Mobiles.co.uk... money taken from my account without my permission

Quentin

No - it would only end up in court if they refused to pay on receipt of the summons. The matter would then take months to be resolved via a hearing.

As the OP says there was never any money supposed to be paid to the retailer, this looks to be a misuse of the card details supplied by the OP.

Maybe reporting the matter to the Bank may quicken things up.

Awaiting payment from mobiles seems a drawn out affair even when they are in the wrong.

But typical of all cpw companies, and they are another one of those.

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative

I would second what Quentin has said, especially if you paid via credit card (I take it you didn't though) - put a call into your bank and state that you didn't authorise this charge, see if they can reverse it.

Once again apologies for the error, and someone should be in touch very shortly (if not already?)

Thanks,

Proc

The only thing I'd say is that it's atrocious that it should take "14-28 days" for the cheque to be issued. What a complete and utter farce. They should just refund it straight onto your card. All it takes is 5 minutes time of someone with a little nouse and discretion to fix this problem. By fobbing it off for this amount of time they're only making more work for themselves.




Upto 28 days to rectify something that is their own fault?

Disgusting. Come on Ben, I've bit my tongue on a lot of your replies so far, and always given your company the benefit of the doubt. Fix this crap.

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative

We use cheques to refund customers instead of cards, for reasons that I have asked be explained (especially in light of the fact it can take up to 28 days for cheques to arrive).

This is why MSE is useful to us (as well as beign a place to help customers immediately) - I find out what our company looks like from a customer's point of view, and hopefully can improve things as we go. Obviously in this case we've apparently made a bad mistake and our processes appear to be exacerbating the situation, so lessons will be learned.

Thanks,

Proc

Well the situation got me thinking about this (not my work):

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result, and all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon the monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.
Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that’s the way it’s always been done around here. And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.

Which is exactly what's going on here. You should refund instantly on card, there's no harm in doing so, there will be no detrimental effect on the company, yet it's still "policy" to refund via cheque.

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative

At the risk of being sprayed with cold water, there is a reason for refunding via cheque but given my job role it's not one I can recall - however in extreme circumstances (such as those that seem to be the case here) we should be able to step outside the policy, and this is something I'm now looking into. I think a simpler and more apt metaphor would be that, given a hammer, sooner or later everything starts to look like a nail - so CS have arranged a refund via cheque without thinking about the circumstances here.

Please, no seagulls or trawlers

Thanks,

OneADay

What happens to the monkeys who come out of the cage - where do they go?

:rotfl:

Proc

OneADay wrote: »

What happens to the monkeys who come out of the cage - where do they go?

:rotfl:

They've passed their working interview and go to work for mobiles.co.uk.

garyw73

The glaringly obvious reason why refunding by cheque rather than straight to the card is that the company can keep the "ill gotten gains" for a whole lot longer - earning interest in their bank account etc.

Any other reason given will be nothing more than a load of tripe / piffle / bull (insert your own word to mean the same here....................)

robt_2

Mobiles.co.uk_company_representative wrote: »

Once again apologies for the error, and someone should be in touch very shortly (if not already?)

Thanks,

Out of interest, and this is not a 'dig' at you, but why don't YOU sort it TODAY instead of speculating that someone will be in touch if they haven't already?

Take ownership.