Primus Savers want to tie you with a contract

Dear Sirs,

I have been reading on the www.moneysavingexpert.com Home Phones forum that a number of potential customers for your Penny Mobile 2 Carrier PreSelect (CPS) calls package, attempting to sign up as a result of the recommendation from me, are being fobbed off by your Call Centre personnel with ridiculous statements like, "That hasn't been available for two years" but, when that statement is challenged, the answer changes to, "Well, perhaps one to two years ago."

As the below exchange of emails shows, those statements are both lies and, obviously, are losing you customers. Why are your personnel doing that?

Additionally, your Indian Call Centre personnel appear to be manufacturing Terms & Conditions as they go along. If a potential customer gives up on the Penny Mobile 2 package and seeks, instead, to go onto the Primus Saver (formerly Primus Saver Option 2) CPS calls package, they are told that it is an 18 month contract. When that statement is challenged, the contract miraculously comes down to 12 months! It is, of course, a 30 day contract anyway.

In any case, your web site makes no mention of such T&Cs and, clearly, callers are being lied to.

As you know, I was on Primus Saver Option 2 CPS from December 2005 until October 2007 - when I changed to Penny Mobile 2 CPS. I am still on Penny Mobile 2 CPS.

As a result of the apparent confusion in your Indian Call Centre, I would be obliged if you would send me by post full details of the T&Cs which apply to the package I am on and, at the same time, clarify in writing whether Penny Mobile 2 CPS is still available to new customers and, if so, how they are supposed to get past the denials of your call centre staff to actually sign up for it.

Upon receipt of such information, I will be better equipped to decide whether to continue recommending others to Primus Saver CPS and/or Penny Mobile 2 CPS.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Regards.

Sirs,

I am most surprised not to yet have received any reply to you as a result of my 21-2-09 email but, in the faint chance that you may be interested in the sort of 'service' your call centre in India is now giving to potential customers, the Times New Roman text hereunder is the latest post of the site I mentioned:

I spent two days calling the sales number in January, sat on hold for ages every time. Finally I emailed them and asked if they actually wanted business or not - I received an email in reply with an 0800 number to call. Called that and set up the account - that was January 22nd.

Cut to today - Feb 23rd. I haven't had any communication at all from Primus - no letters, no emails, no calls. Nothing from BT or Euphony (who I've been using) either. So I called Primus again.

I spoke to someone (a feat in itself when the lines to them are *always* so bad) who said the service was active, but when asked when it had been activated, I was asked to hold, and then told there was a "small problem with the account" and transferred to another department. Then I was told they'd call me back "in one minute".

Fast-forward 20 minutes - still no call-back.

Phoned Primus again and said what the **** is going on? I was told that the service was *not* active, and could I hold for two minutes. I stayed on hold, and the person came back and said the lines to the department I needed were busy, but he'd sent them an email to ask them to call me as soon as possible. I said if they didn't call by 10.40 a.m. (12 minutes away), they could forget it.

They didn't call.

I've now phoned to cancel my request for service - that alone took over half an hour! - and have also emailed them to ensure it's done. I'm thinking I might also phone BT (line provider) to make sure any CPS request from Primus is refused.

Primus couldn't even get my phone-number right - I had to repeat it 17 times over the course of three phone-calls because they would repeatedly get it wrong.

Over the course of all these calls, I've listened to the recorded message dozens of times: "Do you want to project a more professional image to the outside world?" Oh, the irony.

I am astonished at the above and that you appear to be utterly disinterested in the demise of your business.

Regards.