Yourcalls.net appalling service !

sarah_e_3

andyjervisuk wrote: »

I've been with One Bill telecom for my line rental for 2 years or more, not any cheaper than BT but just wanted to get away from all the sales talk. I've just discovered through their web site I can have 5 nominated numbers where I get free phone calls anytime plus free weekend calls all for the price of £10.95!. Additonal packages are £2.99 for free evening and Weekend calls or £7.95 for Anytime. the website is:

www.onebilltelecom.com

They also do Broadband £12.99 for 1MB and their Customer Service is good, at least it in the UK and you speak to an English operator!

Also their parent company is Your Calls is even cheaper!
£9.99 Line rental
Evening and Weekend Calls £1.99
Anytime £4.99

This is an online company though, no paper work and possibly not a great customer service. Their website is

www.yourcalls.net

Anybody with either of these companies? Would be interested to hear your views.

Probably a bit late now but I thought i'd add my pennies worth!

I've been with Yourcalls now for a few years (on and off) and have had only one problem with them, when i moved there was a possibility of a large reconection charge! I emailed them and the very next morning I got a call from there customer services manager who explained why and how much (if anything) I would have to pay. At the time, because of moving costs, i couldn't afford even the possibility of an extra expense, so I went back to BT. I stayed with BT for 6 months and noticed my bills where getting bigger and bigger as the months went on, so I got back on the net and started looking again. I came across firsthelpline.com, searched there site and they came back with yourcalls, i switched back to them straight away, so, not only am i getting cheap calls, cheap line rental and great customer service again, i also got a £15.00 cash back deal because i used firsthelp!

Now theres money saving at its best!!!

sarah

NonGeographicalMan

Just to reactivate this thread I thought I would just confirm the further appalling treatment continuing to be suffered by customers at the hands of https://www.yourcalls.net

Firstly they lied to me by telling me in any email on 18th February 2009 that my 0845 and 0870 calls were free but then on 8th April 2009 they tried to retrospectively change this to say it was a mistake (see copies of their two emails at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=22193145&posted=1#post22193145) and only true if I also moved my broadband to them. And they were only going to honour free 0845 and 0870 calls for the last two weeks in February, even though I had also made them in March and early April on the basis that they were part of my Anytime calls plan as suggested in their February 18th email.

After I then changed my payment mandate to a non existent credit card to force them to repay the cost of the 0845 and 0870 calls from 1st March to 8th April 2009 they grudgingly credited my account with the money for these calls but then refused to issue corrected invoices showing the calls as not being chargeable. Then they sent threatening emails saying my outgoing calls would be blocked if I did not give them a new credit card and although I gave a new credit card to their supervisor who confirmed it was correctly on the system they then claimed to have had the payment declined for a Mastercard I use all the time and have no problems at all with.

As a result of this they then barred my outgoing calls and after they had finally taken payment on the card and restored my outgoing calls I now discovered they had barred my access to all indirect access services such as www.18185.co.uk and www.1899.com or even the BT 1280 over-ride code. But the incompetent morons now deny they have done this, even though it is clear that under Wholesale Line Rental that blocking access to Indirect Access Calls is meant to be a service provider decision and is not under the control of BT OpenReach/BT Wholesale/BT Global.

See www.saynoto0870.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?num=1161955510/15 and the last few posts in the thread for more information on the saga with the blocking of Indirect Access Calls.

jimquad

macminiuser wrote: »

Hi, I work for Yourcalls.net and I was sorry to hear you'll be going back to BT, but fair play - I'd probably do the same under your circumstances. I don't know who made the decision to restrict unpaid lines just before New Year's Eve, but when I find out, I'll make sure I kick 'em in the nuts for you (well OK, I probably won't as "fired for Gross Misconduct/Assault" doesn't look too great on your CV!) but I will certainly question whether or not it was appropriate for the time of year.

I've often thought our debt management policy is quite harsh - you get an e-mail at least 2 weeks before the money is due to be taken, giving you ample time to make sure the funds are available, but if for any reason we can't collect the full amount (or a pre-agreed part-payment plan), we try three times to get in touch with you (on the third time leaving a message) and either recover the money over the phone or restrict the line.

This is because of a few people spoiling it for the rest - over the past 6 months we've had a massive problem with people transferring to us, spending the whole time calling expensive premium rate competition lines (Quiz TV, Millionaire, Deal or No Deal etc), racking up £1,000's in calls in the space of a few days (it takes three days to get your call traffic data from the network, so we don't know about it until it's too late) then cancelling their direct debit and churning away to the next unlucky supplier, resulting in huge losses. It's simply not worth pursuing the debt as it would cost us more to recover it than to just write it off.

In a business with ever-reducing margins, and extremely tight cash flow - remember that whether you pay your bill on time or not, we still have to pay BT Wholesale for your calls each and every month - we have to be super-vigilant when it comes to debt or we'll go out of business because BT will stop supplying US, resulting in loss of service for thousands and thousands of UK households currently serviced by Yourcalls.net.

