Madasafish - Be warned! Notice period to cancel

Bazza73 · 17 April 2008 at 9:01AM

Hi all,

I recently changed my phone service (line rental and calls) away from madasafish on 11th March to BT (line rental now with BT and calls with Sky). I was outside my original contract period. MAAF have continued to charge me for the various phone services even thou I am no longer with them. When I questioned this, they said it was because I did not notify them personally by phoning them and giving them 1 months notice. Surely when BT would have notified them that they were transferring the phone services of a MAAF customer back to BT, that would constitute notice given! When I signed up to BT, they said it would take approx 3 weeks to transfer. I have now given MAAF the notice and canceled the optional extras (caller display).

MAAF broadband:
The above happened on Wednesday 16th April.
I (not being aware of the above phone issues) renewed my broadband package with MAAF on Monday 14th April for a 12 month contract. The service in the past has been fine and I seen no point in changing this. However, since they were not very helpful with resolving the charging issue for the phone services, I asked them to cancel the broadband package at the time of giving notice to cancel the phone (above). I was then informed by the guy from MAAF that as I had renewed a 12 month contract, I would not be able to cancel this without paying them for the full term. MAAF terms - 10.3 states "10.3 After we have confirmed the Commencement Date this Agreement may be terminated as set out below and the cancellation provisions of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 will not apply."

The regulations state "Consumers have a cooling-off period of seven working days in which to cancel the contract, starting from when the goods are received, without having to give a reason. If no details of the cooling-off period have been given by the supplier to the consumer, it is extended to three months."
Are MAAF in breach of these regulations for not allowing me to cancel within the cooling-off period? Should I just cancel my direct debit? If I do, will this affect being able to transfer to another provider (given that in this case MAAF would be unlikely to release the MAC code)?
Link to Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 guide:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?type=RESOURCES&itemId=1075385183

As it stands, I am still on their BB package - would like to cancel if I can.

Any advice / help very welcome.

Quentin · 17 April 2008 at 9:26AM

There have been others (reported in the maaf thread) who have experienced this type of poor service when cancelling.

They have given you incorrect information.

Their contract allows you to leave at any time by giving them 28 days notice.

They only are entitled to charge you for their expenses incurred in setting up the connection and for any "free" hardware supplied.

As you merely extended your contract (presumably in return for a cheaper monthly payment), and haven't incurred them any further expense, then all you should be asked for is the difference between what you have paid and the normal monthly charge for however many months you are in to the second term.

It might be worth airing this in the maaf thread, where their rep will see it and hopefully sort it out for you (and get you the MAC).

The relevant condition:

You may terminate this Agreement within the first 12 months after the Commencement Date if you agree to pay us all the costs that we have incurred in setting up your Broadband Service.

Bazza73 · 17 April 2008 at 1:58PM

Thanks Quentin,

Interestingly, I just phoned MAAF to cancel the broadband service and although they are proceeding with this and raising the MAC code, they insist that I must pay them a £25 early cancellation fee (would normally be more except that this was my second contract period with them). I am disputing this under the right to cancel under the cooling-off period of the Regulations above. They even advised that if I didn't pay this fee, they would pass it to credit control. Today is day 4 of the new contract period.

I read in another thread that BT now own Madasafish. If this is correct, is there a list somewhere that shows which companies own the various ISPs - so that I can avoid those owned by BT? Would be a useful list for anyone looking to choose a new ISP.

Quentin · 17 April 2008 at 2:03PM

Ask them how they have calculated the £25.

There is no mention of this in the ts +cs. All you have to do is give 28 days notice. (And as mentioned, refund them any discount you've been "enjoying" since renewing the contract).

Is there a month's usual charge included in the £25?

Threatening credit contol at this stage seems OTT!

(They have been owned by BT for some time)

Bazza73 · 20 April 2008 at 7:24PM

Update: MAAF have now agreed to cancel the renewal contract and the £25 early fee. Now just waiting on them providing the MAC code.

Thanks.

Quentin · 20 April 2008 at 8:59PM

Glad they saw sense and gave in.

They had no right to this money, but we know that they do make "mistakes" over the final charge when people leave.

Most of their customers do not come to this forum, and presumably they get away with it many times.

It also seems significant that their rep (normally quick to answer maaf questions when brought up in threads outside the main one) has chosen not to comment in this one.

Plusnet_company_representative · 21 April 2008 at 6:32PM

Thanks for the vote of confidence Quentin. In fairness, I generally live in the other MAAF thread and generally don't venture that far outside.

I suspect this problem is dependant down to the level of reporting given by BT Openreach (not pointing blame at all) and how we're responding to those request. Ultimately, this isn't the issue, the issue is that we've made an exit experience a poor one for which I am sincerely sorry.

Quentin · 21 April 2008 at 7:45PM

How can BT Openreach get the blame for maaf customer service people wrongly telling customers they have to pay the full term of their broadband contract if they want to get out of it early when the ts + cs say something quite the opposite?

And threatening customers who object, and try to point out the correct situation that the matter will be passed to the debt collectors if they won't pay!

From experience this seems the norm rather than an isolated incident!

As mentioned above, the majority of leaving customers won't have the benefit of coming to these forums and learning the true situation.

Plusnet_company_representative · 22 April 2008 at 9:15AM

Quentin,

As mentioned above, I wasn't pointing any blame at OpenReach!

I suspect however, upon reflection, this is the cancellation charge for customers who have recontracted in to a second annual contract term, with an early exit charge of £25.

Quentin · 22 April 2008 at 9:53AM

That is correct. But why even mention BT, when it is MAAF customer service staff who did this?

No "£25 early exit charge" is mentioned anywhere in your ts + cs, so why do the maaf cancellation dept "try it on"?

In fact, Samara told us in the maaf thread:

Our cancellation policy is unique in that we don't expect for you to pay for the remainder of your contractual period if you leave prior to fulfilling 12 months

As I say, presumably your customers who don't come to these forums, (and don't read their contracts), are paying up when it is wrongly being demanded (with "menaces" - your cancellation people do refer to passing the debt to debt collectors/credit control in the initial "discussion"!)

Plusnet_company_representative · 22 April 2008 at 10:06AM

That would obviously depend on whether or not Samara was referring to a rolling monthly contract or a recommittment to a new annual contract (for a discount or something else along those lines).

I mentioned BT, because they send us notification of a customer leaving. If we didn't receive such reports, how would we ever know when a customer had left our phone services? All I was doing, was to paint a picture of how these requests should be handled.

I appreciate your contribution to this forum, but making inaccurate statements and finger pointing is not overly constructive and not necessarily helping customers who may have been affected. You are making statements based on assumptions over anything else without being in possession of the facts, which doesn't help anyone.

Madasafish - Be warned! Notice period to cancel

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