Littlewoods Catalogue So Unreasonable

jillywally

I will try to fill you in briefly with this. We have an account with Littlewoods and its in my husbands name although in the past they spoke to him and me and asked if he gave permission for me to speak to them and he said yes and they were going to make a note of this. I have spoken since then on many occasions with Littlewoods. Now, my husband has gone away for 4 months (not prison or anything else dodgy but with the RAF to the middle east)and I had a problem with littlewoods crediting the account with a mobile phone that didnt work!! now this phone had been paid off completely and was my sons (he paid for it) so obviously my son wants his £173.00 back, but Littlewoods credited the account which in effect wiped out £173.00 off the balance of the account. So i phoned them today to ask if the £173 could be sent to us in a cheque rather than taken off the balance. They wouldnt even speak to me about the account, data protection!!! So I asked ok, my husband has been away for 2 months now but I managed to get the faulty mobile collected and also have ordered things recently how come?, she said yes you can order but we cant do anything concerning the account. So in effect, I could order £6000 worth of goods but I cant ask for a cheque to be issued in my husbands name, he is in the British Forces for gods sake and they will not help you at all. Is this right? Shouldnt the refund have automatically been in a cheque, seeing as the phone had been paid for , the whole account was wiped clean before he went to the middle east, it's only that i decided to order a damn Slendertone for myself the other week that there was a balance on the account. Surely, they could issue a cheque in my husbands name with my say so? They were very cold and nasty and made me feel hopeless, infact I started crying......crying on the phone to Littlewoods, how embarrassing. She even said can you get your husband to phone us..........yeah right from the desert!!!!! I said to her, god I could have got a man to phone and pretend to be my husband but I'm doing it the proper way here, she said "now you have said that Mrs........ i will have to make a note on your account that you have threatened to do that"!!!! Anyone, any ideas? I feel that I'm banging my head against a brick wall and im sure im going to have a bloody breakdown or at least a good dose of high blood pressure, Thanks, Jill xx

DVardysShadow

This, unfortunately, is Barmy Britain. I can't imagine it is worth going into the desert to fight for it, when you are defending the barmy Jobsworths who make the country what it is.

dmg24

As you owe money on the account, and the credit has gone against this spending, why not pay your son the money yourself?

NGlady

You shouldn't have mentioned you was going to get another male to phone up - that would have been one solution allbeit illegal. I worked in a company once with very strong data protection laws, and it was similar an order could be placed on an account but we couldn't give any info, so nothing to do with balance for example. Have you questioned whether you could get your husband to drop them a line from where he is based to give permission, it may not be normal practise but when I had this situation in my call centre I would always bend over backwards to acommodate this sort of thing tbh. . .

sarahg1969

I spoke to the Inland Revenue on behalf of my son, who said they could not give me any information, quoting the DPA. I explained that I did not require any information, and simply gave them the reference and explained what he wanted them to do. They did not need to divulge any information to me at all. And he received a refund, as requested, within days.

jillywally

dmg24 wrote: »

As you owe money on the account, and the credit has gone against this spending, why not pay your son the money yourself?

Thats what i've done in the end but they wont be getting another penny from us!! Im boycotting them, wonder if they would have helped me if my husband had been in prison? Probably!!! x

jillywally

sarahg1969 wrote: »

I spoke to the Inland Revenue on behalf of my son, who said they could not give me any information, quoting the DPA. I explained that I did not require any information, and simply gave them the reference and explained what he wanted them to do. They did not need to divulge any information to me at all. And he received a refund, as requested, within days.

That is my argument, I told them I needed no info from them infact i told them so much about the account and what had been paid and ordered and all my husbands details but no way would they budge!! That was 2 different people too as I asked to speak to a supervisor who just spoke to me like I was a child, I'm 46 !!! Not a good day, oh well could be worse I suppose. Oh one more question, the money should have been a refund though shouldn't it, if my husband was here we could have pushed for payment by cheque couln't he? Thanks for all your comments, jill x

fleagle21

That's awful - my hubby is in the RAF too, and I've had fun and games with companies before trying to deal with stuff whilst he's away! Our worst experience was with 3 mobile, apparently they just don't get the concept that the only phone calls the forces get to home are 30 minutes per week when on det (is it more now - this was 2007?), because when I explained it, they STILL wanted him to phone them using that time!
Anyway, back to your issue! I have an account with Very, and anytime I've had a balance on the account anything that has been returned is just credited back on - I really don't know whether they would issue an actual refund, but I don't see why not either.
Not particularly ethical, but I'd type them a letter, from your husband, scrawl 'his'(!) signature on the bottom, explaining the whole situation. They're really not to know it's not from him directly.... and yes, I've done that before - call it a RAF wife coping strategy

jillywally

fleagle21 wrote: »

That's awful - my hubby is in the RAF too, and I've had fun and games with companies before trying to deal with stuff whilst he's away! Our worst experience was with 3 mobile, apparently they just don't get the concept that the only phone calls the forces get to home are 30 minutes per week when on det (is it more now - this was 2007?), because when I explained it, they STILL wanted him to phone them using that time!
Anyway, back to your issue! I have an account with Very, and anytime I've had a balance on the account anything that has been returned is just credited back on - I really don't know whether they would issue an actual refund, but I don't see why not either.
Not particularly ethical, but I'd type them a letter, from your husband, scrawl 'his'(!) signature on the bottom, explaining the whole situation. They're really not to know it's not from him directly.... and yes, I've done that before - call it a RAF wife coping strategy

Thanks, I might just try that, only been a RAF wife for a few years so still getting the hang of all this. I'll learn, Jill x

pimento

Put your son on the phone and he can say that he's your husband and give them permission to speak to you. They can hardly say they don't believe it as presumably your husband will back you up if they ask him..

fleagle21

pimento wrote: »

Put your son on the phone and he can say that he's your husband and give them permission to speak to you. They can hardly say they don't believe it as presumably your husband will back you up if they ask him..

Need to be careful with that one though, as they may record phonecalls - would be easy to compare from a previous call. Not sure if they would actually go to that length, but probably best to be safe than sorry on that.