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Refund for Kabel billing
ADrak
Netzwerkforscher
Netzwerkforscher

Dear Sir/Madame,

 

My name is Antonios Drakopoulos and I held a contract with your company for home internet and telephone (Kundennummer XXX), which I terminated in November 2019 because I moved out of Germany -hence it was not possible to transfer the contract to a new address. The following months I continued to pay the monthly invoices of this service, despit the fact that somebody else lives in my previous appartment thus there is another active contract on the same line. 

I managed to contact you from my current residence in Greece about this situation (which was rather difficult to do in English) and your employee prompted me to send you a letter via post asking for a refund on the costs paid from December 2019 up to now. I sent you the aforementioned letter by post including a copy of my Abmeldung from the Rathaus, a copy of my ID and a copy of my Kuendigung. I received a response to this letter via email, prompting me to make a relevant post here -which I am.

Please inform me of the next steps for my refund.

 

Edit: @ADrak Please do not post customer data publicly.

22 Antworten 22
reneromann
SuperUser
SuperUser

I'm afraid that there won't be a refund as a premature cancellation due to movement can be announced before the move is done -BUT- you are required to provide proof of your move (e.g. the "Abmeldung"/Deregistration notice). If you fail to provide this proof (in time), your cancellation request is processed as normal cancellation request to the end of the contractual term. If you did not provide proof in time, I'm afraid that there won't be any refunds for already paid fees - as it was up to you to provide proof earlier and in time.

 

This also includes that there won't be a retroactive cancellation dating your request back to end of last year - your cancellation may be processed the earliest by the time the proof is received. And this also means that all invoices created before this time will -and that's where I'm pretty sure about- not be refunded.

 

Second thing: As the contractual language is German, it's pretty sure that your letter was not processed due to it not being in the contractual language. Usually then you get the request to open a post here - which is kind of hilarious as this is a customers-help-customers forum and not an official support way.

I did provide proof (Abmeldung) for my moving, and although my cancellation was processed as an urgent premature cancellation I kept receiving invoices in my email. When I cancelled my contract in a Vodafone store, the employee who helped me told me that I would be refunded if I received invoices in the future.

 

I sent a friend of mine in Germany to a Vodafone store to ask about the issue after I moved to Greece, and she told me that it was requested that I should show up or call personally. I could not contact the Customer Service telephone, because its an 0800 number and I was calling from abroad. Until recently there was no phoneline reachable from abroad, nor an email address for Customer Service. 

 

I even received a phone call from Vodafone for a better contract offer, and when I tried to get help from the emploee which called me on this matter, her reaction was very rude and she did not prompt me to another phone number or anywhere else, rather she yelled at me and hung up. 

 

When at last I found a way to contact, it was an official Vodafone employee who told me that I am eligible for a refund, I am not making this request by myself. And I followed his instructions by sending the proper paperwork after the phonecall. I don't speak German, but it was not stated as a prerquisite that I must know the language to be a customer. Furthermore, I received an answer by email, thus my mail was indeed processed.

 

I am not responsible for the usage of this forum, I am doing what the company prompted me to do officially in their email.

 

I demand a refund as I am entitled to, please notify me for the steps that I need to follow.


@ADrak  schrieb:

I did provide proof (Abmeldung) for my moving, and although my cancellation was processed as an urgent premature cancellation I kept receiving invoices in my email. When I cancelled my contract in a Vodafone store, the employee who helped me told me that I would be refunded if I received invoices in the future.


When did you provide that proof for the first time?

 


@ADrak  schrieb:

I don't speak German, but it was not stated as a prerquisite that I must know the language to be a customer. Furthermore, I received an answer by email, thus my mail was indeed processed.


It is not prerequisite - but as German is the sole contractual language, all communication has to be done in German language. If you don't know the language, it's only up to you to get the translations needed.

But this would be the same in Greece (obviously not with German but Greek language) - as English is neither in Greece nor in Germany official language. And no, your request may not have been processed - you only got an answer to your (English) mail. But this does not mean that your English letter has been processed by its contents but only that you got an answer to request help here.

 


@ADrak  schrieb:

I demand a refund as I am entitled to, please notify me for the steps that I need to follow.


As I said - it depends on the time when you provided complete information. I'm pretty sure that invoices created before that date will not be modified / refunded. So it's only for invoices after that date - and only if you can provide proof that the letter you sent was received by that time (it's up to you to provide this proof - e.g. by showing the signature of reception of registered mail).

That date would be the earliest possible date to adjust the cancellation date to - not any date earlier.

The reply Igot from Vodafone:

 

"please contact our english speaking colleagues at https://forum.vodafone.de. They will take care of your request.
Simply create a new thread for your topic and have a little patience. Thank you very much."

 

I hold no responsibility whether they actually read the letter or not, I did what the Vodafone employee told me to do. And as I said earlier, it was the same employee who told me that I am entitled to a refund, and that in order to get it I should post the above paperwork in addition to what had already been done -which I did, Vodafone has the documents.

Therefore I demand a refund.

 

This is a joke of customer support.

