill for £53 for his new contract on the iPhone 4.

When I received the bill, it was a bit of a mystery really.

I didn't know why I was being billed for a phone

that I hadn't received yet.

And at this point Matthew's dad Colin got involved.

I then spoke to O2 who were very helpful.

They tried to point out what had happened,

I established that the phone had been delivered.

It had then been activated early in the new year.

On being told this Matthew went back through his email account

and found an email had been sent by mobiles.co.uk on 4th December,

a week after they'd ordered the phone, confirming dispatch.

Unfortunately as he had not seen it at the time,

Matthew was unable to stop delivery to the wrong address.

So the phone had been delivered, but not to the family,

and what they hadn't realised

was that the 24-month contract had started.

We paid two months of the contract,

amounting to just over £53, I think, from memory,

in the hope that shortly after that we would then get a phone,

Matthew could then pick it up

and run with the remaining 22 months of his two year contract.

Sadly that didn't happen.

O2 blocked the phone so it could not be used,

but despite numerous complaints

the family were still being told that as the phone had been activated

they were liable for the 24-month contract.

O2 did make an offer some months later,

after I'd refused to pay any more money against the contact.

They offered us a refurbished phone without any accessories.

I didn't think that that was fair and said so.

After rejecting the offer of a refurbished phone,

O2 told Matthew he could buy himself out of the contract for almost £600,

again, something the family turned down.

And both Carphone Warehouse on behalf of mobiles.co.uk and O2

issued a deadlock letter.

I was rather hoping they'd put their hands up

and either agree to cancel the contract or offer a new phone.

But they didn't and Matthew can only dream of the phone he never got.

And he's not the only O2 customer

who was billed for something they never received.

Meet Helen Barron.

After receiving a courtesy call from O2 about an upgrade

she decided to order a new phone for her daughter Keira.

That contract was going to be £18.50 per month.

At that stage my daughter was coming up to her 18th birthday.

We thought it would be a nice surprise for her.

After she agreed to the contract

O2 arranged to send out the phone and SIM card,

telling her there was a 10-day cancellation period.

The SIM card arrived a few days later.

Not with the phone, though.

After waiting a few more days, in which time the phone still

had not arrived, Helen decided to return the SIM.

Money was quite tight really so we decided,

within that 10-day window, to actually send the SIM back.

When the O2 SIM arrived, on the back was a return to sender address

and the letter inside was welcoming us,

so all I did on the bottom of that was just write,

"Sorry, have to cancel."

Put it back in its original envelope and posted it back.

The phone never actually got here, so I automatically assumed

O2 had received the SIM, and therefore cancelled the contract.

Hearing nothing more, Helen thought that was the end of it.

Due to ill health over the next few years

she didn't check her bank accounts regularly

so it wasn't until she spoke to O2 28 months later

that she got a shock.

There were four contracts going through my banking account.

Myself, my new partner, my son, Edward, and a Mr Williams.

Never heard of Mr Williams, never been a Mr Williams lived here.

Helen immediately disputed the extra account

in the name of Mr Williams

and was told it had been active since 2011,

the same time she'd ordered the new phone.

And since then Helen's paid £531 for a phone she's never had.

She asked to be refunded

but O2 refused as the phone had been used.

So that's two families being charged for contracts

for phones which they've never had, let alone used.

Time I started looking into these cases a bit further.

O2 has been trading for 25 years

and is a market leader with over 23 million customers across the UK.

I've sent them an email about two of those customers.

We'll hear shortly what they have got to say.

From cars to houses, mobile phones to washing machines,

a lot of what we buy today is done so on credit,

and that credit leaves a financial footprint.

Did you know your footprint can affect

whether a company does business with you or not?

Not only that but details

of everything you've ever bought on credit

is held by companies such as Experian,

and that holds the key to your borrowing power.

We hold information about consumers, mostly from lenders,

about the credit that we've used over the last six years,

and lenders use that to make informed decisions

when we apply for new credit card, loan or a mortgage.

And what sort of information does that include?