For this reason, we have a zero-tolerance policy on debt - either pay your bill on time, or risk losing service until it's paid in full. Whilst I appreciate there are always going to be legitimate reasons for not paying YOUR bill on time, WE can't afford not to pay OUR bills on time and there are people out there who deliberately abuse the system; we have no choice but to protect ourselves against this unscrupulous minority. In the months of October and November more than 50% of our client base did not pay their bill on time, so we have had no choice but to take action.

I am genuinely sorry to hear you got caught in the crossfire and I sincerely hope it didn't ruin your New Year's celebrations.

I moved to this company 3 months ago after their advertising claimed I was not locked in to a 12 month contract. I then got a phone call asking for £30 over the phone or they would suspend the service immediately even though I had a regular payment set up set up and had received no warning. I threatened to leave and he told me they would charge me for 12 months if i did. Its now happened 3 times. I am just waiting for another 9 months and then will move to Virgin or BT. I don’t pay them to be treated like Sxxt!!

NonGeographicalMan

jimquad wrote: »

I moved to this company 3 months ago after their advertising claimed I was not locked in to a 12 month contract. I then got a phone call asking for £30 over the phone or they would suspend the service immediately even though I had a regular payment set up set up and had received no warning. I threatened to leave and he told me they would charge me for 12 months if i did. Its now happened 3 times. I am just waiting for another 9 months and then will move to Virgin or BT. I don’t pay them to be treated like Sxxt!!

I have just escaped from the horror that is now yourcalls.net under its now extremely authoritarian and dictatorial CEO, Owen Bloodworth. I specifically did not pass further comment on the way I had been treated by yourcalls.net while I was waiting to move to PostOffice Homephone as I did not trust Mr Bloodworth to not carry out his threat to give instructions for my phone line to be disconnected thus also cutting off my broadband that is not supplied by yourcalls.net

The company is now run by a CEO who is not interested in mere technical matters of how a telephone works. Hence when I queried why Indirect Access was turned off on my line and then turned back on he could not be bothered to investigate what really went on with BT Openreach but just arrogantly said that they did not want me to make calls with anyone else. However I copied all my correspondence to the Finarea telecoms group who operate 1899.com and 18185.co.uk and by the time I left yourcalls.net the bar imposed on using any Indirect Access service at all had been lifted so I could use 18185.co.uk and www.call1301.co.uk but I noticed that a bar was now in place on the 1280 BT Indirect Access code (not entirely surprising as there are then major issues about how BT bills those calls back to their WLR supplier) and more surprisingly that yourcalls.net had also barred access to BT customer services via BT's Freefone number of 0800 100150. So if you want to leave yourcalls.net they expect you to go down to the local BT Payphone or alternatively make a chargeable 0800 call on your mobile. I can only assume that given the shockingly arrogant contempt for customers demonstrated by the company's CEO that they have a lot of trouble with customers wanting to leave them.

They had the cheek to claim I was in breach of their terms and conditions by using Indirect Access services that they had not chosen to bar and that were not billed to them (18185 and 1301) but seemed to feel completely free to violate Ofcom General Conditions on billing calls correctly for calls to 03 numbers by originally charging them at g6 multimedia rate and persisted in violating the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and further Ofcom guidances by describing 0845 and 0870 calls as Local Rate and National Rate well over a year after Ofcom had made it clear this was simply not acceptable.

I went to Post Office Homephone not because I expect good service as I know their Derry call centre is shockingly incompetent at properly handling the simplest customer request but because they are big enough for nobody there to take anything personally or to star waging personal vendettas (not being able to take criticism of the company's technical incompetence in not knowing why my Indirect Access was suddenly barred on an internet forum that was not directed at any named member of staff but merely at the whole corporate edifice of YourCalls/OneBill/CommsFactory (or whatever other new shell company they have set up to run the business under this month) and more importantly with P O Homephone only 14 days notice is required to leave them again. Also I knew that they were one of the small number of suppliers not barring Indirect Access services.

However in terems of company character and principles I would much rather have gone to www.thephone.coop but sadly in a non LLU area like mine their actual call price and line rental offer with no packaged evening or weekend calls for the same line rental with 3 month minimum contract followed by 1 months notice to leave just didn't stack up vs Post Office Homephone. All other phone companies including BT, TalkTalk etc disqualified themselves because they have a one year lock in, presumably to prevent you from immediately running away when you discover how bad their customer service is.

Here are the last couple of emails I received from Mr Owen Bloodworth of yourcalls.net:-

---

Original Message

---

Subject: RE: Your Direct Access Issue
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 16:14:00 +0100
From: Owen Bloodworth <owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com>
CC: Fleur Jarman <fleur.jarman@comms-factory.com>

Dear Mr ___________,

Further to my email below I can see that you have transferred all your call traffic away but have left your line with us.

