Tiscali has changed its mind, I don't owe them £6.69 I owe them £14.86!;

Dear Mr Tasker,

Thank you for your letter regarding your Tiscali account.

I would like to apologise to you for the delay in this letter.

I have looked in to your account and would like to apologise to you for the misunderstanding of the balance due to be paid to Tiscali, I can confirm after looking into your account the total balance that was due on your account was for the amount of £35.40. As you have sent us proof of your cease and reprovide from 11/09/06 your account will be credited with the amount fo £20.54 leaveing the balance on the account to be paid as £14.86.

Please accept our apologies for the delay and for the inconvenience this has caused.

If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team on 0870 7443 366 option 4. Lines are open 8am to midnight 7 days a week. Calls are charged at national rate.

Alternatively you can contact us through our website at www.tiscali.co.uk

Yours sincerely

Carole Sutherland

As I am sure you can imagine, I am absolutely fascinated to know just how they have decided I now owe them £14.86. Hopefully we will find out, but knowing Tiscali I won't ever get a straight answer.

An interesting point for you before I show my reply, in every letter Tiscali has told me I can contact them through their website, however given that I requested the Cease and Reprovide through the website and they lost all record of it, I think I would be pretty stupid to conduct a discussion of this nature through it. The phone is an option though, so;

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you today in response to a letter date 27/02/2007 from Carole Sutherland. In her response she states that a credit has been made to my account for the amount of £20.54, leaving a balance of £14.86 due. However, in previous communications from Tiscali I have been informed that the amount due is £6.69. I am writing to you today in order to clarify this, and also to request an explanation as to why I 'owe' Tiscali this amount. The amount being disputed was £35.98 although this was reduced by an unexpected refund of £0.50 in early December. I think it is absolutely outrageous that Tiscali is unable to accurately and consistently tell me what they allege I owe them.

I would also like to take this opportunity to request again, that Tiscali confirms to me in writing that they have not contacted any credit reference agencies about this matter, and if they have then which ones and when. If Tiscali has not already contacted Credit Reference Agencies about this matter but chooses to do so whilst this discussion continues then a £40 charge will be levied in order to cover the costs of my time when dealing with said Credit Reference Agencies. This fee will be payable per Credit Reference Agency.

I am not trying to avoid paying, however Tiscali seems to be utterly incapable of sticking to the same figures. Thus far I am incredibly disappointed with Tiscali's approach to customer services.

Until I have received a detailed breakdown of what Tiscali believes I owe, including a breakdown of charges that make up said amount, I will not be paying. Had Tiscali demonstrated an ability to acknowledge its requirement to refund charges that it had made unfairly, I would have considered sending payment and then discussing with yourselves quite why the charge is so high. However previous experience has shown that Tiscali as a company simply cannot be trusted to return its customers the surplus from fees that they have been charged inaccurately.

Please find enclosed an updated invoice for the costs of this correspondence, Tiscali was notified of these charges before they were levied, and so these are valid charges and must be paid.

Should Tiscali feel that it will be more constructive to discuss this matter over the phone then I am willing to phone Customer Services, however Tiscali will be billed for both my time and the cost of the phone call.

Yours sincerely

Ben Tasker

As ever it's now time to play the waiting game, though I may email Ofcom the URL of my Tiscali Dispute Page in the meantime.

Updates when I get them