When you apply for credit,

a lender will typically look at three sources of information

to help it decide whether to lend to you.

This will include the information on your application form

about your job and salary,

information they might have about you already

if you're an existing customer,

and the information we hold that we call your credit rating.

Lenders will typically use an automated process

called credit scoring, to calculate your credit rating.

And it's this credit score that could have an impact

on your application for a loan or mortgage.

A credit score is a simple indication of how likely it is

that you'll repay any credit you're applying for

based on the data that the lender has available.

So the credit score is totted up,

and from it you get a consumer's overall credit rating.

I've had a few emails from people

concerned about their credit rating.

Karen contacted me after changing her bank account over

using a switching service

which promised to change over all her direct debits.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

But three months later

it seems one of her direct debits wasn't switched over

and now not only has she got a big debt,

her credit rating has gone downhill.

If you find adverse information on your credit report

that's factually correct but not your fault,

one of the things you can do

is add what we call a notice of correction to the information,

so that's an explanatory note of up to 200 words

that goes onto your credit report

and any lender looking at that information in the future

will see that additional information.

OK. So what can people do

if they find themselves in a situation like Karen's?

It's so important to check your credit report on a regular basis

and let us know if there's anything on there that you're unhappy about.

The information we hold on people's credit reports

should be accurate and up to date by law.

So if you find something on there that a lender has recorded

that you disagree with you can either go to them direct

and ask them to correct it or you can come to us

at the credit record agency and we can take the matter up for you.

I've also been contacted by Kyle. He's a serving soldier

but when he moved back to the UK recently

he couldn't get a contract on a mobile phone.

So he checked his credit rating and found it was very poor.

The odd thing is Kyle has never borrowed money

so he has no debts.

He's really worried he'll struggle to build a future.

To get a good credit rating you actually need some evidence,

some past evidence that you can pay things on time,

so actually when you start out,

you typically won't start with a very high credit rating at all.

There will be very little evidence to go on.

Having lived abroad

and not bought anything on credit in the past, Kyle has been

unable to build up a good credit score.

So what's the answer?

There's a common misconception that to build a good credit rating

you need to have gotten into debt.

That is actually not the case.

Lenders are simply looking for evidence that you've responsibly

managed credit in the past,

so it's not about racking up lots of debt.

The trick really is working out how to establish a credit record

and start building a credit rating that's going to unlock

lots of products and services for you.

There are ways we can help improve our credit score.

Firstly make sure you're registered on the electoral role.

Secondly, use some credit but use it responsibly.

And thirdly, make sure you space out any new applications for credit.

So, just like your health,

it's worth keeping your credit rating in check too.

The Andrews family

and Helen Barron both ordered phones on an O2 contract.

But neither of the phones have been delivered to their addresses.

Before getting in contact with me, both of them had reached deadlock.

Matthew was told he could cancel his contract if he paid almost £600.

While Helen, who'd already paid out unknowingly £531,

was being offered just a 50% refund.

20-year-old Matthew is being chased for money.

Despite his phone never being delivered, it was activated,

kick-starting the two year, £29 a month contract.

He's getting debt collection letters

and has discovered his credit rating has been affected.

Having a black mark on my credit score at such a young age,

it doesn't really look good.

I mean, I'm trying to save up so I can move out.

After sending the e-mails, I've heard back from a press officer,

John, who has told me he's looking into the cases.

And I think it's time we caught up.

Hello, John. Good afternoon to you.

It's Dominic Littlewood calling from the BBC.

I bring John up to speed with what happened

when Matthew's mum Louise tried to order the phone.

She never received the phone.

Cos the address didn't come up correctly,

she logged off the website, didn't believe she'd actually ordered it,

and didn't realise she had

until she got a bill in January 2013 for approximately £53.

She disputed it, but she also paid it as well

because she didn't want credit ratings being affected.

And then they were told they needed to pay £588

to get out of the contract.

It's now gone to debt collectors.

That happened at the end of last year, so, literally last month.

She queried the phone saying she'd never received it.

At some point O2 offered her son a refurbished phone.

