Getting out of mobile contract

joethefoal

Got a phone and a 24 month contract off Meteor earlier in the year. Unfortunately I lost my job a couple of months ago and with rent and other bills I'm finding it impossible to pay Meteor with the dole I get. Is there anyway out of these contracts? I looked on Meteor's website and it said the only way was to pay off all your remaining months.
I heard from a few people that if you just cancel your direct debit and change your sim card there's a whole lot they can do but I don't feel comfortable with that. I'd just like to find a way to cancel it legally. Thanks in advance.

godtabh

joethefoal wrote: »

Got a phone and a 24 month contract off Meteor earlier in the year. Unfortunately I lost my job a couple of months ago and with rent and other bills I'm finding it impossible to pay Meteor with the dole I get. Is there anyway out of these contracts? I looked on Meteor's website and it said the only way was to pay off all your remaining months.
I heard from a few people that if you just cancel your direct debit and change your sim card there's a whole lot they can do but I don't feel comfortable with that. I'd just like to find a way to cancel it legally. Thanks in advance.

they can bring you to court for the outstanding balance

MarkR

Contact Meteor and advise you are having financial issues. Maybe sell handset to pay of some of upcoming bill, or see will they take the lot back. Don't worry too much about it, I'm sure they'll sort you out one way or another.

commonsense.

Explain your situation to them and if they don't play ball, just cancel your DDM. Not a snowballs chance in hell they'll go legal for a few hundred euro. They may well sell the debt to a debt collectors who will send you some nice letters. Just ignore them. Move to another provider. There are loads of them looking for your business.

garhjw

OP, engage with them on it. i would advise against just cancelling your direct debit and trying to ignore them.

Gatling

Sell your shiny phone and clear the bill

dudara

@commonsense. - Please do not advocate debt avoidance. It is poor advice for the OP and could leave him open to legal action.

OP - Have you tried to speak to Meteor about the contract? They may be able to offer you some options.

mattaiuseire

commonsense. wrote: »

Explain your situation to them and if they don't play ball, just cancel your DDM. Not a snowballs chance in hell they'll go legal for a few hundred euro. They may well sell the debt to a debt collectors who will send you some nice letters. Just ignore them. Move to another provider. There are loads of them looking for your business.

Do not give people poor advice.

If a vulnerable individual took your advice and started to receive legal demands, which they most certainly will, along with threatening phone calls and risks of being taken to court, and then became very unstable, their mental and physical health can suffer and they might feel they're forced into a perpetual world of debt and avoidance. Some people have taken their own lives because this type of bad advice has been planted as a seed and has grown into devastation.

Do not ignore it OP, it won't go away. Although your direct debit will eventually be cancelled anyway because you might not be able to make the month by month payments due to your current financial situation, you are better off to speak to them and explain the situation. They may take pity on you and release you from your contract with no penalty - if you can manage this you have done extremely well.
In reality however they will terminate your service and you will be left with a hefty bill plus a large early termination fee.
Best bet is to arrange repayment suited to your budget. Send in a financial statement of means to their collection team and stick to your payments on time every time - your account won't be handed to a third party collection agency then.

There is a chance it will go legal - I've issued legal proceedings before on balances of just a couple of hundred Euro's. Just because it costs a certain amount of money for a debtor to go to court, don't think those costs won't be passed on. Don't believe everything you read on forums. Most of the people who tell you to do this, do that, avoid this and avoid that, are chancers who have no experience of legal matters and only base their ill-informed opinions on other peoples ill-informed opinions.

slimjimmc

garhjw wrote: »

OP, engage with them on it. i would advise against just cancelling your direct debit and trying to ignore them.

Agreed, ignoring them may make thing worse considering the new Civil Debt (Procedures) Act will make it easier to collect civil debts between €500-€4000. It's not in force yet but all it takes is for the Minister to sign the commencement order.
To his credit the OP wants to settle this properly. Talk to Meteor. You'll probably need to sell/return the phone and agree a payment plan. MABS can help with dealing with creditors.

commonsense.

And if the world was flat we might all fall off
Jaysus, talk about being melodramatic.
If you read my post you will see that I said IF they don't play ball. In other words the mobile provider refuse to budge from the terms of the original contract. The op has already said he can't meet the monthly commitment. So what option does he have???

Gatling

commonsense. wrote: »

And if the world was flat we might all fall off
Jaysus, talk about being melodramatic.
If you read my post you will see that I said IF they don't play ball. In other words the mobile provider refuse to budge from the terms of the original contract. The op has already said he can't meet the monthly commitment. So what option does he have???
In that situation, cancel the DDM and don't worry for a second about legal action/debt collectors etc.

.

He deals with the company first and if needs be .
He sells the handset and pays and uses the funds to clear his bill or future bills

mattaiuseire

And what I'm saying is that's poor advice to give to somebody.

What if this person was an 90 year old widow sat in their granny flat all day, defecating each time the doorbell went, because they didn't know a thing about debt and how the industry works?

While it's unlikely your single post will result in the suicide of a previous Meteor Mobile customer, the repetition of this type of bad information can have dire consequences.

The customer should not just forget about potential legal action, because it's a very real thing and it happens day in, day out, your piece of advice doesn't change that.

The the OP, as someone previously mentioned, you might be lucky if the company sympathises with you, but you will need to get letters from your social welfare office to confirm details of your income, fill out a statement of means, and offer to send the handset back in return for no penalties. Negotiate as best as you can.

Sonics2k

commonsense. wrote: »

And if the world was flat we might all fall off
Jaysus, talk about being melodramatic.
If you read my post you will see that I said IF they don't play ball. In other words the mobile provider refuse to budge from the terms of the original contract. The op has already said he can't meet the monthly commitment. So what option does he have???

I spent a good few years working for O2 and I can assure you they do frequently follow up with large debts owed. If it's a 24 month contract and he took it out earlier this year, let's be generous and say January so there's 13 months left. The typical customer has an average monthly plan of €55 in Ireland, so that's still €715 he still owes them on the contract.

If he refuses to follow up and does get taken to court, which happens a lot more often than people think, he'll have to pay the full amount plus costs and depending on the request of the prosecution, could impact any future credit rating and destroy the chances of getting a mortgage in the future.

@op,
Contact Meteor and tell them the situation, depending on the phone you bought, then sell it off and use the money toward clearing the bill and set up a payment plan.

ScouseMouse

I feel for the OP, I really do, there are lots of people who are now out of work and struggling.

I see suggestions of sell the phone. If he does that and defaults on the contract, does that not cause the phone to be blacklisted? As its not paid for, they are within their rights to do that.

I think the only choice you have, AND the right choice, is to engage with them and try to come to a realistic arrangement.

ScouseMouse

What phone is it? How long is left of the contract? How much is it every month and can you get a total from the phone company?

ziedth

I'll send you a PM op. Take a look.

Toots

Contact meteor OP. I was in a similar situation a few years ago with O2 when my husband lost his job. When I rang and explained the situation they let us switch to a cheaper basic plan until he found another job.