Tiscali

Tiscali - The Final Chapter

2007-05-20T15:38:00-00:00

The letter I received yesterday signals the final chapter of my Tiscali dispute.(or at least I hope it does). I received a letter from Tiscali (with a cheque for �130.00 attached). I cannot help but see the humour in the closing line of their letter however, it does leave the impression that this is a template used whenever they have to pay someone compensation. I imagine it is used quite regularly.

Dear Mr Tasker,

As requested, please find enclosed cheque for the amount of �**130-00*
Thank you for your patience in resilving this matter.

Should you have any further queries regarding your account, please call our Customer Service line on 0870 744 9966 and an agent will be happy to help you. Lines are open 8am to midnight, seven days a week.

We hope you continue to enhoy your service with Tiscali.

Yours sincerely

Tiscali UK Billing Team

I will be enjoying the fact that I am no longer with Tiscali very much! All the revelant correspondence is now filed down into an envelope, I don't trust Tiscali enough to throw any of it away, so I will be holding onto it until Tiscali goes bust (or I die)

I doubt they would be stupid enough to forget that the charge has been written off, but it is more than possible.

Note received from CISAS

2007-05-13T19:32:00-00:00

On the 12th may 2007 I received a letter from CISASconfirming receipt of my acceptance of the adjudicators decision.

This means Tiscali now have 3 weeks to comply, and must inform CISAS that they have done so.

Its very nearly over!

CISAS Announces it's Decision

2007-05-04T13:10:00-00:00

As any who have been following this dispute carefully will know, quite a lot hinges on the decision made by CISAS.Should CISAS find in Tiscali's favour then although I could take Tiscali to court the evidence would weigh agaisnt me. If CISAS were to find in my favour I then have to decide if they found well enough in my favour.

Well the letter arrived this morning, to find out what they decided you will have to read for yourself, all i will say is that the decision is bad for one of us.

Claimant: Mr B.D Tasker

Respondents:Tiscali UK Ltd.

The Dispute
The Claimant's complaint is he received an email from the Respondents on 11 September 2006 which confirmed receipt of his Cease and Reprovide request, gave a time for termination and confirmed he would not be charged. The Respondents then took money from the Claimant's account which they were not authorised to do.

In the Application the Claimant seeks an apology, an explanation and compensation of �130.00.

The Respondents make no admission as to liability for the amount claimed.

Reasons for Decision

The reasons upon which this Decision is based are set out and annexed to the Decision and form part of the Decision.

Decision
I NOW having considered the submissions of the parties and the documents provided to me HEREBY DECIDE AND DIRECT that:

The Respondents shall pay the Claimant �130.00 in compensation.

Dated 30 April 2007
at CISAS

So as you can see CISAS have agreed with me, the reasons for the Decision are attached and make for interesting reading;

These reasons are given with and form part of this Decision.

Generally

In order to succeed in a claim against the Respondents the Claimant must prove on a balance of probabilities that the Respondents have broken some term express or implied of the contract which existed between them, or failed in the duty of care which they owed to the Claimant, and that as a result of this breach the Claimant has suffered loss. If no such breach or loss is proved the Respondents will not be liable to pay compensation however disappointed or upset the Claimant is.

The Contract

Mr Tasker has set out his claim fully on the, 'Application to Use the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme', dated 24 March 2007, together with supporting documents and a Reply dated 17 April 2007. Tiscali UK Ltd deal with the allegations in their Defence dated 11 April 2007.

Mr Tasker entered into an agreement with Tiscali UK Ltd for telecommunications services.

The Complaint
The complaint of Mr Tasker is that he received an email from Tiscali UK Ltd on 11 September 2006 which confirmed receipt of his Cease and Reprovide request, gave a time for termination and confirmed that he would not be charged. Tiscali UK Ltd then took sums which it was not authorised to do from his account.

Defence
Tiscali UK Ltd state in their Defence that:

The account was first registered on 8 September 2005 (sic) and activated on 23 September 2005 (sic).