I can't work out why you would have done that.

Unless you'd agreed that the phone hadn't been delivered for whatever reason.

Anyway, maybe you can explain that once you get your head around the case.

'Have you spoken to mobiles.co.uk?'

No. You're the first call I've made.

We then move on to Helen's case.

-Can I just ask a couple of questions?

-Anything you like.

On Helen's, you say that she did receive a phone,

but she sent it back?

She agreed to a contract and it was £18.99 per month.

Plus, she was going to get a 3G phone.

It arrived a few days later, but the phone didn't.

Because she was within her ten day cool off period,

she sent the SIM back to O2 thinking that it would cancel the contract.

However, O2 continued to bill her for the contract for next 28 months

until she finally realised, which was December last year, and when

she called up to cancel, she found out that the SIM was in her name,

and she didn't even realise until this point.

Smashing. Well, listen, it's been great talking to you.

Leave these both with me and I'll get to the bottom of them

and be in touch with you very soon.

-Nice talking to you, John.

-Cheers now.

-Thank you, bye.

-Bye.

That call was so nice I felt like I want to go out for a beer with John.

He said, "Great, get the information over to me. We'll have a look at it.

"We'll get this sorted out."

Let's hope it continues to go like that.

They quite often don't though.

O2 is not the only company involved here.

Matthew's problems started because he and his mum could not enter

their delivery address correctly on the mobiles.co.uk site

they bought the phone from.

So, who should Matthew's complaint be against?

The advantage of going through a third party might be that you

get a better deal on your phone.

The difficulty is, if something goes wrong,

trying to work out exactly whose problem it is.

Is it the third party?

Is it the phone provider? Who have you got a contract with?

And who sold you the phone?

And that's exactly the issue Matthew has.

Yet mobiles.co.uk and its parent company Carphone Warehouse

stated that as the phone had been delivered,

there was nothing else they could do.

Ultimately if you are dealing with a third party

and you've taken out a phone contract through them,

that third party has sold you the contract.

They've sold you that package.

If you've got a problem with that, then you need to speak to them.

Once you've got the phone and you're using it,

then you need to be speaking to the phone company itself.

Now, where does that leave Matthew, though,

because he never received the phone from the third party?

But because it was delivered and activated by someone,

the network started charging him.

He's complained to both retailer and network.

If you're having problems with the third party seller

and they're not helping you out,

it might still be worth talking to the phone company

because they carry a lot of heft

and they might get that third party to sort it out for you.

I've contacted Carphone Warehouse

to get its response about the third party seller mobiles.co.uk,

but the network, O2, is the one chasing the money,

and they have agreed to look into this for me.

I want to know whether mobiles.co.uk should have done more.

So I sent dad Colin to meet his local Trading Standards officer.

-Hello, Colin.

-Nice to see you.

-Take a seat.

-Thank you.

And Colin explains their situation.

The fact that you weren't able to review

and amend any issues with regards to the details you put on the website...

Then that's covered within UK regulations.

It's the E-Commerce Regulations 2002.

The fact that this website didn't give you the opportunity to

review and amend any potential errors on there,

that would be a de facto breach of the E-Commerce Regulations.

Right.

Because of that, you would have the right to rescind that contract

and that should put you back in the position as if

the contract hadn't been entered into in the first place.

So, websites should ensure that you're given options for choosing

a delivery address and have to provide a confirmation page.

I certainly didn't know any of what Richard told me

about this today and I've done over 200 online transactions.

Well, we've put all that to mobiles.co.uk,

but I've had an e-mail from Matthew, and he's still receiving

debt collection letters and that's something

I need to speak to O2 about.

OK, I've sent all the information over to O2 about these two issues

I'm trying to sort out. They've had time to look at them.

Let's give that really nice friendly chap a call.

What was his name? John.

-Press office. John speaking.

-Hi, would that be John Madeley?

It would be, yes.

-Hello, John, it's Dominic Littlewood from the BBC again.

-Hi, Dom.

-How are you?

-I'm all right. Is it convenient time?