My previous comments still apply and I request that you transfer your line to an alternative supplier.

If I don’t receive a request to move your line to an alternative supplier I will, after 14 days, take action to cease your line.

Yours sincerely

Owen Bloodworth

---

Original Message

---

From: Owen Bloodworth
Sent: 15 June 2009 14:41
Cc: Fleur Jarman
Subject: RE: Your Direct Access Issue

Dear Mr _______,

I note your comments in your Email 8th June 2009.

I believe that the relationship between yourself and YourCalls.net has irretrievably broken down.

Your insinuation/accusation that we would adjust YourCall.net Terms and Conditions before sending them to you is both preposterous and insulting.

My staff and I are also not accustomed, and are not willing, to being referred to as incompetent scumbags. (MoneySavingExpert.com 9.14 5/06/09)

As a result I would like to kindly request that you find an alternative Telecoms supplier.

I look forward to receiving your new suppliers transfer request.

Regards,

Owen Bloodworth
Managing Director
Comms Factory Group
E: owen.bloodworth[EMAIL="owen.bloodworth&#64;comms-factory.com"]@comms-factory.com[/EMAIL]
Premium House, The Esplanade, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2BJ

orcadian

Our phone line in central Edinburgh went down during the gales around 3pm on Monday 23 May. The phone line broke outside our neighbour's back window. I contacted Yourcalls.net early Tuesday morning 24 May. On 24 May they sent an email advising us to check our phone connection as in a Youtube video. I called back that lunchtime 24th to request they come as soon as possible. When line still wasn't working on 25 May I contacted Yourcalls.net again. They promised an engineer would fix the fault by 17:00 today 26 May. Instead an engineer called "Robin" from "openreach" phoned my wife on her mobile on afternoon of 26 May while she was driving (she couldn't answer) so he left a message stating he had booked a "TENTATIVE APPOINTMENT" to call round and fix our line "between 1:00 and 5:00 pm ON MONDAY 30th".
That's a WHOLE WEEK with no home phone connection.
THANKS A LOT Yourcalls. net! Your code of practice states "Please call our Fault Service Team on 0800 988 6424 if you experience a fault with any of our services. We aim to have this investigated and repaired within two days". That's 2 days not 7 days like we are experiencing...and that's if they come on Monday!!
Do we have any legal rights to a decent service?

NonGeographicalMan

orcadian wrote: »

Instead an engineer called "Robin" from "openreach" phoned my wife on her mobile on afternoon of 26 May while she was driving (she couldn't answer) so he left a message stating he had booked a "TENTATIVE APPOINTMENT" to call round and fix our line "between 1:00 and 5:00 pm ON MONDAY 30th".

Openreach is the part of BT that maintains the exchange and phone lines these days. Most of the line rental you pay YourCalls still goes to BT Openreach.

Do you think the engineer knew Monday was a Bank Holiday when he made that appointment?

I suggest you fire off an email to the CEO of BT - [EMAIL="ian.livingston&#64;bt.com"]ian.livingston@bt.com[/EMAIL] and cc it to [EMAIL="customer.service&#64;yourcalls.net"]customer.service@yourcalls.net[/EMAIL] and to the following people who at least certainly used to be the directors responsible for the Your Calls.net brand.

BT Openreach will have a contractual responsibility via their support contract with YourCalls/CommsFactory to attempt to get an engineer out to you within 48 hours of being notified and BT Openreach does work on Saturdays.

[EMAIL="owen.bloodworth&#64;comms-factory.com"]owen.bloodworth@comms-factory.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="colin.forward&#64;comms-factory.com"]colin.forward@comms-factory.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="mike.thornley&#64;comms-factory.com"]mike.thornley@comms-factory.com[/EMAIL]

If your line doesn't get repaired in 48 hours you should be entitled to a certain amount per day for each day it is not repaired. yourcalls.net should also offer to divert calls from your landline to your mobile free of charge during the interim.

vicardave

Having seen MSGDIGGER's review on Trustpilot I checked out my original documents. The screen print I have shows I was undertaking a 12 month contract but has no mention of a rolling contract. I called YourCalls to check, and a recorded message said it would be quicker to raise an online query form rather than to call them up with a query. I did this, and after 10 days of no response I emailed them to the email address on their website. Still no reply so I called them and waited on hold for ages. They want £67.50 to leave them and insist I am on a rolling contract and they have automatically renewed it without contacting me in any way. So even though I have completed my 12months contract I have to stay with them another year or pay out the remainder. They were not prepared to waiver this and were extremely aggressive about it - and this is their retention team!. So not only will I leave them but in another 12 months I wouldn't even consider a return to them. Very devious company to deal with. Wish I'd seen that review site sooner.
I contacted ofcom, they are aware of these people and as of January 2012 they are now required to contact people regarding rolling contracts. This doesn't help the poor sods they've ripped off already.