On 12 October 2006 Mr Tasker called chasing the Cease and Reprovide. Mr Tasker was advised of the date of cancellation and of 10-15 days for line clearance. On 15 November 2006 Mr Tasker again called to advise he had placed an order for Cease and Reprovide however he was informed that Tiscali UK Ltd had no record of this.

On 22 November 2006 an indemnity claim was received from HSBC for �35.98 as Mr Tasker had cancelled his direct debit.

Mr Tasker was advised on 5 December 2006 that as no order for Cease and Reprovide had been received the cancellation date was 31 October 2006 and no refund was due.

Tiscali UK Ltd give details of further contacts, investigation, outstanding balances and credits applied. On 21 March 2007 Tiscali UK Ltd wrote off an outstanding balance of �14.86 due to problems Mr Tasker had with his Cease and Reprovide. On 29 March 2007 Mr Tasker was in credit of �14.86. Tiscali UK Ltd have refunded any monies that have been taken incorrectly.

Reply
Mr Tasker states in his Reply;

As Tiscali UK Ltd had never taken up the new line there was no necessity for a 10-15 day wait.

A possible explanation for the reference to a letter of 21 January 2007.

Mr Tasker gives details of the bank transactions and indicates that he strongly believes Tiscali Uk Ltd are trying to charge him for a time when he was not a customer.

He provides details of how he has arrived at the figure of his compensation.

He did not receive the detailed bill requested on 20 March 2007.

Tiscali UK Ltd threatened to use debt collection agencies.

Findings
It is clear from the correspondence sent by Tiscali UK Ltd to Mr Tasker that they accepted there was a Cease and Reprovide request on 11 September 2006 prior to an activation. Tiscali UK Ltd initially did not act on this and denied its existence even though Mr Tasker reminded them on 12 October 2006. I find that the manner in which Tiscali UK Ltd then dealt with the matter was confusing and fell below a reasonable standard with various outstanding balances being quoted, namely �14.86 (17 March 2007) and �6.69 (12 February 2007), notice of suspension being sent, debt collection agency action being threatened and finally the company writting of the balance with a belated apology on 29 March 2007 some 6 months after Tiscali UK Ltd mislaid the original Cease and Reprovide request of Mr Tasker. I find this sequence of events and correspondence caused considerable inconvenience to Mr Tasker, it was a breach of contract and a failure of duty of care.

Redress
In the Application Mr Tasker seeks an apology, an explanation and compensation of �130.00. Tiscali UK Ltd make no admission as to liability for the amount claimed. As noted above I find that there was both a breach of contract and a failure of duty of care for which compensation is appropriate.

I do not accept Mr Tasker's charge for writing letters as this was not an agreed or accepted charge; the dispute was over a residential service of which the writing of letters and the making of telephone calls would be a normal part. However, I fully accept that Mr Tasker suffered inconvenience. I find his overall claim of �130.00 is reasonable in the circumstances and I award �130.00.

I accept that Tiscali UK Ltd have made an apology and make no further direction in this respect.

Having regard to all circumstances I do not consider that requiring the company to provide a further explanation would serve any useful purpose.

Although the Adjudicator feels that my charges for writing letters were not correct in the circumstances (that's a lesson learned) the reasons for the decision do not look too good on Tiscali at all. I have chosen to accept the decision for three main reason

I am getting my compensation

Tiscali have clearly bitten off more than they can chew

I just want this nightmare to be over

Much as I have enjoyed standing up against Tiscali, when they start threatening Debt Collectors it does remind you that right or wrong, you are just one individual.
Not that I want to discourage anyone from standing up for themselves, it's important that people do so that the corporate world realises that we are not here for their amusement.

Hopefully within a few weeks my cheque will appear, Over the next few days I will be making sure that all the recent correspondence is online.

I'm finally free of Tiscali!!!!!!!

Update on Tiscali

2007-05-03T13:06:00-00:00

I still haven't heard anything new, but am expecting a letter within the next few days.