It is, yes, carry on.

Before I get a chance to say anything,

John updates me on Helen Barron's case.

The clarification I'm waiting on

is that, had Helen received the package...

Complete package, yeah.

Presumably, somebody must have signed for the phone and the SIM.

Indeed and that is what I'm waiting for.

John tells me he'll get back to me as soon as he has this information,

and we move on to Matthew's case.

We've already been doing some investigation on this

and the notes from that account highlighted that mobiles.co.uk

had confirmed the phone was delivered to the address

specified on the order.

I explain that the address John has on his records is the wrong

address and that's the problem Louise found.

When you put in her postcode, it's coming out at the wrong address.

Now, onto the debt collectors.

I'm assuming it's you guys that have probably passed this on to

debt collectors.

Can you call off the bailiffs, please, until we get it resolved?

I can certainly see what I can sort out.

Yeah, if you can call them off, I'd appreciate that.

-Yes, no worries, I'll certainly put that request in.

-Right.

-All right, that's brilliant.

-Let's have a chat next week, John.

-Look forward to it. Have a good weekend.

-You too. Thanks a lot.

-Cheers.

-Bye-bye.

This guy is really, really helpful

and he's raised a few points there which are quite interesting.

It's not going to be a walk in the park for me.

Still, I like cases like that.

Another parent who wanted to ensure her child stayed connected

is Verna Richards.

17-year-old daughter, Natasha, has learning difficulties

so Verna wanted her to have a phone so she could contact her

whenever she needed.

I put her on pay as you go for a couple of months,

but she usually finish her credit quite quickly,

so I decided to put her on a contract.

She wanted her daughter to have the freedom to speak to her friends,

but the safety of not running out of credit in an emergency.

I decided to get Natasha a T-Mobile phone because me and her sisters

were on T-Mobile and I had a history with them, so they were always good.

Natasha's contract was for £26 a month which came out

of Verna's bank account, but on two occasions in 2011,

Natasha's bill was over £100.

The second time it happened, my eldest daughter was at home

and she said, "Mummy, I'll pay the bill and call T-Mobile."

So my daughter called them, explained the situation to them,

to put a cap on it and don't let her go over.

They said, "OK."

Confident T-Mobile would stop the service if Natasha exceeded

her allowance, Verna hoped it would be the end of shock bills

and it was, until the summer of 2013.

Natasha's bill came.

I was sitting on the sofa, opened the bill and I nearly fall over.

It was nearly £2,000. I couldn't believe it.

I took the phone up same time and dial T-Mobile,

and asked them to explain why a £26 bill comes to nearly £2,000.

That's more than a month's wages for me. I could never pay that bill.

Unfortunately, Natasha had gone way over her monthly contract,

spending hours talking to her friend.

Verna told T-Mobile she had requested a cap on her phone

but they claim the bill still stands.

So, I've sent them an e-mail asking for more information.

A cap means a customer cannot spend more than their monthly contract

price unless they specifically authorise it with the company.

It's something telecoms regulator Ofcom has been campaigning for

and I've come to meet with them today.

As we're in a situation now where virtually everyone has

a mobile phone, from about five years upwards it seems, are you

finding you're getting quite a few complaints? Are they escalating?

The areas we've been looking at recently and where we've been

putting in quite a lot of work, is things like bill shocks,

so, issues where, as technology gets more and more complicated,

I think people don't necessarily understand what the phone can do.

So, clearly with a smartphone, you have things like data usage now

and people can get caught out

because technology is getting ahead of people's understanding of phones.

Particularly with children having phones, it's difficult

to control what they're doing,

so we've been doing quite a lot of work with the providers to look at

ways that they can improve, not just stopping people getting big

bills, but also educating consumers about the things they need to

look out for, because phones don't just make telephone calls any more.

They do all sorts of other things.

In fact, making telephone calls is probably the least you

use your mobile phones for nowadays, isn't it?

What you're referring to there is probably capping.

Cap is a sort of fixed financial amount

and when you've got to that cap, you won't be able to use your phone

any more until you proactively contact the company and say,

"I would like to spend more or I'd like to top up my account."

