Onestream activating unwanted services

Nitra8912

Hi, Onestream is my broadband provider. Today they have sent me an email informing me that they have activated an unrequested service (a NordVPN account), which is free for the first month and with a monthly fee after that.

I have of course contacted them to get this deactivated immediately, but it sounds such an illegal behaviour to activate an unwanted service without my consent (and it could have been easy to miss the email and just found the extra cost in one of the next bills), that I am wondering if I should report it, and if so to which body should I report it? I am not sure I can report to the communications ombudsman since I don't have a dispute open with them.

Not the first time Onestream tries to play this kind of tricks on me.

Thank you

vacheron

I've just seen exactly the same thing with Vodafone yesterday where they sent me a text message which implies that they will start charging me soon for a service that I didn't ever sign up for at an amount that I never saw nor agreed to, due to the impending expiry of a 90 day free trial of some software that I didn't want or ask for!

I had to follow their instructions to log in to my account and find it enabled by default deep in the settings menu and actively disable it. 

I wasn't remotely happy either! 

Text message I recived quoted exactly below:

Hello. Just to let you know, your Secure Net free trial ends in 30 days. After that, it's just £1.20 a month to help keep you protected online. Open the Secure Net app vfsecurenet.page.link/useapp to set up 24/7 ID monitoring and your online protection preferences. If you decide it's not for you, visit vodafone.uk/turnoff to cancel anytime.

Maverick192

@Nitra8912 Yeah OneStream are very sharp practioners, you have to be really careful with how you interact with them as they are absolute sharks in terms of how they treat customers, in terms of charges. 

I'd say the Nord "free" trial was a step too far, and they have already sent an email "clarifying" that their free trial wasn't already activated (even though the only option in the email was to cancel the trial, not to start/approve it).

I already reported them to OFCOM anyway, but they have seemingly rowed back on this particular issue.  I expect they got a lot of "feedback" on the webchats when everyone cancelled their supposedly free trial for an unnecessary (for most people) and unsolicited product.

MSE_Molly_G

Hi everyone, We've been looking into this after a user flagged it to us on Wednesday. As @Maverick192 notes above, it appears that Onestream has U-turned on this – we've seen an email sent to customers that says customers now WON'T be charged unless they activate the Nord VPN subscription. 

We also asked regulator Ofcom to comment on the situation. A spokesperson told us: “These reports are concerning, and we will be raising this with Onestream. The practice of automatically opting customers into a service without their agreement and later charging for it if they do not cancel is known as inertia selling, and consumer legislation expressly prohibits this.”

As a result of this issue, we've removed Onestream from our broadband comparison.

If you do spot unexpected charges on your account, make sure you complain about this to Onestream and, if necessary, escalate the complaint to the Communications Ombudsman.

Thanks,

MSE Molly G

Maverick192

@MSE_Molly_G Excellent stuff, I'm glad that OneStream are being hit where it hurts (their pocket) for this kind of behaviour by them being removed from the MSE comparison tool.

Lewis100c

Oh my, I thought it might just be me. Alas they were still on the tool when I switched.

Looks like they are back to it, this time with McAfee.

I didn't sign on via their website, it was over the phone. I don't recall being asked if I wanted a 'free trail', if I had I would have refused.

The first thing I noticed is when something was taken from my bank account. In fact they seem to be making a habit of dipping into my account when it suits them, this was the 2nd of 3 payments in the month.

When I complained, via online chat, they did say that they sent me an email. I did received one but disregarded it as I had not opted in to the free trial. Buried at the bottom of the email text was the 'cancel free trial' link. I hadn't read the email - why should I, I hadn't opted in to it?

Is this against GDPR? If not it is certainly sharp practice.

No reply to my email complaint either - not within the 7 days they state in their complaints policy.

Three strikes and out for me (this, an outage and a very poor router that gives my wifi reception black holes) but I suspect that I am locked into a 24month contract.

Maverick192

@Lewis100c They do (from memory) include the "free" McAfee trial when you sign up online, its a bit of a sham that there's no option to just not take it out in the first place, but they are obviously relying on people forgetting to cancel these things.  They also add (or did when I signed up anyway) some sort of insurance product for the line, which is also completely unnecessary.

I find their emails to be carefully curated so that all the key information is well "below the fold", its very disingenuous.  I'm not sure that its against GDPR, but I'd report them anyway for misleading communications, its the only way anything might in theory change.

If you don't have an online account yet, I'd go through the process of creating one as the LiveChat is actually surprisingly helpful and effective, including when cancelling these extra products that they bundle.

jbrassy

I used to think Onestream were OK, but my recent experience means I would now urge people to steer clear of them. They lure you in with cheap prices, but then they hit you with charges elsewhere.

They signed me up to Mcafee at the beginning, which they cancelled and refunded me for so I was OK with that. However, i just went to cancel my contract which is ending next month and they want to charge me £116 to cancel the contract 1 week early.