Callpreventionregistry.com

jmwspur

I don't often loose my cool but this has made me quite angry.

I wanted to stop nuisance phone calls. Instead of checking with MSE first, I came across this website (I think through Google). They seemed very caring - even suggesting you sign up on behalf of other members of your family so I did - for myself and my mother and my aunt (both 88 yrs old). As far as I could see the service was free - no mention of a fee. They asked for a contact no. so I gave my mobile as a contact number for all three of us. They sent confirmatory emails which stated we had registered our details for "Nuisance calls and Junk mail prevention".... " One of our trained team will contact you shortly to confirm your details and to advise you of other service information".

They called me on my landline (having not been able to get through on the mobile) and informed me that the service costs £33 and that this charge was on the website under the Terms and Conditions (I have since checked and it isn't). So I said no thanks and checked MSE for the right place to go for free and signed up to stop calls again for all three of us.

However a few days later I discovered that they had phoned my mother directly and talked her into parting with £33! I explained that I had got the job done by another agency and she asked me to phone and try to get her money refunded. I phoned the Customer Service Manager (an 0870 number) who apologised and said she would get someone to phone mum so that she could cancel.

A little later I had a phone call from this someone who said that my mum was concerned about incoming international automatic dial up calls (which we had talked about being difficult to stop on the new (MSE ) package). This person must have spoken to my mother and tried to persuade her not to cancel and she had refered them to me. I made it very clear to this sales person that we were covered elsewhere and yes, my mum did want to cancel. She said she would go back to her.

I wait to hear whether she eventually accepted that mum realy did want to have her money back and I have not yet contacted my aunt to see if they have done the same thing to her.

The whole point about this exercise was to protect them both from exacly this situation - unwanted phone calls in which people try to make them part with their money.

I also think they must be contravening the Trade Descriptions Act as nowhere, as far as I can see, does it mention the fee anywhere on the website.

Moral of this story is
Beware of Callpreventionregistry.com and their hidden charges
and
Check with MSE first before doing anything - well almost anything!

soolin

Hmm, looking at the UK site I haven't been able to find a mention of charges at all which breaches all sorts of consumer regulations.

What is interesting though is if you look on the US site they do charge and the charge is shown on the first home page, so they obviously respect the US laws more than they respect ours. It is also worth noting that the US service costs only $18.50 so less than a quarter what they tried to charge you.

I would strongly suggest that you report this company to OFCOM.

Soo

Hermia

If I were you I'd register with the Telephone Preference Service. It's an official organisation and it's free to register http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/. I certainly don't get as many annoying phone calls since I registered.

jmwspur

soolin wrote:

I would strongly suggest that you report this company to OFCOM.

Soo

Is this the right place to report it. They seemed to me to be more about abusive content or problems with internet providers or spam. Should this not be a case for the trading standards office - although it isn't a local issue?

Judy