My mobile phone is a pay as you go virgin mobile which i top up with £24 a month and get 800 texts in return.. every month i get a reminder to top up to keep subscribing to the service, this month i did not get this and subsequently did not top up on time so they cancelled my subscription.
i had over 500 texts left which i lost and after a long phone call and very annoying girl on other end telling me there was nothing she could do i eventually got them reinstated.
the man was very rude and blamed me for it but as a "good will gesture" said i could have them back.. he also admitted there was a system glitch at the weekend which caused all the problems!

so the question... if something has gone wrong and you have lost out to a large company (not private businesses) would you keep on at them until you got what you wanted?

also please post any stories of taking on these companies and winning!
edit: the man took over the call from the girl as he was ehr manager

Just remember the customer is always right.

Originally posted by Skatiechik
Just remember the customer is always right.
i wouldnt go that far! there are some people who are professional complainers, i used to know one... but in this case the guy admitted there was a system error but that it was still my fault! i told him that if he did not give me my texts back i would move to another network and he soon gave in.

Pff yeah, I don't give in to anyone, a big company or an individual!!! What kind of potential lawyer would I be if I let anyone get one over me?

Originally posted by savbaby
so the question... if something has gone wrong and you have lost out to a large company (not private businesses) would you keep on at them until you got what you wanted?


Yes indeed.


I have a ritual that seems to have to be performed every other month with Telewest (we often get billed for services we don't use/need and/or not billed for service we do need and use).


I am also currently waiting for BT to issue CC proceedings on me for non-payment of a bill (which I repeatedly tried to pay, but the payment system was perpetually experiencing problems) which will be argued vociferously by myself in court - excellent!

Like Caprice, I never give in, but I have to say that mobile phone companies are probably the hardest nuts to crack. I had a ding-dong with Vodafone a while back, it took a year of to-ing and fro-ing before they finally admitted some degree of culpability, and as a token of how sorry they were they gave me a free phone (one which I subsequently discovered, had I waited another two or three months, I could have got for free anyway. Oh well, at least it was a moral victory).

I've just been shat on again by Vodafone, not in a very big way but it was annoying at the time. I'm wondering whether to go through all of this again, but the truth is I don't think I can really be bothered.

Originally posted by sccsux
I am also currently waiting for BT to issue CC proceedings on me for non-payment of a bill (which I repeatedly tried to pay, but the payment system was perpetually experiencing problems) which will be argued vociferously by myself in court - excellent!
County Court proceedings can be a lot of fun - I used to represent a fairly large company in CC proceedings. As long as it's for an amount under £1000, the judge has a fair amount of discretion.

I used my experience recently when I was sued by a mortgage company for not paying their arrangement fee. In the end the judge agreed with me that they had not arranged the mortgage, so I got off paying the fee. Unfortunately, they had another clause which said I had to buy life insurance off them, and believe it or not this was actually more watertight than the clause which said I had to pay them for the mortgage (their terms & conditions were an absolute mess), so I still got hit with the penalty fee and costs despite the judge agreeing that they had not arranged my mortgage. Ah well, I'll be better prepared next time around.

The thing with mobile phone companies is that there is so much competition, so to get your own way, a threat of leaving them usually works... After 1year 3 months with my first phone off o2 contract, I wanted a new one... So my mum and I rang up (as the account is in her name as I wasnt 18 when I got the phone) and they wanted to charge me for what should have been a free upgrade! So I assertively said that I wanted the contract cancelling right there and then to which the man became very panicky in tone and pleaded with me not to cancel. Oddly enough, I got a brand new fab phone for £0 and got £10 credited to my account as a good will gesture :clap: YAY!

Originally posted by DanSumption
I'm wondering whether to go through all of this again, but the truth is I don't think I can really be bothered.

But Dan, that's what some of the big players rely on! If we don't complain, they just get away with it.

I've worked as a manager in several large call centres, and always went out of my way to appease customers who had genuine complaints. People that moaned for the sake of it never got anything out of me.

My advice to anyone complaining to a large company is not to rant and rave the person they are speaking to. Be calm, express your dissatisfaction clearly and reasonably, and tell them what you think an appropriate course of action is; it really does work most times!

