Unicom Complaints

grandus

I hate to sound unsympathetic, believe me my best friend is in a major dispute because he was mis-sold an energy supply from a well known horrendous company and they are going to be hit with a major trading standards case very soon. But you dont drop a phone contract mid way through because a new handset and lower tariff came out, the world doesnt work like that, its your responsibility to stick with the contract until the end or accept a termination. Same applies here, if you are in a multiple year contract then you made an obligation to stick to it and its your obligation to leave it when it expires (and KNOW when it expires), otherwise pay a penalty.

Companies would go bust overnight if people jumped ship every time they found a better offer and were not in any way penalised. And sadly ignorance is not a way to ghet out of paying.

If youre being OVER CHARGED for your service then you should scream to the heavens and fight the battle, rightly so, as a consumer you have rights that should be respected. But when you make a legal contract with a company and commit to it, you should abide by that decision or NOT TAKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

The biggest issue here is how sales targets encourage predatory selling and brokering, that is an awful situation for the seller as well as the victim, because the seller is trying to earn a wage too.

grandus

If you were given a termination fee personally id just pay it if its under a few hundred, its not worth dealing with debt recovery and losing credit

motor_bike

i asked if i could get out of the contract, yes was the reply but it would cost a lot of money.

i called offcom , not much help.

so, i hatched a plan

i remeberd that unicom actually send out real people Known as reps to get you to sign up. so i called them and pretended i was new customer and that they came highly recomended . an appointment was made to send a rep to see me. this and six further appointmets were never kept.

i left it for a few weeks and another bill arrived at £130 . i was back on the case again. i called again and told them i needed 20 line puting in for new sale department i was setting up. this was sure to get someone out to see me. but no , another un kept appointment.

i made a complaint about this and also queried my contract again. unicom wanted to see copies of my bills from talktalk , which sent . they said i would have to pay to get out of the contract. this rolled on for a few days with no result. . i thought i would leave it for a week or two .

macman

Why do you think that getting a sales rep (who may not even be employed by them, but simply a agent) in under a false pretext is going to help you terminate your contract without charge?
The regulator (the Ombudsman, not Ofcom, who don't handle individual complaints) won't look at a complaint until you have exhausted the formal complaints procedure with the supplier, or waited 8 weeks without a response. You don't appear to have started that process yet, which requires a formal letter headed 'Complaint'.
But the main problem here seems to be that you didn't actually check the T&C's on your contract to see what was included-and what was not. Giving the rep an old bill is just inviting them to say 'yes sir, we can reduce your bills by x%'. The better way is to say 'my current usage is x, what will that cost me per month?
The fact that the broadband was included before doesn't mean that it will be now, unless that's what the contract specifies.

motor_bike

:Dwell , out of the blue the sales team from unicom called to see if they could save me some money on my calls and that they had a rep inthe area tomorrow. i said thats great and yes it would be ok to send a rep.

great, a plan was hatched .

i set up my full hd phone cam in my office for a test recording.
the test was perfect:D.

the next day the rep from unicom arrived on time and introduced himself. i introduced myself and told the rep that cctv was in opperation and pressed record on my phone cam:D

"will" the rep set about his task, which included telling me how good unicom are etc.

i gave will the last six bills from talktalk to aid him in giving me a cheaper deal. will had alokk through the bills and told me he could get them down to around £50 (where have i heard this before ??). i got will to go throught the figure 5 times ( he must have thought bthere was something wrong with me:D)

he confirmed once again that he could get the bill down to £50 a month.

i then passed him the bills from unicom and aked him to explain .

will could not explain and then asked if i was with unicom or taltalk. i told him what had happend and it was my lucky day:D.

the penny dropped with will and he said he would have to call his boss for some advice.

after will had explainded the situation to his boss his boss then wanted a chat with me:D.

i told his boss that i wanted my contract terminating as of today and that todays events where recorded . i asked for his name for the record etc. "will's" boss was called kev, what a supprize the same kev who miss sold me the contract .

kev told me he would have to call head office as he could not do anything.

will who was now in floods of tears:D told me he had to leave for his next appointment. i said no not untill this is sorted:D.

the call came from head office . i axplained what had happened and that i had tried all reasonble methods to sort this and it was by pure chance and that you sent out another rep to me. i told them that todays event where recorded and wills sale pitch was identical to kevs and to resolve this i wanted my contract terminating today before will leaves. i aso told them that i wanted a refund for the over payments and a refund for the promissed savings against talktalk . i pointed out that if i had stayed with unicom for the 36months it would cost me £1800 ish more compared to talktalk. i also said i wanted confirmation email sent today and letter confirming what i had said.

the email was sent straight away and i was asked to send a copy of the recording to aid unicon with staff training and that kev and will where going to see there bosses at head office.

i must point out that what i have done may be not the correct way and i am not suggesting anyone elese should try this. but it worked for me and it felt good :money:

macman

So all this happened between posts 11 and 13, which was a gap of 1 hour 28 minutes?

motor_bike

macman wrote: »

Why do you think that getting a sales rep (who may not even be employed by them, but simply a agent) in under a false pretext is going to help you terminate your contract without charge?
The regulator (the Ombudsman, not Ofcom, who don't handle individual complaints) won't look at a complaint until you have exhausted the formal complaints procedure with the supplier, or waited 8 weeks without a response. You don't appear to have started that process yet, which requires a formal letter headed 'Complaint'.
But the main problem here seems to be that you didn't actually check the T&C's on your contract to see what was included-and what was not. Giving the rep an old bill is just inviting them to say 'yes sir, we can reduce your bills by x%'. The better way is to say 'my current usage is x, what will that cost me per month?
The fact that the broadband was included before doesn't mean that it will be now, unless that's what the contract specifies.

