Prestige telecom / plan.com - its time we fought back

PHK

Millie_moo2 said:

ballyblack said:

Thank you for your story

I am afraid its unlikely you are not going to get any useful advice on here as this is a tech site

BUT why did you engage with a cold caller in the first place ??

Nobody rings you out of the blue and offers a fantastic mobile deal (doesn't happen in the real world)

Get ur PAC code,  pay your fine for being gullible and move on !!

Yes, it does happen in the real world! 

When I was with EE (I was with them for about 10yrs), they rand me twice during that time and spoke about lowering my monthly payments. They'd looked at my usage and figured I could get the same for less. It was great.

However, as people have pointed out - Prestige do not announce themselves. They literally say, in kent/essex accents, "hi *name*, how are you? I'm just ringing to see if I can make your phone package cheaper. Can you confirm some details for me please" and then go on to 'confirm details' as if you're talking to your phone provider. I genuinely thought it was EE and they didn't announce otherwise. 

If you don't have anything helpful to say then perhaps you shouldn't. Top points for victim blaming btw. 

This is a consumer website, not for small businesses. And as ballyblack said, it’s a post in the tech section. 

Being in business you’re expected to be more aware, cautious and to exercise diligence. 

As it stands, your only real option is to take legal advice from a solicitor. If you don’t have one , your local small business organisation will be able to recommend one. 

There's a slight possibility (depending on your turnover) you might be eligible for an ombudsman scheme. So take your accounts as well as the phone contract to the solicitor. 

Mikos67

Hi all, 

same story with me, I won’t go into the ins and outs.

I never gave them my PAC code, they hounded and hounded me for this until they received my termination request. 

I did a lot of research and compiled a email that I sent both to Prestige telecoms and plan.com - I also printed off both of these and sent them recorded delivery. 

After all this, a month on, I am yet to hear back from them. No payments have been taken, it seems they have given up pursuing me. 

It is important you remember what was said during the phone call. They SHOULD tell you there is no cooldown period. They should tell you a PAC code is for changing networks. I believe the main reason for my success was down to not giving them the PAC code. It states in their terms that the contract will commence once the service is activated. This cannot happen until the PAC code is given or you activate your new sim provided by them

they blatantly lie and missell this service. 

If anybody would like to see the email I sent, reply to this. Won’t post unless there’s no interest.

i gladly help anyone in this situation as I know how worrying it is. It’s terrible what this company is doing 

Garnett_F

This has just been mentioned on the BBC Radio 4 program "You and Yours", and they asked for anyone who has experienced this to email youandyours@bbc.co.uk

It's worth doing - if they see how big a scam this is, they might ramp up their coverage, which in turn might make ofcom pull their finger out. 

mosskatz

Hi Guys


These people are awful, the same thing happened to my wife
Ive worked in call centres all my life so i sent a stern and threatenting email and they cancelled the contract for free.
I also emailed all the senior staff.

feel free to use............

Hello 

My name is ___, I am the husband of ___, who was cold called yesterday by a member of your sales team where it was implied that you were calling from EE about an upgrade on her account.

 

She was given sales spiel about saving on monthly bills and coerced into signing up for a 36-month business contract without any cooling off period.

 

My wife had no idea about the difference between a business contract and a personal one and it was not explained to her that there wouldn’t be a cooling off period.

 

We’d like to cancel her contract with Prestige Telecom group asap.

 

1.      Under the GDPR Individual rights section, we are entitled to a SAR (Subject access request) for the call transcripts and recordings from the selling off this contract. Please provide.

 

2.      We believe that the contract was mis sold under the ‘communications act 2003’.

 

3.      Under the right to be informed section of GDPR, We are entitled to know where you got the data to call her from. I was told a lead generation site yesterday but was given no name. Do you have the site? Site owner? IP? Address? Optin? Privacy statement? I await these details.

 

4.      The CLI used to cold call her and make the sale was an 07 number, under Ofcom and ICO rules sales calls cannot be made from mobile numbers. Can you advise why sales calls are being made on mobile phone numbers?

 

5.      The contract terms are also deemed unreasonable as per the ‘unfair contract terms act 1977’.

 

6.      Your agent yesterday mentioned that you screen against the TPS register but did not mention the CTPS? Can you confirm if you screen calls against that register?

 

7.      You have one calendar month to reply to the SAR and then we will take this to the financial ombudsman.

 

8.      We also believe that the FCAs TCF guidelines were not complied with, especially outcome three which ensures that ‘Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale.’ Can you advise?

 

9.      After asking the agent multiple times yesterday if we could cancel, he said no and we must pay the full contract price (36 x £27). I then spoke to ___ who advised we could cancel after all? Can you explain the reason for the discrepancies?

 

10.   I notice that you have recently had a record sales month on new business? Do you have any visibility for the consumer on how your staff are incentivised (besides pizza and doughnuts). Matt confirmed that he is paid on commission but couldn’t divulge the amount. Can you please provide transparency? I believe this also comes under the TCF guidelines?

 

11.   I can also see that you have been shortlisted for 2 awards by ‘The News, Portsmouth’. Has the paper been made aware of the 100s of negative reviews online?. (see below) The Trustpilot page also seems very suspect with a lot of generic non-specific reviews? I find it had to believe that there are so many 5* reviews when the complaints are so high elsewhere.

 

arrivala.com/prestige-telecom-group-298/reviews/

 

www.justanswer.com/uk-law/is8rt-i-ve-coldcalled-buy-company-called-prestige-telecom.html

 

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6266683/plan-com (there are a number of posts on MSE)

 

We were told last night that we would get a call about the source of the data but still have had no call.

 

As mentioned above we would like to cancel her contract with Prestige Telecom group asap.

 

Kind Regards

 

 This was the reply they sent 

this was the reply to the email

Hi ___,

The good news is that after review with our management team we are happy to cancel this contract with no fees due.

As the connection had not gone through as yet we have pulled this back and the services will not transfer, there is no further action required on ___'s part to get this done.

Kind regards

Here are the addresses i sent it to

'support@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk' <support@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk>
'kieran_searle@hotmail.co.uk' <kieran_searle@hotmail.co.uk>; 'minimackett@hotmail.co.uk' <minimackett@hotmail.co.uk>; 'chris.mackett@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk' <chris.mackett@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk>; 'jfinn-ford@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk' <jfinn-ford@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk>; 'elliot.micallef@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk' <elliot.micallef@prestigetelecomgroup.co.uk>

Good luck

Hibousage

At long last Radio 4 You and Yours have picked up on these charlatans. Much like the Post Office, it takes a consumer programme to bring this to light. What is the point of Ofcom, your MP, Trading Standards et al - you contact them and diddly squat happens. 100’s if not 1000’s of people have been duped by these crooks, now is the time for some retribution. We’re coming to catch the wolf.

ballyblack

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001y28k

Hibousage

Trust Pilot reviews
Posted a review online about the R4 programme uncovering these charlatans. As per normal they are trying their hardest to get the review taken down.
No doubt they will now fill the site with a whole load of dubious positive reviews telling us how Jake Spiggins was absolutely marvellous and PT are the best mobile phone company in the galaxy.