CISAS Reply to my Email

2007-05-03T12:44:00-00:00

CISAS have replied to the email I sent them Re: Tiscali banking that cheque.They have requested Tiscali's comments on the matter and will copy the reply to me as soon as it is received. It has to be said it's nice to be abcked up by someone who can get some answers, otherwise Tiscali would probably be trying to give me the run-around for the next 6 months.

Tiscali Pulls another 180

2007-04-21T20:11:00-00:00

Tiscali has turned tail again,you may remember When Tiscali decided to write off the charges well just prior to that I had sent Tiscali a cheque. Will I never learn???? I should have stopped the cheque and forked out the �20 charge to do it, instead I left it, and figured Tiscali would already have destroyed the cheque. How wrong was I???? On the 10th of April 2007 Tiscali obviously decided to withdraw it's offer to write off the charges (charges that I never accrued) and instead bank the cheque that I had believed to be in the waste tray of a paper shredder.

Needless to day that when I checked my bank statements today I was not overjoyed to learn this news, so I sent an email to CISAS and Carbon Copied it to Corrine of at Tiscali high level complaints.

I would imagine that Corrine had nothing to do with the banking of my cheque, but as she has obviously been assigned to deal with my case, it seemed appropriate to let her know exactly what I was telling CISAS.

You can read the email below for yourself

Dear Sir/Madam,

I write to you today in regard to Case Number ******* Tasker v Tiscali UK Limited. As the Adjudicator will see by looking at the materials I have submitted, I sent to Tiscali a cheque for fourteen pounds and Eighty Six Pence. Tiscali then wrote back and told me that they had written off the charge, (also included in my submitted materials). Despite this I have discovered when checking my bank statement today that Tiscali UK Limited cashed that cheque on 10/04/2007 nonetheless. If at all possible I would like to add to my request via CISAS that I receive a refund of this amount.
Please note I have cc'd this email to Corrine Rawlings of Tiscali's High Level Complaints in order that they may remain up to date with current developments.

many Thanks
Yours Sincerely

Ben Tasker

I know that once comments have been despatched it is not possible for either party to submit new information or evidence, but as the comments are not likely to have been received yet it should hopefully be possible to make the appropiate adjustments. CISAS may of course inform me that I need to file another complaint with Tiscali (and then no doubt ultimately CISAS) to regain my funds. However I believe that the very fact that Tiscali have been so sneaky as to bank the cheque after writing of the charges will speak volumes to the adjudicator about Tiscali UK LTD. Similarly Corrine over at Tiscali is likely to realize that someone somewhere has made a gigantic cock up.

I don't really know why I was even surprised that the cheque had been banked.

It would have cost me �20 to cancel the cheque, but at least I would have known the money would never fall into Tiscali's hands.

We live and learn (hopefully)

Tiscali Has a New Index

2007-04-20T20:41:00-00:00

Tiscali has a new Index,for the time being all links will still point to the HTML page, however eventually all links will be re-directed to the PHP page. Ideally all entries from the HTML page will be created on the PHP page. The new system is searchable, so this will help to make it a more valuable resource for anyone who may be having problems with my favourite ISP!

A Quick Update on Tiscali

2007-04-19T12:30:00-00:00

For anyone reading out there, it must seem like it has all gone quiet with Tiscali. Far from it,everything is still all go. I simply haven't been posting at this stage as I do not want to jeopardise my CISAS case against them. Tiscali have now submitted their defence to claim, of which I have a copy. It makes interesting reading, I'll tell you that. I remember in I.T. lessons watching a short programme on how an IT upgrade was a complete nightmare because the software turns out not to be suitable (anyone else get shown that horrificly boring programme?). I think this is part of where Tiscali's issues with Customer Service arise from, included in the Defence to Claim is a print out of my case notes. It is quite simply a table of entries showing date and time, the User inputting the event and a short descriptive. Unfortunately the entires are somewhat on the vague side, there appears to be no sign of an attachment of either my letters or their letters, so it maybe that when Tiscali are dealing with an individual case they have no reference to previous letters.