There are also usage alerts

so there are lots of tools out there now, where, particularly

if you're online, you can look at your spend and you can monitor

your own usage so that you can control it a bit better for yourself.

Which sounds perfect if you want to ensure you or your child

doesn't spend over a certain amount like Verna's daughter Natasha did.

There must be some negatives as well as positives

as far as capping is concerned.

Well, the main downside of capping is that, at some point,

when you reach that cap, you won't then be able to make calls.

If that happens to you at a time when it's convenient for you to contact

your provider, you can have a simple conversation and have that extended.

If, however, it happens to you in the middle of the night

and you're out and you wish to make some sort of call, you may be

a child wanting to call a parent, it may be more difficult to actually

be able to then make that call in the time frame that you want to make it.

If somebody had a complaint with a mobile phone company,

what would be the correct order to sort this out?

First thing is to contact their mobile phone provider

and go through their complaints procedure.

If they don't get anywhere with that, there are two things.

One is they can complain to Ofcom,

but the other thing is we do have

alternative dispute resolution schemes.

So when you get to eight weeks with any complaint,

or if you get a deadlock letter from your provider, you can

go to the ombudsmen where they'll look at your complaint for you.

Well, it's good to know there are organisations out there to

help you, but I'm hoping we won't need to use them

because I've had an e-mail back from T-Mobile.

They told me they do not offer a contract which caps

a customer's usage.

However, Natasha was on a You Fix tariff which

restricts the service once you've used up your allocation of minutes.

When Verna upgraded her daughter's phone two years ago,

she switched to a 24-month contract with no restrictions.

Therefore Verna is responsible for the £2,000 bill.

However, as a gesture of goodwill, they've offered to halve it.

A one-off credit of 1036.70 including VAT, will be applied

to your account.

This is as way of reimbursing 50% of the additional call charges.

However, I am happy to discuss a repayment plan

that will be suitable for you.

Verna doesn't seem too happy, but that's a generous offer

from T-Mobile. They told us:

If I were Verna, I'd take it.

Verna's case flags up the issue of responsibility.

On one hand, the phone company are responsible for making sure

the service they provide is right for the customer,

but on the other hand,

the customer should be responsible for the calls they make.

But where does that leave Matthew and Helen?

They've both been charged for contracts on phones which

have never been delivered to them.

It's time I picked up speed on these cases and I've heard back from O2.

In Helen's case, O2 tell us that they can't retrieve

delivery details, which, in a nutshell, means

they can't prove that the phone and SIM were sent together.

But they do say that by sending a SIM card back without

requesting that a contract be cancelled

doesn't automatically close down an account.

Once I'd sent the SIM back within the ten day window,

I assumed the phone wasn't coming, therefore it was all cancelled.

And in Matthew's case, O2 tell us that when they found out

the phone hadn't been received,

they blocked it, but then they advised Mr Andrews that the

contract to provide the airtime was still valid,

which basically means they're saying the family still have to pay.

We've never had the phone,

so we're not going to pay for a phone that we've not had.

Well, I've gone back to John at 02 and said,

"Look, if you're not disputing that the phone was never

"received by the family and you'd blocked it, therefore stopping any

"debt running up, why are you still chasing the family for the money?"

Lets hope I hear back soon.

When you're jetting off abroad on your annual holidays,

travel insurance is about as obvious as packing your trunks.

When you're having a mini break UK holiday,

it's something which might not be as obvious.

But perhaps you should think about taking it out and here's why.

I've been contacted by Claire Freeman, who organised

a special holiday to Center Parcs for June 2013.

We booked this specific holiday to Center Parcs for my mum's

60th birthday, so the whole family were going to be going.

Mum, dad, me, my husband, my little boy Stanley,

my sister, her husband and her two boys.

We were all really excited.

It was kind of like a one-off, I think. A one-off holiday.

They chose Centre Parcs for this family get together

as they'd been there many times before.

Claire's husband, Mark, booked a three night break

in two lodges at a cost of £975.

