Tiscali Plays Hardball
Well Tiscali have decided to
play hardball. Today i got two letters, one of which I nearly didn't
open because they had got my name wrong. Thankfully the envelopes carry
the Tiscali mark so I did have a look.
Letter number one was a notice of suspension, basically informing me that there is an outstanding balance, and that if it is not paid then they will pass me on to a Debt Collector.
Second letter is as below
Dear Mr Baker,
Thank you for your letter regarding your Tiscali account.
Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience you have experienced due to this issue.
I have today looked at this account in detail and I can confirm that the 14.86 is a correct figure, this has been worked out by taking your subscription fee, breaking that fee down to a daily rate and then charging you for 5 days in september, taking into consideration the 20 days allowed for a cease and re-provide and all of October.
We have not at this stage passed this account to our Debt management Company, in the hope that this matter can be resolved, your details would not be passed to any credit reference agency unless the outstanding monies were not paid and then a default would be lodged against you, we would of course always hope that this would not happen.
Tiscali charge an admin fee of 10.00 for customer details to be released, if you would kindly forward cheque to us we will be pleased to comply with this request.
With regards to you claim for compensation I would refer you to our terms and Conditions which state that we do not refund for calls made to our support staff, time spent corresponding with us, loss of business.
We will therefore not be refunding the 100.00 that you are claiming for letters written to ourselves.
Once again please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused and my thanks for your continued patience in this matter.
If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team on 0870 7449 966 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
So as you can see, they still hold true to the fatc it is a valid charge. At least this time the charge has not changed. From what I gather from this letter they wish to charge me for the 5 days service I had since my last payment (fair enough) for the 5 days it takes to cease the service (fair enough) and then for the remaining 20 or so days in which they should have been setting up my new connection, but forgot.
Given that they are threatening me with Debt Collectors I felt it prudent to give them a quick phone call. As soon as I had shown that I was the account holder I asked for a supervisor, she then told me that the reason for the charge was that I had missed payments in April and May, I told her I would have to look at my statements. A quick trip online showed that she was correct, but had neglected to mention that I then paid three months in bulk by debit card on 30th May 2006.
Its not that then! So I phoned back, but couldn't get the same person, the girl I spoke to (and I did feel sorry for her) tried to explain that the charge was such because of the credit put to my account, but couldn't explain what exactly made up the 14.86 charge. She did however send a request down to their Finance Department to send me a detailed invoice of what the charges were. When I asked her about how that affected the notice of suspension, she simply replied that I wasn't willing to pay so very little could be done.
From Tiscali's point of view I suppose that is fair enough.
I think given Tiscali's history, that phone call is going to need to be chased up with a letter.
More soon!
More
Letter number one was a notice of suspension, basically informing me that there is an outstanding balance, and that if it is not paid then they will pass me on to a Debt Collector.
Second letter is as below
Dear Mr Baker,
Thank you for your letter regarding your Tiscali account.
Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience you have experienced due to this issue.
I have today looked at this account in detail and I can confirm that the 14.86 is a correct figure, this has been worked out by taking your subscription fee, breaking that fee down to a daily rate and then charging you for 5 days in september, taking into consideration the 20 days allowed for a cease and re-provide and all of October.
We have not at this stage passed this account to our Debt management Company, in the hope that this matter can be resolved, your details would not be passed to any credit reference agency unless the outstanding monies were not paid and then a default would be lodged against you, we would of course always hope that this would not happen.
Tiscali charge an admin fee of 10.00 for customer details to be released, if you would kindly forward cheque to us we will be pleased to comply with this request.
With regards to you claim for compensation I would refer you to our terms and Conditions which state that we do not refund for calls made to our support staff, time spent corresponding with us, loss of business.
We will therefore not be refunding the 100.00 that you are claiming for letters written to ourselves.
Once again please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused and my thanks for your continued patience in this matter.
If you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team on 0870 7449 966 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
So as you can see, they still hold true to the fatc it is a valid charge. At least this time the charge has not changed. From what I gather from this letter they wish to charge me for the 5 days service I had since my last payment (fair enough) for the 5 days it takes to cease the service (fair enough) and then for the remaining 20 or so days in which they should have been setting up my new connection, but forgot.
Given that they are threatening me with Debt Collectors I felt it prudent to give them a quick phone call. As soon as I had shown that I was the account holder I asked for a supervisor, she then told me that the reason for the charge was that I had missed payments in April and May, I told her I would have to look at my statements. A quick trip online showed that she was correct, but had neglected to mention that I then paid three months in bulk by debit card on 30th May 2006.
Its not that then! So I phoned back, but couldn't get the same person, the girl I spoke to (and I did feel sorry for her) tried to explain that the charge was such because of the credit put to my account, but couldn't explain what exactly made up the 14.86 charge. She did however send a request down to their Finance Department to send me a detailed invoice of what the charges were. When I asked her about how that affected the notice of suspension, she simply replied that I wasn't willing to pay so very little could be done.
From Tiscali's point of view I suppose that is fair enough.
I think given Tiscali's history, that phone call is going to need to be chased up with a letter.
More soon!
More
