Trade-in phone not received?

[grsdev]

I just received this text message from EE:

"Hi from EE. We haven't received the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 5G 256GB that you agreed to Trade In. You no longer qualify for the Trade In discount of £20 per month and this will now be removed from your account. Please ignore this if you've sent back your device in the last few days, we'll send you a confirmation once it's been assessed."

Meanwhile I have proof of DELIVERY TO LIKEWIZE NEARLY A WEEK AGO. Does EE never communicate with them?

I should have known better than to trust a mobile network operator. I am now £480 out of pocket because a communications company doesn't communicate.

[Chris_B]

@grsdev     It’s down to likewise to inform EE of delivery not EE to chase it up.   Just call EE customer service explain that you also have proof of delivery to likewise.  

And what’s with the I should have known better.  You have proof of delivery so what’s the problem? 

[grsdev]

Managed to speak to someone helpful in Belfast this morning, who confirmed that it's absolute bedlam with Likewize. So, I take back the "I should have known" comment since this is not EE's doing. The comment was borne out of sheer frustration and a track record of being xxxxxxx over by mobile networks. For example, one that kept lying to me for 50 weeks about how it's the phone manufacturer that enforces a SIM lock (it's not, it's the network) because they took that long to provide me with an unlock code. Or another that all but shut down the one and only mast near me 3 months into my contract and refused to release me from the contract despite no longer providing service. Or how about an operator sending bailiffs to collect on a debt when I wrote to cancel the contract, moved out of the country, therefore no longer qualified for a contract in the first place and fulfilled the requirement for early contract termination (the bailiffs were furious and turned against the operator).

Before someone chips in to say that EE are not like that, one of the incidents above was with EE.

[Chris_B]

@grsdev   It’s not a network’s fault you moved out the country while still in contact and you still owe the agreement between yourself and that network.    
And paying off that agreement is how you get out that contract.     Just moving out the UK doesn’t get you out of a contract agreement.   If this didn’t impact you in anyway I’m really surprised.

[grsdev]

I'm sure that is correct, but I didn't move out of the UK, I moved *TO* the UK from another country where the law states that you have to be a resident of that country to have a phone line in that country. Also, I informed the overseas network that I was leaving the country by registered letter, which is one of the conditions for early contract termination. The network ignored the part where I said I was leaving the country and continued to bill me, which was illegal. When the bailiffs learned that I had done everything by the book, they turned against the network operator for providing service to someone who had informed them they were no longer resident in that country.

[Schockwave]

@grsdev , Maybe that was the mistake you made, by not ringing up the network of the country you were moving away from, but rather doing so by registered mail.

Here, in the UK, if you want to cancel a contract, you do have to ring the network to say so, but we always say, that if someone wants to keep their number, to change it to pay as you go and activate it before leaving. Obviously I cannot speak about other countries, but would have thought it would be the same.

[grsdev]

It's entirely possible that things have changed since then (2007) but at the time, the way to do it was in writing. Not electronic writing such as an e-mail, but a physical letter signed by your hand and sent in the post. Neither e-mails nor faxes had any legal value back then and phone calls even less, even though phone records would show that the call was made.

Sending the letter registered delivery was the only way to deny them the means to turn around and say they never received it (standard practice).