We made the booking quite a lot in advance.

I think it was in the November before,

so about eight months before we were due to go on holiday.

Elveden Forest suited the family due to its convenient location.

My dad's health isn't great and it is never going to improve,

but where... Elveden isn't that far to travel.

So we knew if he was poorly, he had his nebuliser.

We weren't concerned, really.

Claire's dad Jim was diagnosed with an abnormality of the lungs

and chronic asthma. He needs a nebuliser to help him breathe.

But he was looking forward to a break with the family.

Well, I went to Center Parcs once before and it's really good for me,

because I can stay in the cabin and read, with my nebuliser.

And I was looking forward to it because the boys play softball

and I just sit there and watch them with a cup of tea and it's lovely.

When you book with Center Parcs,

there is the option to tick a box to take out insurance, but the family

felt this would not be necessary.

The reason why I didn't take out Center Parcs' insurance

is because, when you holiday in the UK, you don't have to worry

about the NHS issues. You know that you are covered.

That's true, but Center Parcs' insurance would also cover for

any last-minute cancellations and the decision not to take it out

would come back to haunt the family, as the day before the holiday

was due to commence, the family received some bad news.

We were all packed, all the cars were all packed with food, drink,

ready to go, and, on the Thursday,

the day before we were due to go on holiday there, I had a call at work

from my husband saying that my dad had been taken ill

to hospital by an ambulance.

Understandably, the holiday plans were put on hold.

I was absolutely terrified when I saw my dad on the ventilator.

Obviously, he wasn't conscious. He was plugged into machinery

and he couldn't breathe for himself.

With Claire very worried about her dad,

Husband Mark tried to reorganise the holiday for a later date.

The initial conversation I had with Center Parcs,

they were very compassionate, and the first person I spoke with

appeared optimistic, around our chances of delaying the break.

But when Claire later spoke to Center Parcs, she was told,

without insurance, they would be unable to get their money back

or postpone.

She said there was nothing they could do, because we didn't

have insurance and it wouldn't be fair to those people

that have taken insurance out.

Center Parcs' terms and conditions clearly state that any cancellations

or changes to dates must be amended ten weeks prior to the holiday.

So, in situations such as that faced by Claire and her family,

insurance is key. Having not taken out Center Parcs' insurance,

was there anything else they could do?

Center Parcs advised us the best way to get compensation was to go

through our holiday insurance. We looked into this,

but only my wife and myself were covered through our bank policy.

Plus, due to the excess charge,

it wasn't financially viable to make a claim.

I hoped that Center Parcs would make an exception to the rule

and postpone our holiday, because I've holidayed with Center Parcs,

I believe, it's five occasions, in the past.

So I was hoping we'd get rewarded for our loyalty, to be honest.

Center Parcs' terms and conditions are clear, and cancelling the day

before arrival would not give the company a chance for a re-booking.

It's the responsibility of the customer to ensure you're covered.

We were all devastated to have missed out on the holiday.

The children, especially, because we had built it up for so long.

And we'd booked so many activities and told them we were going to do

bowling and skating and swimming, so they were all devastated.

Disappointing for the family, but on the up side,

Jim's health improved sufficiently to go home and recover.

We wrote to Center Parcs regarding Claire's case.

They said...

I know Center Parcs are well within their rights not to offer us

another holiday.

That's right, Claire. It's a hard lesson learned.

The moral of this story is make sure you're always protected,

so you're not hit by the unexpected.

I've been dealing with two cases of families who are being billed

for phones which never arrived.

I've heard back from O2 and it looks as though things

are falling into place on Helen's case, but there are still

a few areas I need to iron out, with regards to Matthew Andrews.

John, it's Dominic Littlewood, but you obviously recognised my voice.

-I did, indeed, yes.

-Hi, John, sorry to give you a call this morning.

I know you've had some correspondence with our office.

I'd love to try and prod you very politely in the case of

Matthew and Louise Andrews, to try and see if we can sort this out.

'I asked John to look into Matthew's credit rating.'