In fact supporting this argument us the fact that in their Defence to Claim, Tiscali have actually misunderstood one of the entries, and claimed that I asked them to write a letter to my bank. Why would I do that? In actual fact what the entry actually says is as follows

"will write to confirm that cheque was sent to custs bank as the was an indemnity claim"

Now obvioulsy Tiscali have read that to say "will write to confirm that cheque was sent, to custs bank, as there was an indemnity..." wherehas it should be "will write to confirm that cheque was sent to custs bank, as there was ..." The entry does not state that Tiscali are going to write to my bank, but simply that they will write to me to confirm that the cheque has been sent.

From that point on everything goes downhill, the entry just prior to that (and the one preceeding that) both state that no further refund is necessary, as customer has requested indemnity payment from bank which will recompense for period offline.

In other words, Tiscali wrote off the charges on 5/12/2006 but have since changed their mind. This change in tactic could be as simple as someone misreading the case notes. Given that the case notes are all written in shorthand this is in fact highly likely.

I have to say, I cannot quite fathom why Tiscali changed their mind and said they would settle as soon as I mentioned CISAS. They seemed to be certain that they were right, up until that point. Perhaps it's possible that High Level Complaints had a look at it as soon as I mentioned CISAS and discovered what I have discovered on the Case Notes, of course as I had already sent the details off to CISAS they could not just turn around and say so.

What gets me though, is assuming they have spotted this entry in the case notes (and I cannot see how they can't have done) they must have known I would find it. This one entry pretty much pulls their entire case apart, this entry supports the notion that they have in fact been unnecessarily been harrassing me. This means that in all likelihood the compensation I have requested with regards to the cost of my writing letters should be awarded.

The other option of course is that Tiscali have not yet noticed this entry, or have misinterpreted it, as I felt it was of such importance I included it in my comments on Tiscali's Defence to Claim, they will receive a copy of this, and I imagine will not be too amused when they verify it.

Tiscali's High Level complaints tried to contact me several times, though because of my working hours they never reached me, they did send an email so I left a message on their answering machine giving them my mobile number. They never called back.
The email was nothing of interest really, just "Please can you call me on ...."

Once I have posted the comments off (still got to proof read and print them yet) it shouldn't be too long until I find out the result

What a day!

2007-04-16T22:09:00-00:00

It's a beautiful sunny morningand I am absolutely knackered!!! Still haven't heard anything from Tiscali, might have to try and phone this Corrinder later on. On the occassions that I have phoned her she's never been there (though that is partially due to my odd working hours.) She has been given my mobile number though so she could have called that. We will have to see how it goes, I know that Tiscali had until the 11th to submit their defence, so it may not even be worth phoning anymore.

It is Tiscali's own fault really, they had every opportunity to pass this matter onto high-level complaints, instead both the Customer services and the Finance Department chose to try and bully me into paying instead. Witjout a doubt Tiscali is one of the most unscrupulous companies I have ever been unfortunate enough to interact with.

I imagine I will hear something from CISAS fairly soon, it may even be that it will arrive in the post later, I won't know until I get home though.

Tiscali Pull a 180 - My Reply

2007-04-20T21:39:00-00:00

As anyone who has read this page will know, Tiscali have pulled a 180 and written off the charge. This I believe is probably due tot he fact that the case has been passed onto CISAS. Below is my reply to Tiscali's letter;

Dear Sir/Madam,

Without Prejudice,

I acknowledge receipt of Tiscali's letter dated 29/03/2007. I would like to note that once again Tiscali has spelt my name incorrectly, my surname is spelt Tasker.
As I informed Tiscali in my previous letter, the matter has now been passed to CISAS. Despite Tiscali's previous letter, I do not currently consider the matter closed.

