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Firstly let me thank you for bring this to the attention of the MSE forums, you can be sure that anyone coming across this post is not going to be dealing with Pop Telecom.
It seems to say it right there in their terms
"When any services leaves Pop Telecom for any reason an admin fee is charged and this fee is payable within 7 days. The fees are £25 per line connection and £25 per broadband connection."
You are right it IS an unfair contract term and OFCOM is the one to deal with it but you really need a lot of people to complain. A way to start that is to create a simple 2 page blog at Wordpress.com titled something like Pop Telecom Rip Off, write a page about your fees, show graphics of their terms, what others say (from Trustpilot etc) and create a contact page for people who want to help you. Then you work in concert to complain to Ofcom.
You could cancel your direct debit and let them take you to Court where you can ask a Judge to decide if it is indeed an unfair contract term, you could show how none of the rest of the industry have such fees if you move to a new provider and they actually have a specific fee if you do not have a specific provider.
You can also go to every forum you can find warning NOT TO USE Pop Telecom
Check your local BBC radio station for consumer type programmes, these have a massive impact because they call the company and ask them why they are charging the fee, the company has to respond or the show names them and shames them.
You can contact Deborah Curran CEO of Pop Telecom on social media, respond to the companies tweets at https://twitter.com/PopTelecom saying something like "Free Broadband sounds great but the £50 Rip Off when you leave is obscene" or "Maybe but your hidden £50 charge when you leave is a nasty sting in the tail" as long as you make every reply different and relevant it is not spam.
Do the same on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/POPtelecom/
Share with your friends on social media how Pop Telecom have a nasty charge when you change supplier, share the URL of your post here and ask others here to share it or retweet it on Twitter.
Google pop telecom reviews and reply to every site where they have reviews.
You could contact their Press department before doing the above, say you are about to start your own press release and campaign to highlight the rip off charges by Pop Telecom, do they have any comment or would they like to cancel these charges?
Remember you can ask questions of any of the social media account for any company in her group, there are 11 companies and it is a legitimate question to ask those companies publicly whether they have a hidden £50 fee and whether they approve of such practices.
https://www.duedil.com/director/916275178/deborah-curran/directorships
Remember they only have to lose ONE customer to cost them more than they are ripping off from you.
However if you can create an army of online support you will shame them into changing their terms.Thanks, don't you just hate people with sigs !0 -
That is a great reply, thanks so much!
From now on I have to be really vigilant, you live and learn.
I have been charged about £30 admin fee by Pop Telecome when I moved house. They made a home visit appoinment something to do with my telephone line.Engineer never came to our house, but they still charged me £80 for the engineer work at my new property. Pop Telecome told me that that the engineer came but did not actually need to visit my property, he did some engineering outside somewhere so I don't exactly know if engineer even turned up or not or what work he did exactly as the initial appoinment was for the home vsisit. and now this £50 "any time leaving charge" as well on top of everything...it is just not fair when I work full time, pay bills and tax and then being unfairly charghed for something I should not be for changing one internet provider to another is meant to be free after the contratual offer expires...it's just fruistrating.
Thank you for your assistane and advice.0 -
Thanks Andrew
You are right we all live and learn, here I think you can see it is a small company by duedil data, so do not deal with such small companies that make their money with rip off charges and high mark ups on BT Services.
It will have been BT Openreach they used to do that work, I recently had a new line put in and broadband activated, Sky charged me £20 for the BT Openreach to come here, it was a brand new install, never had a line here.
They will charge me £25 when I move which includes the install at my new place.
Some fees depend on where you live, if you are in a remote area and only BT serve your exchange then if you do not change supplier BT charge a fee as mentioned by others here. If you check you exchange on SamKnow exchange checker you will see who is in your exchange. You can still buy from the likes of Sky, Plusnet and TalkTalk but they just use BT and charge you more than they would if you were using their own kit in the exchange (this is called LLU - Local Loop Unbundling)/
Once you know what kind of exchange you have you know what your price ranges are likely to be.
Most of the deals at the moment seem pretty lame to me, I guess we are in one of those 28 day periods where they have to sell at the higher price. You can look at Quidco and similar for deals, moneysuperket who own this site currently have a better deal than MSE shows, it is free broadband for a year, line rental at £17.40 for 12 months (208.80 plus £7 for router) and a free £100 M&S voucher. (this site charges you £5 a month more).
TalkTalk charge a bit more on line rental but do free broadband for 18m and a £75 love to shop voucher. However, their line rental contract is 12m so your landline and broadband are out of sync. If you wish to prepay your line rental for a year this can be a problem because it at the end of the 18m you have less negotiating power as they know they have you for 6 more months.
Many Broadband companies have different charges but usually for the same thing, for example Sky charge me £20 in and £25 to move, Plusnet charge £49 in and move for free. TalkTalk sometimes do free installation or sometimes £25 and say they move for free but when you move they do not honour the deal and charge you a whole new retail price and for 18m. Plusnet just ask you stay 12m after the move at same deal you had before or max exit charge is £65.