when the first sales rep turned up i had the bills from talktalk as these had all the details of what was included in my package. this was used to help the sales rep from unicom to give an accurate quote and not lie to me.

i asked if unicom offered the same or simular deal which included broadband and the other things that were included in the talktalk deal i was assured that it was like for like but cheaper. if i thought for one minute that i had made a mistake i would have suffered with the contract for the 36months , but the more i looked into it i knew that ihad been had and this i do not like . i contacted ofcom who refered me to the ombudsman i provided both parties with evidence i.e. bills from talktalk and my reasonings ect . both unicom and the ombudsman seemed to be dragging there heels at the time, and would proberbly eventually got sorted in my favour. it was by chance that sales dep sent another rep to see me during the complaint procedure i took my chance.

this was around 2 years ago when this happened.

i am sorry about the 3 part saga as it took me that long to write i was getting logged out off the forum. i am also trying to get on with some work aswell. i also have tried to keep it as short as poss, so people dont fall asleep.


there is lots more to my case but i just gave you the main points and as said this may not be the correct way to resolve issuse like this but it worked for me and yes i felt great knowing that i had not been had and i took a stand for what i thought and still think was right. :cool:

fought_the_big_boys

Unicom wanted to charge me over £400 termination fee when I cancelled my contract last year as I was leaving the premises where I ran a business for many years as the lease was due to end and I did not want to renew it. I was told by the rep that leaving the contract early would not be a problem until the time came to leave then the s**t hit the fan. Unicom staff became rude and agressive and constantly harrassed me via my mobile. They threatened me with baliffs and court orders and told me that they were going to add on interest to the termination fee etc etc. If you dont have balls of steel these guys are very scary and I totally understand why people get scared of their threats and just pay up......Unlucky for them even though im female I have said balls of steel and had to really dig in and fight. SIX months it took me to beat these guys and in the end all it took was being able to prove that I was no longer at the address where the phone line was. Of course they were not going to make it easy for me and thought they could scare me into paying up and trust me I nearly did several times. Where the small print was, was on the back of an agreement not the contract and typically they did not sent me a copy of the agreement through until I insisted on copies of everything emailed to me. Cancell any direct debits you may have with them and say that you disagree with any fees they are trying to charge you and ask for a breakdown as to how they come to that figure. Also ask for contact via email only.Make a complaint official as they have 8 weeks in which to reply. When they dont then speak to the ombudsman and he will take over for you. You do need to have copies of everything for him but they have had several complaints about unicom....Hope this helps....

Steve54r

Copy of Letter I sent to Unicom, Explains a lot....


Re: Provisional Broadband Termination Fee £192.97

With regard to your letter dated 9 May 2014 in which you state that I am liable to pay the above
Termination fee in accordance with clause 8.1 of your terms and conditions calculated in accordance with clause 8.3 of your agreement. I wish to point out that, according to my records, I took out my broadband contract with yourselves on 22 Feb 2012 at £7.28 for up to 8Mb after which I received an offer from yourselves to boost my Broadband to up to 24Mb for a monthly fee of £29.99. from 01 Mar 2012 a contract which initially covered 24 months. This meant that the initial contract term would cease on or about 28 Feb 2014. As you are aware BT will be supplying my Broadband services from midnight on 20 May 2014 which is well past the initial contract cessation date. Add to this the fact that when I initially asked for a MAC code for the transfer of my broadband which I initially sent by e-mail to [EMAIL="info@switchingon.com"]info@switchingon.com[/EMAIL] and also telephoned the same day. I had to telephone a fortnight later to again ask for the MAC code. This was not a very good experience for me as I had to endure three people from Unicom trying to persuade me to stay with Unicom before you agreed to supply me with the MAC code. I therefore dispute the fact that you state I have to pay a termination fee.
In fact I would say that I was conned into paying for the ‘up to 24Mb speed’ which you promised me when I agreed to pay for that service when in fact the best speed I got from your supply was approximately 5.7Mb which is the same speed I was receiving with my initial ‘up to 8MB’ contract.
Doing the maths I calculate that if I had stayed with the £7.89 fee for up to 8Mb over 24 months I would have had to pay £189.36 however in accordance with the fee of £29.99 per month for up to 24Mb over 24 months I have actually paid £719.76 which means I have overpaid £530.40 for a service which effectively never changed. This should lead you to the conclusion that you actually owe me £530.40 for breach of contract over the 24 month period from 01 March 2012 and even more from 1 Mar 2014 to 20 May 2014 which I calculate to be at least £44.20 extra. This works out as a total of at least £574.60.
If, therefore, you insist on charging me this fee I shall be taking legal advice and if necessary I am prepared to take this issue to court.

savdefriz

A question for anyone out there who might know the legal position.


I'm trying to sort out land line broad band for my mother in law. She has been with Unicom (I know!!!!) for the past 6 years. She was in a rollover contract that autorenewed every three years for a further three year term.


I believe that this practise has now been banned. Does this mean that as her second term has expired she is now out of contract and free to move without penalty?


If anyone has any knowledge about these things it would be appreciated.