Thank you for your time
Yours sincerely
Ben Tasker

Short, but sweet. Given that CISAS will need a copy of both letters (and has them as I just emailed them off) it is quite important not to say anything in the letter that could prejudice my case.
As I have commented in my blog, if I were to accept thier settlement, Tiscali would get away with it. They have been gracious enough to write off charges that should not have existed in the first place (in fact two letters or so ago nine pounds of the charge didn't exist). I can't help feel that had my last letter not mentioned CISAS I would still be being told that it is a valid charge.

Interesting to note as well that Tiscali have not admitted that the charges were false, in fact given that I have mentioned the poor service several times, they seem to have gone out of their way to find a different reason.
I am planning on asking the bank if it is possible for them to run a check on my credit rating for me. I want to make sure that this whole Tiscali Debacle has not affected it. I certainly wouldn't put anything past Tiscali.
An update for anyone that is interested, although this latest letter may slow the process a little, I should know CISAS's decision by the end of April. Tiscali have until the 11th of April to respond to the evidence I have submitted, I will then have the opportunity to comment on any claims they make. Beyond this point however neither party can provide any further evidence, no matter what should arise.
I think it could be an interesting month! I am not going to publish letters to and from CISAS at this point, however once the procedures are finished I will inquire as to whether they need to be held in confidence.
I have requested An apology, and Explanation and £130 in compensation from Tiscali. The Adjudicator has the ability to order Tiscali to do all these, and to pay any figure of compensation up to £130.

Updates when I get them!

Tiscali Pulls A 180

2007-05-03T12:54:00-00:00

As regular readers will already know, I have spent quite some time discussing with Tiscali whether or not I owe them money. Things got serious in the last letter they sent me, where they threatened me with Debt Collectors. I had to make a decision, do I stand up for myself, and risk a huge debt. Or do I pay it off and decide it was probably for the best?I took the middle path, Tiscali had called in their big guns, so I contacted CISAS about the matter. The issue is now under adjudication, I sent Tiscali a letter informing them of this, and also sent a cheque for what they believed I owed. I made it very clear that this cheque was sent without prejudice, and that it was purely so that Tiscali could not pass my details onto Debt collectors.

Interestingly I received a letter from Tiscali yesterday morning;

Dear Mr Taylor,
Thank you for contacting Tiscali Customer Care.
Please allow me to apologise for the difficulties you have encountered with our service.
I have investigated your case thoroughly and can confirm that our Finance Team have written off the outstanding balance of 14.86 on your account in respect of the technical issues you experienced with our service.
As such, the balance on your account is now clear, and your account has been fully cancelled.

Please allow me to apologise for the length of time it has taken to resolve this situation, and for any inconvenience which has been caused, however I hope that this now finds some positive resolution to the matter for you.
If you have any further questions, queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our customer care team on 0870 744 9966, where one of our agents will be happy to assist you.

I think you'll agree, it's interesting that despite my mentioning my 'technical issues' before, the charge has been written off in respect of this.
I have to admit I was stunned at how quickly Tiscali did a 180, and I almost decided that it was over. In reality, it is clearly not. Tiscali may have written off those charges (for whatever reason), which would be very gracious of them except that I never ran up those charges in the first place.
Purely writing of the charges could also affect my Credit Rating, not to mention the fact that Tiscali may well turn round in a few months (after I have lost the letter) and bill me for this amount again.

However as CISAS is now dealing with the situation, the letter needs to be delicate, without prejudice and to the point. CISAS will need to be sent a copy of both this letter and my reply.

Could be interesting, It'll be online when I've written it.

