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Name And Shame! Which?

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  • nashak2
    nashak2 Posts: 6 Forumite
    :confused: I subscribed for their free trial and in Jan 05 I rang to cancel within the free time period. At this point I was told I can receive a free subscription to computing which till apr 05. On 1/2/05 I was debited for another which subscription I knew nothing about. I wrote to which in March 05 to explain I hadn't subscribed to this and the operator insisted I was, I insisted otherwise and was told to write in. I done this in March 05 and havn't had any response. Be wary of which.

    Nashak2.
    MSE_Martin wrote:
    NAME AND SHAME! WHICH?

    I thought long and hard about this, but there's no way round it. In my hand's a 'Which? £300,000 Double Fortune Draw', the type of shoddy marketing that gives companies a bad name.

    For Which? to be doing it is shameful. I've huge respect for Consumers Association. It leads great campaigns, forces change and is a 'Super Consumer' in the Courts yet this has now been rebranded to Which? as well, so it's tarnished too. Hopefully some negative publicity will make it think.

    Someone has to watch the Watchdog, so i'd like to know your thoughts?
  • pmd
    pmd Posts: 65 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Another MSE-er mentioned complaining to ASA about misleading "Urgent" envelopes. My copy of the Which "Data tracking" envelope, larded with bar-coded pseudo-urgency, has just arrived. I've filled in the ASA's online complaint form and am about to post it all to them. (Well, not quite all ... I'm entering the draw, on the basis that someone has to win it!)

    (Mind you, I also complained about their web form: it allows you to input up to 1500 characters, but only provides a view of 2 lines at a time so it's quite difficult to see what you're typing!)

    pmd wrote:
    Great idea: I'm constantly irritated by these "Urgent" and "Important" documents, and worried at their impact on my 87-year-old parents. I'm delighted to hear that ASA are interested. If a lot of MSE readers get in the habit of contacting ASA when this sort of misleading direct mail arrives, we might collectively have an impact.
  • gromituk
    gromituk Posts: 3,087 Forumite
    However, I had a bad experience with them when I signed up for their 'free' 30 online trial of their website. "Cancel any time within 30 days" read the blurb, but when I did try to cancel after 29 days they replied that you need to provide 6 days notice to cancel and they debited my account. I had a long and occasionally heated email conversation with them and eventually they pointed me to a single line of small print, on the page where you enter your credit card details, that stated 6 days notice was needed. I gave up arguing, but I was so angry that the CA hid behind a dodgy small print clause that I cancelled all my Which subscriptions and will NEVER trust them again.

    If their headline stated, without an asterisk pointing you to small print, that you could cancel at any time during the first 30 days without paying, then I would have thought that no amount of small print could negate that. You could go to your bank, get the direct debit reversed, and then report them to the Advertising Standards Authority.
    Time is an illusion - lunch time doubly so.
  • "If their headline stated, without an asterisk pointing you to small print, that you could cancel at any time during the first 30 days without paying, then I would have thought that no amount of small print could negate that. You could go to your bank, get the direct debit reversed, and then report them to the Advertising Standards Authority."

    Gromituk,

    You have to give credit card details to take out the subscription, so I'm not sure if this is the same as a direct debit? I'm afraid I just got fed up arguing with them and couldn't be bothered to take it any further - I also felt they would have better lawyers than me! Now, if only there was some sort of consumer protection organisation to champion my cause...
    Incidentally, take a look at their website and you'll see they are still running the offer. They have changed the wording and layout since I subscribed, but see how long it takes you to find out how to cancel. The thing that really got my goat, was that after I had subscribed there was no mention anywhere on any correspondence of the terms and conditions for cancellation. There is no way this was an upfront, honest, consumer-friendly transaction; it was a sly and deliberately misleading scam. I wonder how many other people have also been caught out?
  • gromituk
    gromituk Posts: 3,087 Forumite
    Sorry - for some reason I got the impression that it was a direct debit which it wasn't. I understand you giving up in disgust.
    Time is an illusion - lunch time doubly so.
  • JanCee
    JanCee Posts: 1,241 Forumite
    I have read through this thread and am suprised at the number of people who subscribe to Which. It is available completely free of charge at every local library. They keep up to 3 years back issues and your address does'nt end up on some stupid mailing list!
  • Just wanted to add that, years ago I entered one of these prize draws (late 80s/ early 90s I think).

