WHEN touring rock musician James Monteith decided to leave Vodafone earlier this year, he could not have predicted the legal battle that would follow.

Fed up with high charges for calls while travelling abroad, Mr Monteith decided to leave his provider of 10 years, Vodafone, to move to Three - which was offering a more attractive deal.

3 As a travelling musician, James wanted to cut the cost of his phone bills when abroad Credit: James Monteith

But, much to his horror, after Mr Monteith had left the provider and his account had been closed, Vodafone took £457 from his bank account, pushing him into his overdraft.

After calling the company to complain, an adviser told him that their had been a systems error, and the money would be refunded within three days.

It wasn't, and for the next three months Mr Monteith called Vodafone regularly for updates and was either "fobbed off with customer services speak", he said, or in two cases, told that there was another system error preventing them from refunding him.

By July - five months after the money had been taken from his account - the 37-year-old had had enough, and he sought legal advice.

Writing a Letter Before Action - a formal letter given to a business to give them one last chance to settle the matter before going to court - Mr Monteith was adamant that he'd take Vodafone to the small claims court if he didn't receive a response.

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When the telecoms company didn't reply to the letter, he made an initial claim through the HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) Money Claim Online portal.

After a further 14 days of silence from Vodafone, he issued a court judgement, at a cost of £60. This was also ignored, so Mr Monteith won the judgement by default.

When he called the provider to tell them that he had won the judgement and that he wanted his money back, Mr Monteith says the adviser told him to send across the court documents for the legal team to look at.

This was done, but when Mr Monteith hadn't heard anything seven days later, he called the company to see what was going on.

The adviser said that the legal team had ignored the documents because they were PDF copies rather than originals stamped by the court. "The official documents were posted to Vodafone by the court directly, so they definitely had the original documents," Mr Monteith said.

3 James, pictured here with his wife, left Vodafone after 10 years in order to cut his phone bills while travelling overseas Credit: Supplied

As a last resort, the musician issued a warrant - at a cost of £77 - for the court to collect the money, plus damages and court costs (totalling £1,130), which was successful.

Nine months after the billing issues began, Mr Monteith received the money he was owed.

A spokesperson for Vodafone told The Sun Online: "We're sorry that we made an error when we charged Mr Monteith an early termination fee when he cancelled his mobile phone with us.

"As he still had an account for a dongle, we credited the amount - £470 - to this account to be set against future bills."

3 Mr Monteith's out-of-the-blue Vodafone bill

The spokesperson added: "We accept that we should have made a refund rather than a credit, so when he called us in November, we refunded £470 directly to his bank account.

"Meanwhile, we were unaware that he had made a claim through the small claims court as the form was never received by our legal team and we consequently failed to respond.

"The payment ordered by the court covers the original early termination fee of £470 plus costs. This has been paid."

Mr Monteith said Vodafone had contacted him on social media to offer some voucher codes as an "apology."