WOL Terms and Conditions

[tambranstew]

What you have failed to do so far is not use the terms and conditions to your favour;

7.4 Bills
We will send you your first bill shortly after we commence the provision of the Service. We will send you a further bill every month, but we may send you a bill at anytime. We will send bills to the address you ask us to. We also reserve the right to issue bills for telephone call charges by e-mailing these bills to you every month (although we reserve the right to send you a bill by e-mail at any time).

This is a breach by world online. When I was first with them I used this to cancel my service because they had failed to bill me monthly or even at regular intervals using any of the methods. They never charged me £18 at that time.

7.7.5 If your account remains unpaid, and no adequate arrangements have been made with us to enable this account to be discharged, within 32 days after the original due date for payment, your telephone service will then be terminated and your account will be referred to World Online’s credit control department for it to take the appropriate action to collect the outstanding sums.

This term is in breach, they are using it on people that have ended their accounts and have advised them that they wish to make payment using an alternative payment. This term states that they can only do this if you have not made any arrangements to discharge the account within 32 days. This means that you have 32 days from the point that they invoice you ie THEY MUST INVOICE YOU FIRST before they can use this term.

17. SET OFF

You are not entitled to set off any claims that you may have against World Online or exercise any liens against any monies payable by you to World Online pursuant to these terms and conditions and in connection with the provision of the Service.

This is important. You cannot refuse to pay part of an invoice in lieu of a claim made against them. You must pay in full otherwise you are breaching their terms.

7.6 Time for Payment
You must pay all charges and rentals in accordance with your Direct Debit Mandate or pursuant to your credit/debit card authority, or, if your Direct Debit fails, or if you are unable to enter into a Direct Debit, or if, for some reason, your credit card payment fails, in accordance with the time for payment detailed in your bill. You must pay all deposits when we ask for them.

I notice that this doesn't actually state that you will be charged the administration fee. If you look at the next clause

7.7 Effect of failure to discharge your telephone account


7.7.1 If your nominated electronic payment method is rejected, or becomes, or is, invalid or unavailable, thereby preventing us from recovering the sums due under your telephone account within 4 days following the due date for payment, we reserve the right to withdraw forthwith your entitlement to free calls to the World Online internet site (as referred to in clause 18), whilst you will also be charged an administration fee as detailed in our Price List
7.7.2 In these circumstances, you will be sent a letter giving you 10 days in which to arrange for your account to be discharged in full. In this letter we will notify you of the aforementioned administration charge and will advise you that if you fail to provide us with the said payment details, and fail to make proper alternative arrangements, we reserve the right to thereafter prevent you from making outgoing calls from your telephone line (save for calls to emergency services) pending resolution of this matter

7.7.1 states that you are not liable for any admin fee unless you cancel within the first 4 days after the due date. I would treat the due date as the date that they say the direct debit will be taken from your account. Therefore if you cancel on the 5th day they have breached the contract if they charge any admin charge as you have given them fair time under their terms and conditions to retrieve the money from your account.

7.7.2 makes it clear that they WILL send you a letter advising you of this. I remember my method of payment failing (switch) because the issue number changed. I received NO LETTER within 18 days and certainly not within 18 weeks. Therefore they have breached this term if they don't send a letter within 18 days if a breach of term 7.7.1

It also states clearly that you have the right to then request suitable alternative arrangement ie Cheque.

It is made clear that they are only entitled to charge you two Admin fee's. After the first month your service will have been terminated therefore they cannot charge you with any further admin fees.


What each and every one of you really need to do is sit and read the terms slowly and precisely. You have to look closely at the wording including the punctuation. Punctuation can alter a whole term.

These interpretations are my own interpretation and you should read the terms and conditions and come to your own conclusion but like I have said you really need to look closely at the terms.

I don't have a need to use the terms anymore and you need to understand that I don't have enough legal teaching to qualify my interpretations and therefore you must come to your own conclusions.

Good luck with your fight against WOL.

[Worldlife]

tambranstew.... you are not by any chance preparing a cv for joining Office of Fair Trading or Oftel

Wonder if these organisations will come to the conclusion that their service contract clearly explains ex-customers are expected to keep a direct debit or credit card payment because WOL conditions state:-

but we may send you a bill at anytime

It does indeed seem that WOL/Tiscali are not meeting their own stipulated contract terms (however unfair they may be!) and the regulators should cover this in their investigations.

Away with the diet... this is food for thought

[tambranstew]

You understand what I mean.

They are saying that they are within their rights to actually make this administration fee.

BUT and this is the big BUT.....they are not adhering to their own terms of practice involved in the application of the administration fee.

The OFT and OFTEL are only able to look at the clause that you have complained about ie that they are applying the admin fee in the first place for the removal of a method of payment.

This is covered and WOL have shown that they do have the right to charge these.

What WOL do not do though is follow the terms and conditions during the application - NO ONE should receive a second admin fee AND STILL HAVE HAD A PHONE SERVICE.

Those that have left WOL cannot be charged an admin fee because the terms and conditions for the application of the fee DO NOT COVER EX-CUSTOMERS ie they cannot then block your service and you are also told in another term and condition (I can't remember which one) THAT WORLD ONLINE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO CHANGE PHONE SERVICE PROVIDER IF YOU HAVE NOT DISCHARGED THE ACCOUNT WITH THEM. If you owe them money you must still be a customer. If you are with another company then obviously you don't owe them money.


I am of the opinion that the World Online terms and conditions were badly written, full of loops and errors and you need to use these to your advantage. Don't let them get away with it.

You can write directly to World Online demanding that they discharge your account for breaches of the terms on Billing. It may not get you anywhere but then it did for me.

Best of luck

Stew

[Worldlife]

Please note OFTEL's interpretation of the terms and conditions above as set out in Unfair Contract thread.