Please have a look at the following correspondance between myself and Wanadoo
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing to you for two reasons. Firstly I wish to make a complaint about your call centre staff who did not give me any advice or information with regards to my accounts that was important to me when I rang up to upgrade my Anytime account to broadband. Secondly I wish to claim a refund for being charged twice since I upgraded to broadband in October 2005.
I have had a Freeserve Anytime account for sometime and wished to upgrade this account to broadband last year when my telephone exchange was upgraded to allow me access. I rang your call centre number and got through to an operator. They asked for my phone number, which I gave them, then told them I wished to upgrade from Anytime to Broadband. This was quite clear. They did not ask at any point in our telephone conversation for any email address, just my telephone number. This seemed to go smoothly and shortly afterwards I received the necessary modems and was connected to broadband.
Yesterday I received a Visa statement which shows my Wanadoo charges. I noticed that I had two charges - £14.99 + £17.99. I could not understand this and therefore rang your call centre for an explanation. When I got through to Laura at the Leeds centre she asked for my phone number, then informed me that I had two active accounts. I queried as to how this could be and this is where I found out that they had kept my Anytime account live and upgraded my very old dial-up pay as you go account to broadband. At no stage was I advised that I would have two active accounts or indeed asked if I wanted two accounts. Laura gave me the two account numbers, which are shown above. She has now advised me that the Anytime account has been cancelled.
The email address I have been using when I had my Anytime account and since I have had broadband is *******. I am assuming I will still be able to use this address?
It is quite clear that a mistake was made by your call centre staff at the time I rang up to upgrade my Anytime account to broadband. I therefore wish to claim back the overpayment paid by myself from October 2005 to April 2006. This amounts to 7 months at £14.99 making a total of £104.93.
If you wish to discuss the above with me in further detail then I would be only too happy to do so.
In the meantime I look forward to a early response from you.
The reply from head office stated that because I did not stipulate the email account to use they assumed it was the pay as you go one and that I wanted to keep the monthly direct dial up one. Hence they are refusing to re-imburse me for the 7 * 14.99 that they have overcharged me.
This amounts to fraud. Why would anyone want both a direct dial up and a BROADband account.
Can anyone advise my next step...BBC watchdog, papers...camping outside their head quarters...
Has this happened to anyone else.
Joined: 21 Apr 2006Posts: 94Location: Fallowfield, Manchester
Why don't you consult a solicitor (many give free 30 min interviews) with a view to suing for your money? It may also be worth asking on the newsgroup uk.legal.moderated
BT did something similar to us a few years ago when we moved from pay as you go to anytime (dialup)
they failed to inform us of the new dial up number so we were charged for pay as you go!
Ended up with a massive phone bill. I think we got 3 free months out of them in the end.
IT HAPPENED to us completely the same. They charged us twice Please
Let me know at the forum if we can do something together to sue them. This is outrageous.
Liliana
yes it's happened to me to. When I upgraded from Anytime to Broadband (online), it said that within 2 weeks of getting Broadband my Anytime account would be automatically cancelled. I realised 15 months later that I'd been charged twice £14.99 and £17.99 for all this time. Despite numerous letters to Chris Hammond at so-called 'customer care', I'm getting nowhere. He has told me that the onus was on me to cancel my anytime account, despite the fact that I was told by support staff on the telephone on more than one occasion that my broadband account would just replace my anytime account. I was just offered Three months free access to wanadoo which I don't think is any kind of compensation. I am absolutely outraged.
Same probelm
Orange blamed me because I didn't check my bank statements !! They have been charging me for broadband and Anytime fro 3 years and tried to fob me off with ' you didn't tick the box to say you didn't want dial up anymore'
Thats great cos I did it over the phone!!
And it was my fault that Wanadoo bougth out Freeserve and so changed my user name . Hence two accounts. Unbelievable.
My reward for losing £540 ? A 'goodwill' gesture of six months worth of Anytime ! A whopping loss of £450 .
When we stated that why would we want both services they suggested I could have 16 computers on the go in my house !
Appauling attitude, horrific customer service and they couldn't give a monkeys. So have only started in my revenge - and leaving asap
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