mobiles.co.uk - the worst CS in history

Ferris

well, it seems that mj and the naysayers were correct, and mobiles.co.uk have the customer relations skills of a slightly confused stick of rock.

as i posted on here at the time, i ordered a clearance phone from mobiles.co.uk at the end of january. i got the handset, and promptly cancelled the insurance and gadget helpline thing. my handset had a problem, and so i returned it for an exchange. all went well. a few other minor problems were ironed out by the returns team. all well and good so far.

i opened my bank statement this month to discover that i had been charged £5.99 for insurance by carphone warehouse, even though i had written proof that i'd cancelled. it appears that what happened was this: i cancelled the policy i'd grudgingly but consciously agreed to taking with the phone. then, when i sent the phone back for an exchange, and without warning me, seeking my consent, or getting even grudging acceptance with a tick box or an "i accept" button, they'd set up another policy for me. now this is scandalous, to my eyes, even if it is only £5.99. a supposedly responsible company ignoring the need for consent and simply starting up insurance contracts on a whim? also, the handset i received as an exchange also had a minor problem, so i was offered a second exchange. presumably, i would then have had two insurance policies (that i had not agreed to implicitly or explicitly) active for one phone. a joke.

as returns had been responsible for administering the return, i emailed them. they responded promptly with an apology, but said i would have to email the customer services email address to get the situation resolved. i did this. 4 days later, i got an email saying:

Hello,

We have recently introduced a new set of web forms for customer queries to ensure your email is dealt with promptly and by an appropriate member of staff.

For a timely response, please redirect your query to the correct team using the web form below and we will respond as quickly as possible.

https://securesite.mobiles.co.uk/contact-customer-services-team.html


--
Regards
====
Katherine Fraser
Customer Services Advisor
[EMAIL="Customer.services@mobiles.co.uk"]Customer.services@mobiles.co.uk[/EMAIL]

now this, to my mind is equally scandalous. mobiles.co.uk has seriously messed up and possibly technically broken the law (taking money from my bank account without permission), and yet it is too hard for "Katherine Fraser" to forward my email to whoever in the department is responsible for dealing with complaints. why? are they using windows 3.1? she could even have printed it out and handed it to her colleague. what is so hard? especially as the returns team had asked me to forward my email to the cs team on their email address. it's a sure sign of a customer services team that just don't give a damn.

errors will always happen, and it's the measure of a company how they respond when they are so clearly and completely in the wrong. mobiles.co.uk respond with a barrage of pointless red tape and obfuscation. it's been said many times on this forum, and i've always had my doubts, but now i'll say it louder than anyone: AVOID THIS COMPANY LIKE THE PLAGUE.

daggy

Assuming that you'd cancelled the initial DD set up for the insurance, why would they have your bank details?

Isn't this illegal?

Guys_Dad

The automatic adding of Insurance an gadget helpline by CPW companies is appalling. I can't imagine just how many unwary people get caught by this scam - I know that this wasn't the case with you.

Just 1 or 2 things -

• If they have put in place a 2nd Insurance policy, make sure there isn't a 2nd Gadget Help line also set up.
  
• Get on to your bank and get them to recall the unauthorised DD by showing them the proof of cancellation.
  
• Check when the DD was set up - in other words, did they ignore your cancellation or did they set up a 2nd one.

The fault may - just may - lie with the Insurance company who may not have processed the cancellation. That happened some time ago when I bought a phone from the Onestopphoneshp, another CPW company.

Ferris

daggy wrote: »

Assuming that you'd cancelled the initial DD set up for the insurance, why would they have your bank details?

Isn't this illegal?

well, this is the dangerous thing: as you are compelled to hand over your DD details when setting up your phone contract, they will always keep hold of them. they could set up as many contracts as they like, theoretically. when i emailed the insurance arm of CPW stating that i'd already cancelled my insurance, their response was "the charge is for a different policy, which you didn't cancel". the fact that i wasn't aware of, and never asked for it in the first place didn't seem to matter. on this basis they could set up a hundred direct debits after you cancel the first one, and still 'legitimately' use this excuse...

Ferris

Guys_Dad wrote: »

The automatic adding of Insurance an gadget helpline by CPW companies is appalling. I can't imagine just how many unwary people get caught by this scam - I know that this wasn't the case with you.

Just 1 or 2 things -

• If they have put in place a 2nd Insurance policy, make sure there isn't a 2nd Gadget Help line also set up.
• Get on to your bank and get them to recall the unauthorised DD by showing them the proof of cancellation.
• Check when the DD was set up - in other words, did they ignore your cancellation or did they set up a 2nd one.

The fault may - just may - lie with the Insurance company who may not have processed the cancellation. That happened some time ago when I bought a phone from the Onestopphoneshp, another CPW company.

there is no new gadget helpline set up as far as i know (no DD on my account). i emailed my bank under the DD guarantee at the same time as i emailed CPW, as i had a feeling they wouldn't make me jump through as many hoops!

the first cancellation definitely went through, as i went direct to the insurers and got a confirmation (eventually). i cancelled the DD. this is still visible under "cancelled DD" on my online banking. the new one has a different reference and is for an entirely different policy, as mentioned in the correspondence described above...

Guys_Dad

The bank will recall the DD through their inter-bank agreement. Also worth a quick call to the "Insurance" company to get your money back.

If you explain the circumstances, they will probably agree a refund.

Ferris

Guys_Dad wrote: »

The bank will recall the DD through their inter-bank agreement. Also worth a quick call to the "Insurance" company to get your money back.

If you explain the circumstances, they will probably agree a refund.

the insurers have told me they are sending me a "final response letter", whatever one of those is. i fully expect it to be CPW's latest advertising leaflet or something...

OneADay

Ferris wrote: »

the insurers have told me they are sending me a "final response letter", whatever one of those is. i fully expect it to be CPW's latest advertising leaflet or something...

Something about "final response letter" here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=30356491&postcount=30

and

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/12/dec-procedure.htm

Probably a grovelling apology.

mobilejunkie

A Final Response Letter is the company's last word. You need the letter in order to make a formal complaint to the FOS. The content/decision of the company depends on their attitude to having a formal complaint escalated to the FOS. However, the FOS will take (probably) up to two years to actually deal with it. The FOS is the Ombudsman for the Financial Services Industry, and as an Insurance company this outfit is obliged to produce the Final Response Letter so that the victim can pursue the complaint them.

Ferris

i really hope i've misunderstood this, but it turns out the direct debit guarantee isn't worth the paper it's written on. the bank wrote to me to say they've refunded the amount, but they're simply going to contact CPW and see whether an instruction exists (which in this case, it does) and then redebit the amount.

note that it doesn't seem to bother them whether said instruction was illegally set up. so, all power to the companies, who can set up DDs on a whim, and as long as they set them up correctly (but not necessarily legally), the bank has no recourse. surely there must be a need for a signature or the digital equivalent to confirm consent?

oh, and i got a letter this morning telling me my geek squad membership had been cancelled too. so they must have started one of those as well.

mobilejunkie

I'd write back to the bank, pointing out that you didn't authorise the direct debit, whether it was set up correctly or not - and that the bank should not therefore re-debit it (should they decide to). Point out that should they do so it will immediately lead to a formal complaint from you and (failing a satisfactory outcome to that) a further complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Sometimes a bank would rather do what they should in the first case than stonewall people who are fully prepared to take a complaint to that level - but not always.