Question here.....
I have a friend that has been living here in Okinawa for a few years now, he has fallen on some difficult times, he is married with a couple of kids, and just recently found a new job that will help to support his family. That is the good news.
The bad news is that since he was out of work he couldn't pay some bills and has been paying them back little by little with the cooperation of the credit card company's that he has debts with.
That's not the problem either, the problem is he had to cancel his contract with Vodaphone and has an outstanding bill for a bit over 40,000 yen. He knows he has to pay the bill, he used the service, so he knows he is responsible for it, but he can not pay it off all at once. He has no plans to run away from that, so please don't pick on that please.
The Vodaphone rep has gotten really nasty of late threatening him with calls to his new job, which is one thing he can not afford, because he wants to keep his job(of course) and asked on numerous occasions to let them allow him to make payments. The rep according to his wife used some pretty gutter Japanese and was scary as heck.
They are refusing to cooperate. One other thing is that included in the 40,000 or so bill, is a 10,000 yen fee for cancellation of the contract, because he cancelled the contract with them during the middle of the contracted period and not at an "anniversary" time. He wants to pay them off at 10,000 yen per month but Vodaphone is threatening legal action if he doesn't pay off the balance by a set date. (Sorry I am not sure what that date is, but it sounded like it was fairly soon, like this week or next.)
So my question, First, I have never heard of a contract cancellation fee being so high...I use Docomo and if I had to cancel my contract mid-term I will be charged a fee between 2 and 3,000 yen, I know I checked myself because I never faced anything like that before and was curious to see if my "fee" would be the same.
Is the cancellation fee that Vodaphone charges normal and or legal?Sounds like a lot of money to cancel a contract to me. Does anyone have any experience with something like this? In all my time here I have never encountered anything like this before and wanted to know what or how far can a company go in making threats about payments?
If the customer is willing and shows the desire to pay in installments doesn't the company have an obligation to cooperate? If he loses his job he will not be able to pay the balance, and he is fearful that if his place of employment finds out about his financial situation he will be fired.
Does anyone have any advice or has anyone here ever had to go through something like this? If I had the money myself I would loan it to him, but I have my own bills to take care of as well...... .
I have a friend that has been living here in Okinawa for a few years now, he has fallen on some difficult times, he is married with a couple of kids, and just recently found a new job that will help to support his family. That is the good news.
The bad news is that since he was out of work he couldn't pay some bills and has been paying them back little by little with the cooperation of the credit card company's that he has debts with.
That's not the problem either, the problem is he had to cancel his contract with Vodaphone and has an outstanding bill for a bit over 40,000 yen. He knows he has to pay the bill, he used the service, so he knows he is responsible for it, but he can not pay it off all at once. He has no plans to run away from that, so please don't pick on that please.
The Vodaphone rep has gotten really nasty of late threatening him with calls to his new job, which is one thing he can not afford, because he wants to keep his job(of course) and asked on numerous occasions to let them allow him to make payments. The rep according to his wife used some pretty gutter Japanese and was scary as heck.
They are refusing to cooperate. One other thing is that included in the 40,000 or so bill, is a 10,000 yen fee for cancellation of the contract, because he cancelled the contract with them during the middle of the contracted period and not at an "anniversary" time. He wants to pay them off at 10,000 yen per month but Vodaphone is threatening legal action if he doesn't pay off the balance by a set date. (Sorry I am not sure what that date is, but it sounded like it was fairly soon, like this week or next.)
So my question, First, I have never heard of a contract cancellation fee being so high...I use Docomo and if I had to cancel my contract mid-term I will be charged a fee between 2 and 3,000 yen, I know I checked myself because I never faced anything like that before and was curious to see if my "fee" would be the same.
Is the cancellation fee that Vodaphone charges normal and or legal?Sounds like a lot of money to cancel a contract to me. Does anyone have any experience with something like this? In all my time here I have never encountered anything like this before and wanted to know what or how far can a company go in making threats about payments?
If the customer is willing and shows the desire to pay in installments doesn't the company have an obligation to cooperate? If he loses his job he will not be able to pay the balance, and he is fearful that if his place of employment finds out about his financial situation he will be fired.
Does anyone have any advice or has anyone here ever had to go through something like this? If I had the money myself I would loan it to him, but I have my own bills to take care of as well...... .
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