Home Phone Not Installed But Being Charged For It

lucy2410

Hello
I hope someone here can help.
I was having a home phone line installed, but the engineers never came so i decided to cancel. The company say it was installed but it wasnt but they are charging me.

I even told them to come look around my house and look.

What can i do?:(

DVardysShadow

Start writing letters and keeping copies.

macman

So who is the (theoretical) provider?
What tariff did you sign up for and what were the T&C's relating to cancellation after order?

bod1467

Have you considered that there may already have been a line and all the engineers needed to do was to connect it at the exchange? Do you get a dial tone at your phone socket?

(If you're talking about a 2nd line, or you don't have a phone socket at all then you can ignore the above).

lucy2410

I took A Post Office contract out over the phone, the bloke said it was a verbal contract. Then they never turned up to install it, they never contacted me to rearrange so i wrote them a letter to cancel it and rang to cancelled it. Then they started sending bills saying I owed them money. I then had Virgin installed they had to come in the house & install boxes & connect the phone line (I didn't have a home phone line before) so there is no way that there was already any existing equipment that the Post Office just turned on.

Any help would be great.

Should i send them a letter asking for the credit agreement?

lucy2410

I have sent lets, made phone calls and i'm getting no where. Should i request a cca?

DVardysShadow

lucy2410 wrote: »

I have sent lets, made phone calls and i'm getting no where. Should i request a cca?

No, a blessing from the Bishop of Bath and Wells will do you more good.

The basis of the PO claim against you is that you placed and order which they think they fulfilled. If you really understood how they think you are liable, you would not be bothering about CCA's. CCA's are only loopholes for wriggling out of credit agreements. If you have written to them and mentioned CCA's already, then you have probably been ignored.

Now, picking up bod1467's point about another line in the house. You say you did not have a home phone line before. What about previous occupiers of the property? And also, depending on area, I believe you can get Virgin phone service over a BT socket if Virgin don't have cable in the area. This would be the socket over which you would get PO phone.

lucy2410

DVardysShadow wrote: »

No, a blessing from the Bishop of Bath and Wells will do you more good.

The basis of the PO claim against you is that you placed and order which they think they fulfilled. If you really understood how they think you are liable, you would not be bothering about CCA's. CCA's are only loopholes for wriggling out of credit agreements. If you have written to them and mentioned CCA's already, then you have probably been ignored.

Now, picking up bod1467's point about another line in the house. You say you did not have a home phone line before. What about previous occupiers of the property? And also, depending on area, I believe you can get Virgin phone service over a BT socket if Virgin don't have cable in the area. This would be the socket over which you would get PO phone.

I havent written to the about cca yet.
I have written to them about Distance Selling Regualtions.

a cooling off period of seven working days in which the consumer can withdraw from the contract.
There were no phone lines in the house, they were installed when we moved in.

wild666

There were no phone lines in the house, they were installed when we moved in.

So you had no socket to connect a phone to until you took another contract with Virgin who came out and installed them?
If that is the case I would try using breech of contract as you were given a date for someone to turn up and install the line in your home to be able to make calls, they then failed to turn up so failed to keep their side of the contract, unless there was a connection that just needed activating at the exchange then you are libel to pay for the minimum contract period.

If the post office had to arrange for an engineer to visit you to install the line and they screwed up in some way then IMO it is not your fault and I would write to head office, you can get their address off the company's house website, their letters to you may also provide you with a company number that you can use to check you are dealing with the head office, I always send letters complaining of service to head office and leave it up to them to hand it the complaints department.
I think just mentioning that in your opinion they are in Breech of contact in letters may make them think again or look very closely into what has happened