What Pop Telecom did is invent a charge that does not exist in the process of changing from one ISP to another and they do it twice at £25 each. Now you say they do you on the install too, Bar Stewards!
You are right that it is not fair that Pop Telecom bury these hidden charges in their terms (which go against industry practice) and they uplift charges like BT openreach install by 400% based on your post.
If I were you I would not get mad but I would get even, make it a little hobby to spread the word and make sure you carry through with it, just share your honest experience of Pop Telecom and people will know to steer clear of them.
Good Luck with your new supplier!Thanks, don't you just hate people with sigs !0 -
Great response, im glad ive joined this site as Im learning a lot from people like you and others, many thanks!0
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Hi Everyone
This is my first post on this forum and I have just had a similar experience with PoP telecoms business retention team.
My contract has ended and my fees have increased. When I phoned to query them I was unable to get through to them despite holding on for 10 minutes on two occasions.
I decided to change supplier a few days ago and they have now phoned me to ask why and to offer a better deal.
I said that I had decided to leave and the hit me with the £50 charge for leaving.
I have told them I will now definitely be leaving and will be in touch with offcom to see what they have to say.0 -
When they say its a new charge does that mean that they have only recently added it to their terms and conditions.
Was it there when the contract started.0 -
Good thinking Batman, I mean Peter.bromley
I checked their terms and conditions and on April 5th 2015 their terms read as below, NO MENTION OF EITHER £25 CHARGE
"
- If you wish to end your Contract
to end the Broadband Service you must tell us in writing 30 days in advance of leaving us;
to end the UK Calls Service, you must tell us in writing 30 days in advance of leaving us. However, if you are leaving us to go to another telephone company, we will consider that you have given appropriate notice as soon as when we receive notice from your new provider. In other words, you will not be required to give us 30 days written notice in this instance.
If you wish to end this Contract, you must either call Customer Services or write to us at POP Telecom 9 Ashton Gate, Ashton Road, Romford, Essex RM3 8UF. Any legal proceedings that may be issued by you can only be served by sending them to us at the same address.
If you are ending your contract or any service before the end of your initial term then you will be provided with an early termination fee for the remainder of the contract. This is detailed on our website or you can contact the Customer Service Department, the number can be found on any of your telephone bills from us."
I do not know when these terms came into force but you started your contract on May 5th and the new terms do not say from what date they are effective from.
Assuming you were under the old terms, they have to inform you of new term, OFCOM rules say they have to tell you of any change that is detrimental, they did not inform you and their trying to say it is enough to publish on their website is complete ball hooks. They have to explicitly write to you.
48. Changing these Conditions
We may change these Conditions at any time for legal, regulatory or commercial reasons. We will notify you of all such changes in writing and/or by publishing them on our Website.
If we believe such changes are to your material detriment we will give you at least thirty (30) days’ notice of such changes by writing to you and/or publishing them on our Website or providing them on our Customer Services telephone line by way of a recorded message or by posting them on our website
If you object to any change that we believe is to your material detriment you may terminate your Contract without charge provided that you notify us in writing within thirty (30) days of our notification to you of the relevant change.
When we notify you of any change to these conditions, we will remind you of your right to end this contract without charge
This Contract sets out the whole agreement between you and us for the provision of the Services and supersedes all prior agreements between you and us. Neither of us has relied on any representation arrangement understanding or agreement (whether written or oral) not expressly set out in these Conditions.
If any particular clause of these Conditions shall be, or be held to be, invalid or shall not apply to the Contract, the other clauses hereof shall continue in full force and effect.
It is in your interest to check see if you have any terms mailed to you when you signed up and to check clause 32, they may say it supersedes but OFCOM rules say they have to tell you and you then have 30 days to quit from the day they tell you.
So you can check your terms and tell them to get lost, you need to get them to concede
The archive of their terms for para 32 is archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150406123321/https://www.poptelecom.co.uk/page/termsandconditions#peter.bromley wrote: »When they say its a new charge does that mean that they have only recently added it to their terms and conditions.
Was it there when the contract started.Thanks, don't you just hate people with sigs !0 -
Thank you for this research it is so helpful.0
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peter.bromley wrote: »Hi Everyone
This is my first post on this forum and I have just had a similar experience with PoP telecoms business retention team.
My contract has ended and my fees have increased. When I phoned to query them I was unable to get through to them despite holding on for 10 minutes on two occasions.
I decided to change supplier a few days ago and they have now phoned me to ask why and to offer a better deal.
I said that I had decided to leave and the hit me with the £50 charge for leaving.
I have told them I will now definitely be leaving and will be in touch with offcom to see what they have to say.
Btw, I looked at my contract and there is NO charge for tranfering to other provider. The £50 leaving charge only came in to force last August and I had taken out a product with them in May, so this new charge doesn't actually apply to me, so I suggest you look at section 32 of the contract they have sent you when you had 1st taken out the offer with them as you may not be entitled to pay this leaving fee.0 -
peter.bromley wrote: »When they say its a new charge does that mean that they have only recently added it to their terms and conditions.
Was it there when the contract started.0
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