    After the 3 month trial was up, I decided to keep the sub going. About one month before the prize draw, the date suddenly moved back a year! There was no announcement, they just referred to the new draw date as if nothing had happened.

    I cancelled my sub and have not trusted Which? since. I thought they were supposed to be better than that.
  • nemo183
    nemo183 Posts: 637 Forumite
    About a year ago I was having a drink with a friend, when his young son burst into the pub to tell us the good news that he'd just had a text message on his mobile to tell him he'd just won £2500 worth of video and TV gear, if he replied quickly.

    We tried to break the news to him as nicely as possible how these scams work. He was a bit feed up, but we got the point across.

    Ten days later, £2500 quids worth (at least) of gear was delivered to his home.................

    What can you say??!
  • gerryco
    gerryco Posts: 29 Forumite
    Hear, hear, kingofherts!!!!

    There is no obligation to buy anything, and you are getting a free lottery ticket with, admittedly, a minuscule chance of winning. But what the hell, it's free!!

    Which? has a very static membership base, and in order to fund their research they need to recruit more and more members by whatever means they can. The magazines are not available in newsagents, so they have to get their products into the public eye using these methods.

    Martin, there's nothing wrong with offering something for nothing, and you are doing Which? an injustice calling their marketing "shoddy". Just because unscrupulous traders use similar techniques doesn't make Which? unscrupulous.

    Perhaps you have some better ideas about how Which? might fund their research???
  • nemo183
    nemo183 Posts: 637 Forumite
    Which? seems to have many problems.

    1) Tacky advertising
    2) An ageing reader base
    3) Specialist reports which seem to lack crucial players. It just seems to me that whenever they publish a report on a subject I know something about, it's missing key players - which then makes me doubt all the other reports.
    4) An internet pricing policy that invites me to pay monthly for content that I have already been sent by post.
    5) As a previous paying customer, the annoyance of hearing on the radio, days before my printed copy arrives that I've paid for, the latest findings of what's contained in it.
    6) Apart from the tacky prize draws, the apparent absence of any other creative approach to winning new customers.

    In addition, there seem to be numerous articles featuring people and championing their causes that, for the most part, just serve those taking part right for behaving in the first place like headless chickens.

    I did mention in a previous post that I applauded their efforts, say, to decrease bank charges in Northern Ireland. And maybe it's in these actions that their future should focus on.

    Having subscribed for more years than I care to remember, I think I'm in a reasonable position to comment on what I certainly see as a continual downhill slide. Surely the message we should be sending them is "Change and adapt - or die"

    And just finally, having cancelled my subscription a few months ago, I'd love to know how or if they have handled the new gas regs which from now insist that any new gas boiler purchased is of the condensing type, to help the UK comply with it's Kyoto agreements.

    From everything I know about this subject, apart from these boilers being far more expensive than conventional ones, there is no UK manufacture that makes one that most installers feel confident in installing - so all are being imported from Germany. And from all the technical reports I've seen, these new boilers seem to offer very little extra gains over conventional types, and will never repay their much greater costs.

    If anyone knows different, maybe we should start another forum?

    In the mean time, I think Martin is right to question the current activities of the CA and Which?, when perhaps they should be concentrating their efforts on so called "Super Complaints" to the EU. And looking at new and creative ways of funding this.

    And really lastly, for final proof of where things are going, just read the annual car supplement. Ignoring the fact that organisations such as JD Power do these better with far more data, their insights often contain such gems that most, for instance, sports coupes, are "marked down" because they have "little boot space". Well, what a surprise..........
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