First I am being billed for such a long time (when I submitted the form for urgent cancellation the employee told me that the case would be examined to whether I would need to pay more invoices and how many - at which time I am was not in Germany anymore), secondly I am not able to communicate via phone or email because such a line was not established (the email address is still not established), thirdly when Vodafone called me not only did I not receive any help whatsoever but on the contrary I got yelled at and hung up on, fourthly when I finally find a way to contact and I get informed that I am entitled to a refund and I actually do the steps as advised the response is that "it doesn't count because it is in English - because it was late".

 

No, it was not late, because if it had been late then the Vodafone employee with whom I spoke with would not have prompted me to request a refund in the first place! Vodafone is a multinational corporate business, and you're telling me that a letter in clean cut English with all supporting paperwork "was incomprehensible"?

 

I have submitted a cancellation form so long ago, there is no contract (or even worse, there is another contract, for a different person living now in this appartment), and I'm still receiving invoices (the last one was this month) for a phone line that exists only in paper.

 

I demand that you stop billing me now and getting a refund, as your own employees told me that I am entitled to. Please inform me about the steps I need to follow.

Grit
Ex-Moderator:in
Ex-Moderator:in

Hello ADrak,

 

i like to look at it. It is important that you have reported the move correctly. But I cannot promise if a refund is possible.

 

Send me a private message with your name, full address, customer number and date of birth. Important: Afterwards, please report back here in the thread.

 

Regards

Grit

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ADrak
Netzwerkforscher
Netzwerkforscher

Mrs Grit,

I have sent you the data.

Regards,

 

ADrak

Stephan
Moderator:in
Moderator:in

Hi ADrak,

 

thanks for your pm.

 

In November 2019 you sent us a cancellation which we confirmed to the regular end of the contraction term on 25 November 2020.

 

Unfortunately, you did not send us a copy of your deregistration until October 2020.

 

At that time, it was unfortunately no longer possible to adjust your cancellation to an earlier cancellation date.

 

Regards

Stephan

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ADrak
Netzwerkforscher
Netzwerkforscher

Dear Stephan,

 

I had sent a cancellation of the contract in November 2019 via the local Vodafone store specifically underlining to the employees there that I am moving out of the country. What they told me is that the cancellation was thus filed as a cancellation of urgent matter and it would be examined whether it would be possible to end the contract immediatelly, or within some months etc and I would be contacted about this. I received the notification saying that the normal termination ould be on November 2020, and nothing else.

 

I shortly afterwards left the country. The deregistration form that you admit having received has a date on it, which can verify this, and I also have a relevant plane ticket. Since then I did not receive any update on the cancellation process examination, neither a prompt to send any documents whatsoever.

 

I kept receiving invoices, thinking it is a matter of some months until I stop being billed -as I was told from your represenatitves at the store. After I had reached around 4 months I tried to contact you, where I had all the trouble I described previously -still no update sent from your side and no prompt to send you any documents.

 

When I finally contacted through the videophone service (online filiale) during the summer, the employee there told me that: a) The billing would stop on September, b) I should send via post the deregesistration form from the Rathaus to get a refund for the amount I paid since I had left the country (i.e. since the deregistration date).

 

You have all my data, you can certainly trace down what I am saying here.

 

I did the cancellation from a Vodafone store stating that I'm leaving the country, I sent friends to the same store to ask about the status of the cancellation after I left, I tried to contact you personally -which was quite difficult- and this is the info I got. The firm thus knew about my situation well before my posting in this forum, and yet nobody informed me that this document was needed by you in due time.

 

I am very much disappointed from your service support. I even got yelled at and hung up on from an employee of the firm who called me, when I asked her for help.

 

All the above taken together, I am not  at all surprised that now you are unwilling to reimburse me. I would not like to proceed on taking legal actions on this matter, all I want is to be reimbursed even partially for all this trouble. I am proving that you have been billing me all this time for a line that does not exist since then, there was no update for an earlier termination as your employees had told me to anticipate, and most importantly when me and my representatives asked you in person during the past winter about this issue, nobody prompted us to send this document. All this does not level to "personal responsibility".

Just to clarify it - it is your sole responsibility to provide proof in time in case you want any premature cancellation (no matter if it is because of relocation or other matters) - and not the providers responsibility to ask for such.

 

And usually this is also mentioned in the letter that you received - that your cancellation is processed as regular cancellation and will be changed into a premature one in case you provide proof in time (that could be the deregistration letter; plane tickets don't matter as they don't provide proof that you permanently left the country). If you fail to provide this proof in time, then the contract is not prematurely cancelled - because this proof is missing. Anyhow a cancellation can also be not dated back - just because you now provide proof for an event that happened months ago. The cancellation can therefor be only adjusted to that date that your proof was received - not the date that your proof was issued (despite that you would have had to pay for at least 3 months from the moment you relocate - if your notice is received before relocating -and- proof is provided within these 3 months).

 

And please also note that it's your responsibility to get a forwarding for any (postal) mail going to your old address - if any mail is not receiving you because you have not opted for such a forwarding service, it still remains your responsibility even if you did not receive mails with important information because of that failed forwarding. There is no such need in German legislation that someone has to try to search for your new address and start trying to forward notices until he finally finds you...