Tiscali Plays hardball - My response

2007-04-20T21:31:00-00:00

Having received threats of Debt Collectors I have given the possibility of owing hundreds over 15 quid quite carefully.After discussions with a few people I have come up with a suitable way of making sure this gets resolved but I don't end up on a Scotcall list. I spoke to Ofcom who then told me to speak to CISAS, if you have evidence of your dispute and it has gone on for more than 12 weeks then where Tiscali is concerned CISAS can deal with it for you. Each provider differs in which ombudsman they use so you will have to ask them unless it is Tiscali. If you need to contact CISAS then phone 02075203814, they do not charge you for their services (the phone call is not free though)

Having contacted CISAS I wrote Tiscali the following letter;

Dear Sir/Madam,
I write in response to a letter from Tiscali dated 17/03/2007. Firstly I would like to point out that Tiscali has my address wrong. The notice of suspension that I received today has my address as being on Christchurch Road and not Christchurch Street. I would also like to note that the last letter from Tiscali was addressed to B D Baker and so would have been left unopened had the envelope not carried the Tiscali logo.
Upon receipt of the notice of suspension I contacted the Payments and Collections team by phone, I was informed that the reason for the outstanding amount was due to missed payments in April and May. Obviously I had to disconnect to verify this, but found that although I had indeed missed the payments on those months, I did make a payment of 53.97 on the 30th of May 2006. Once again Tiscali has failed to give me a valid reason for the outstanding charges. I appreciate that the supervisor to whom I spoke probably reached this conclusion by glancing at my account conduct.
In reference to your previous letter I note that the stated reason for this outstanding charge of 14.86 has been calculated by breaking down my monthly charge into a daily charge, and then multiplying that figure (49.53333 pence) by the number of days service that I used. However by my calculations (please note that I have also rounded up to 50 pence) the figure 14.86 is still incorrect, as stated by Tiscali I used 5 days service between my payment at the beginning of September and my cease and reprovide request. This accounts for Two pounds Fifty of the charge, the cease and reprovide request email does state that it may take between 5 and 10 working days for the action to take place. BT have confirmed to me that the telephone line [my old number] was disconnected on the 15th September 2006, this then accounts for 4 further days which adds another two pounds onto the total.
Your previous letter states that Tiscali is taking into account all of October, as you are by now fully aware Tiscali was not providing a service to myself at any time in October. Tiscali had not even taken up the line at the exchange for my new number when I contacted them to find out why I had no Internet. For Tiscali to charge for this period would be grossly unfair and I feel would contravene the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act.
Please note that the Payments and Collections team have sent a request for a detailed invoice to your Finance Department for me. I have now contacted CISAS about this matter. I am informed that CISAS is Tiscali's ADR. In order to enable this issue to be resolved please find enclosed, without prejudice, a cheque for Fourteen Pounds Eighty Six pence. I believe that CISAS will find in my favour, and I believe it would be easier for all if Tiscali were to refrain from banking this cheque before a decision is reached.
Furthermore please note that my twenty pound charge in order to cover my costs still stands, should CISAS find in my favour I would of course expect this amount to be paid.
I would also like to state that once CISAS has made a decision I would like to be stripped from Tiscali's records as soon as is possible, and expect never to hear from them again.

Thank you for your time, and I hope this issue will be resolved soon.
Yours sincerely
Ben Tasker

Updates when I get them, I sent the letter and cheque recorded delivery, so I should know when Tiscali have received it.

Hopefully I will soon be free from Tiscali.

Tiscali plays Hardball

2007-04-20T21:34:00-00:00

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!

Tiscali Continues!

2007-04-20T22:16:00-00:00

I have to admit I am beginning to run out titles for these Tiscali pages, I simply cannot believe that nearly 6 months after my Internet Service with Tiscali ended I am still having this debate with them.At least in the letter I have just received the amount outstanding matches the previous letter. Got to be a first for Tiscali

Dear Mr Tasker,
Thank you for your letter regarding your Tiscali account. Please accept my apologies for the delay in resolving this matter for you.I can see from the notes on the account that you should have recently received a letter from us advising that a Credit memo of �20.54 had been applied to the account, leaving an outstanding balance of �14.80.
In order to make a payment, may I ask you to contact our Billing Department on 0870 744 9966, selecting option 2 when prompted, where one of our advisors will be able to assist you. Alternatively please send a cheque or postal order to the above address, please quote your customer code: [CUSTOMER CODE] on the reverse.
I am sorry that I am not able to offer any compensation in regard to letters sent to Tiscali.
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

.........