'I promise you I will get back to you by 10am tomorrow.'

John, I can't ask for fairer than that. I really appreciate it.

Personally, I've had no problems with your service

and I just think it would be lovely to sort this out and put it to bed,

-for everybody concerned.

-Absolutely.

-Lovely. Thanks, John.

-Cheers, now.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Sometimes, I really cringe about dealing with certain companies.

I have to be honest,

so far, O2 have been really, really good. They have taken all my calls,

they've been polite, they've sorted out one problem

and he has promised me he'll sort out the other one by 10am tomorrow,

which is only about 20 hours away.

As long as it's good news!

It's bound to be.

While I wait to see what O2 can do for Matthew, I'm pleased to hear

that the company has come through for Helen.

Having already offered to refund her 50% of the amount she's already paid

out for a phone she never received, they've gone one step further.

"As an additional gesture, we are able to refund the other half

"of the payments she has made to us, which totals £272.48."

Wow.

That's brilliant.

That is absolutely... Thank you.

In a statement, O2 said to us...

I honestly didn't think I'd win... if winning's the word.

That's fantastic, That's absolutely fantastic!

Wow, thank you, Dom. Brilliant, mate. Absolutely bang on!

'Thanks very much. One down, one to go.'

Well, after many, I have to say, quite pleasant phone calls to John

from O2, I have got some news for Matthew, Colin and Louise.

So I have come way "oop north," to Grimsby, to deliver it in person.

-Hello, Dom, nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

-You, too.

Thanks for coming all this way from The Smoke.

-Come in, we've got the kettle on, mate.

-Lovely.

Matthew, you are now 21, why did you not order this phone yourself?

Every time I've bought a phone before, it's been with my mum,

and I thought it would be better if I went through it with her.

It's a legally binding contract and I didn't want to do something

that I'd get tied up in which wasn't right, so looked for support

-from my mum with it.

-OK. That says a lot for you, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-He trusts his mum!

-He did!

-We all trust our mums!

We need our mums!

'Time to get down to the nitty gritty.'

The first time you realised there was a problem was when the bill

-came through, which was in January?

-Yes.

Quite rightly, you continued to make payments.

You disputed them, but made the payments because you did not want

you getting a bad mark against your name. They do have an issue,

in the fact that... There's no disputing the phone's gone.

There is a dispute in that O2 are saying, "Hang on a second,

"you owe us nearly £600." They still believe you owe them that.

In fact, as far as I'm concerned, O2 owe us 53 quid, for the payments

we made on the contract we have since rescinded.

We have had to go back to O2 and say, "Hang on a second."

We've hit them with all the facts, about the fact he didn't get

his confirmation letter, it went to the wrong address.

You had not signed for it.

They did not roll over, but they have come back and we have now

finally got a decision for you. What they are going to do,

they are now going to wipe the slate 100% clean.

-That's great. Wonderful.

-It's all finished.

The problem's out the way. They do say that is an extreme

measure of goodwill.

But there is still a grey area outstanding, isn't there?

At the moment, his credit rating has got a mark against it, hasn't it?

O2 are going to remove the mark they have made against your name.

So, your credit rating is going to go back to where it was before

this problem.

-Excellent!

-That's well good, eh?

-Absolutely.

-Are you going to have a little cry?

-I might, after all this stress!

Oh, come here and have a Dommy hug!

Thank you so much. It's fantastic.

After contacting O2, they had this to say...

We also asked mobiles.co.uk to respond. They said...

With regard to any breach of E-Commerce Regulations,

they state their processes are...

I think there is a message to be learned there

when you saw the relief on Louise's face.

Companies need to realise that when you've got a decent customer

and they've got a problem you need to sort them out very quickly.

She's had untold stress as a result of this and she didn't need it.

Absolutely elated. I can't believe it.

It's wonderful news. It has been such a long, long year

and three months of worry, panic, feeling as if we're getting nowhere.

I can't wait to get on with my life.

It's been so long since it started. For it to all come to an end now,

it's just such a great weight off my back.