Phones4U - feel a little tricked

AnnaLicious_2

I don't know if this is a common selling technique for Phone4U?

I had a phone call the other day. A lady said 'Hi (my name), I'm just calling because it's time for your mobile phone upgrade.' My Orange contract did recently end, so it seemed plausible. I had bought this through Carphone Warehouse 18+ months ago. We went back and forth on price and phones. When I was happy she said she just needed to verify my identity.

That's when it got odd. She started asking loads of questions on things Orange already knows about me. Then she asked for my debit card and bank acct details. I pointed out I pay by direct debit and they should have them. She then said, 'Oh, have you dealt with Phones4U in the past?' That was the first mention of Phones4U.

I felt tricked, in the whole conversation she acted as thought this was a normal end of contract phone call from Orange. I stopped the transaction then.

I'm not happy, as they didn't say up front they were from Phones4U. I did looked up the number they called from, and it is a Phones4U number.

Has anyone else encountered this? It feels a little devious and wrong.

gjchester

AnnaLicious wrote: »

Has anyone else encountered this? It feels a little devious and wrong.

Yes, along with companies claiming to be vodafone or o2 or 3 for whichever network I was with. Other companies do it not just P4U.

It's annoying but the simple answer is if your cold called don't deal with them unless they can tell you about your account with them. When they say data protection act tell them they called you and you don't know who they are, and you won't discuss it over the phone till they ID themselves. That usually stops them, oif they are genuine they'll agree and say call back on the offical number (ie 191 for vodafone)

I then assign them to my phone as a contact called SPAM and the ringtone for sma is silent so they never bother me again.

grumbler

Does it make any difference to you if your final contract that your were happy with would be with Orange anyway?

It's not that I advocate doing anything like this because you have to do some research first before agreeing, even if it looks very good.

Phones4u_company_representative

Hello AnnaLicious,

Sorry to here that you've had a bad experience with Phones 4u, hopefully I can clear this up for you.

I have spoken to our outbound sales team who were able to explain why you were called by us.

The Phones 4u outbound sales team are currently taking part in a trial on behalf of Orange. Orange are currently supplying a small amount of their customer database with us each month in order for us to provide upgrades to orange customers. As you said you have now reached the point where you can upgrade your current contract/handset. Our sales team will have called to help aid you in this process and hopefully provide you with a better deal and new handset.
The outbound team are happy to receive any feedback on this trial and I will pass on your comments to help aid the trial process and hopefully make the experience a better one for future customers.

I hope that helps, and any further questions please feel free to contact me on [EMAIL="moneysavingexpert@phones4u.co.uk"]moneysavingexpert@phones4u.co.uk[/EMAIL]

Thank you
Mel. Phones 4u

WelshBluebird

Personally, my method of dealing with this is never to do anything with cold callers. That applies to phone contracts and everything else I could be sold. If I want something, then I will go out and look for it myself and then possibly get in contact with the company.

The cold callers I find are the best are when you are asked for your own personal details before they will continue with the call. Ummm no. I find it amazing that companies still do this considering how much we have been told not to give out personal details unless you know who the person is / who they represent. Even more amazingly, banks are guilty of doing this too, despite the fact they are the ones who tell us not to give out our details.

sparky93

itsnt that against dpa? orange should not be giving out information like that without the users permission???

invisibleyousee

I had a similar phone-call from CarPhoneWarehouse last Friday - I had to ask several times, what company are you caling from, before they admitted it was CPW and not Orange direct...

As sparky93 said - how can Orange be giving out contact details for their customers without permission etc?

grumbler

sparky93 wrote: »

itsnt that against dpa? orange should not be giving out information like that without the users permission???

We sometimes use other companies to provide some of our services, or to provide services to us or distribute or market our products and services. We may share your Personal Data with these companies, some of whom may provide the services from countries outside the European Economic Area (i.e the 27 European Union Member States, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein). These companies can and will process this information on behalf of Orange, but only according to our express instructions and in compliance with appropriate security measures.

http://www.orange.co.uk/images/editorial/Orange-Privacy-and-Cookie-Policy-for-mobile-20101206.PDF