Well once again my requests for information on who my information has been passed to has been ignored, but my reply should knock that on the head.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you today in response to a letter sent to myself dated 07/03/2007 from Liz Ross-Bartell in regards to Case Number [CASE NUMBER]. The relevant Account Number is [ACCOUNT NUMBER].
It would appear once again that Tiscali is not fully appreciating the situation, as I am sure your records now reflect I issued a Cease and Reprovide request on the 11th September 2006. This was just one week after my previous payment to Tiscali had been taken from my bank account via direct debit. This Cease and Reprovide was never fully completed, finally in exasperation I cancelled my account and started using an ISP I felt I could trust to 'get things right.' Tiscali's decisions so far only reinforce that decision, I in fact had to send Tiscali a copy of the email I received from yourselves confirming receipt of my Cease and Reprovide request. This email is something that should have been registered on your system, and must at some point have done so as a customer service representative confirmed to me on the 11th of October that service to my old address had in fact been ceased.

I then found Tiscali was still taking payments from my account via Direct Debit, despite being told by the person I spoke to about cancelling my account that Tiscali would cancel the Direct Debit from their end. Having discovered that these payments were still being taken I cancelled the Direct Debit myself and contacted Tiscali to discuss reimbursement. However the Customer Service Representative informed me that the matter had been passed onto Head Office. Realising that this could take months I went to the bank and used the Direct Debit Indemnity Guarantee scheme to reclaim my money. As a courtesy I then sent Tiscali a letter explaining what I had done, since then Tiscali have denied that my request was ever received, billed me for a range of amounts.

I am writing to you today in order to request that you send to me a detailed summary of how Tiscali believes that the time between my payment in August and my service being ceased can amount to �14.86. I do not believe that I should need to remind Tiscali that at the time the monthly charge was �17.99. Regardless of when Tiscali actually ceased my service, the email does stipulate that the account would be ceased within 5 days, if Tiscali did indeed take longer than the stipulated 5 days then this would be in breach of the Cease and Reprovide contract, and so at Tiscali's own cost.

Furthermore as Tiscali never actually completed the Cease and Reprovide request by the specified deadline this would put Tiscali in further breach of the Cease and Reprovide contract. I believe you would agree that a Judge or magistrate in a small claims court would find that Tiscali's apparent insistence of billing me for this time is unfair.

I would also like Tiscali to take note of the fact that I have requested in my previous two letters that Tiscali send written confirmation of whether or not they have passed my details onto any Credit Reference Agencies, and if so who and when. In order to make Tiscali understand the implications of this request, I will phrase in in a slightly different manner.

I am requesting under the UK Data Protection Act that Tiscali provides all information currently held about myself, including but not limited to any outside agencies to whom my details have been passed. Tiscali is legally bound to comply with this request.

In response to Tiscali's refusal to pay 'compensation in regard to letters sent to Tiscali' I may remind you that under UK law so long as a charge is not excessive and the persons billed for the charge have been previously notified of the charges, then charges are legally enforceable. In a previous letter I advertised my charges to Tiscali, and if required am willing to provide a breakdown of the component charges of my Standard letter charges. In accordance with UK law this breakdown will be provided free of charge.

I would also like to take this opportunity to comment on how disappointing it is that Tiscali took money from my account, and then chose to deny that my request for a Cease and Reprovide had been received. But to go further and alter the amount that Tiscali felt I had outstanding is outrageous.

Yours sincerely

Ben Tasker

Hopefully that should lead to a reasonable response, as ever I have included an invoice, they now owe me �100 and this constant debate has probably cost them nearly that in labour hours. I cannot understand why they do not seem to realise or care that all they have to do is show that the charges are reasonable and give me a summary of what has led to those charges and I will pay them. Instead they insist on taking the hard route and arguing the toss over every little thing.

Its unbelievable really!

Tiscali Changes it's mind!

2007-05-03T12:56:00-00:00

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