K x

Originally posted by savbaby
My mobile phone is a pay as you go virgin mobile which i top up with £24 a month and get 800 texts in return.. every month i get a reminder to top up to keep subscribing to the service, this month i did not get this and subsequently did not top up on time so they cancelled my subscription.
i had over 500 texts left which i lost and after a long phone call and very annoying girl on other end telling me there was nothing she could do i eventually got them reinstated.
the man was very rude and blamed me for it but as a "good will gesture" said i could have them back.. he also admitted there was a system glitch at the weekend which caused all the problems!

so the question... if something has gone wrong and you have lost out to a large company (not private businesses) would you keep on at them until you got what you wanted?

also please post any stories of taking on these companies and winning!
edit: the man took over the call from the girl as he was ehr manager he admited there was a glitch,so he admited responsibility,report the arogant s o b

Originally posted by caprice
The thing with mobile phone companies is that there is so much competition, so to get your own way, a threat of leaving them usually works... After 1year 3 months with my first phone off o2 contract, I wanted a new one... So my mum and I rang up (as the account is in her name as I wasnt 18 when I got the phone) and they wanted to charge me for what should have been a free upgrade! So I assertively said that I wanted the contract cancelling right there and then to which the man became very panicky in tone and pleaded with me not to cancel. Oddly enough, I got a brand new fab phone for £0 and got £10 credited to my account as a good will gesture :clap: YAY!

While that's worked out well for you, I don't see that as a victory. I hate to have to play the 'churn' card to get what I want. If a company will do more for me when I threaten to take my business away, it says to me that they don't value my loyalty to their company. I'd have cancelled anyway and gone elsewhere. There's plenty of good deals aroung for new customers!

Thing is though Kristian, I get 500 off peak calls/50 x network calls, 500 anytime texts and 500 online hours all for £20 a month... If I were to sign up in my own name for this, I'd have to pay £25... So technically I'm the one who's laughing, as if I were a new customer, I'd get charged £25... I doubt any other networks would give me the contract I want for cheaper...

I had absolutely no intention of leaving the company... I just wanted to get my own way lol

In the past we have taken on The Woolwich buiding society and Npower. After many letters and phone calls to the call centre, about eight weeks later we got satisfaction, but not before getting abuse and belittlement from a supervisor of the call centre.
It was worth it ( about £2000 of our money was at stake)

Regarding Npower -
Same story as the Woolwich - Poorly trained staff at the call centre, no continuity regarding the complaint ( have to go through it All again every time you phone up) nothing ever gets done about the complaint despite promises to the contrary

MY advice would be to always get the name of the person you are dealing with, make notes of the conversation you have had with them/what they said they would do about your complaint.
Note the date of the conversation
If you cannot get any satisfaction ask to speak to a supervisor or manager
Stick with it, be tenacious.'
Have something harmless to hand that you can hit with a big stick when you come off the phone :D

I'm currently having lots of arguments with BT over my lack of broadband service. I'm not gonna give up, so far its cost me more in phonecalls and dialup (pay per min) in 3 weeks than I was potentially saving by moving to BT... :rolleyes: but I won't rant for now, I'm saving that energy for BT themselves ;)

Fighting back ....
Many years ago I ordered some furniture from a famous store. A couple of weeks later the company went into liquidation but the store was taken over and carried on trading as normal but I was told I would lose my £100 deposit. After many useless phone calls I managed to obtain the Freephone 0800 phone number of the store and starting phoning them - "this is the 1st of 1000 calls - it doesn't cost me anything to phone and won't get me my money back but it makes me feel better".
After 8 calls they relented and I got my money back.

I also used to do work for a leading Sheffield estate agent. They would never pay me on time. Eventually I got so fed up I phoned and said if I did not get a cheque sharpish, I would park my truck outside their office on Campo Lane and attach 10 foot by 4 foot plywood panels to the sides bearing the slogan '********* do not pay their private contractors'

I got a cheque the next day :hihi:

Originally posted by caprice
The thing with mobile phone companies is that there is so much competition, so to get your own way, a threat of leaving them usually works...
In theory, yes, in practice it's usually so hard to get through to anyone with the power to make a decision (and big companies are making this harder and harder all the time) that you just end up speaking to an endless row of numpties with no real power to help you. In my experience, even when you do get through to someone in authority they often take the same attitude, that it's not worth dealing with your complaint properly.

I'm currently in dispute with my ISP, Demon Internet (actually, I say "currently" - I have a letter from them here that's 6 months old that I've still not got around to replying to). A long time ago, they offered to reduce my monthly rate to the same rate that new customers joining them would get. I didn't take them up on it immediately because I was waiting for more information from them, which they never provided. When I finally did take up the offer, I asked them "are you going to refund me back to the date when you originally offered this". They said they couldn't find any earlier emails offering me the discount. I have the emails here, but they are basically calling me a liar - this has gone up to the supervisor and he just says the same thing. I'm inclined to just leave them, especially as there are so many ISPs offering much cheaper service nowadays, but having been with them for over ten years, through thick and thin (in fact, almost certainly for longer than all of the staff now there) I feel sad about doing this. It really annoys me that I feel genuine "customer loyalty" yet they're treating me as a liar.

My second current rant is with Choices DVD rentals on Crookes. A long time ago, they said I hadn't returned a DVD when I know I had (I remember it very clearly). They were OK about this, and took it off my account. A couple of weeks ago, I had lost my card and asked for a new one. Their reply was "we haven't got any in, keep asking when you come in". The next time I was in, the shop was very crowded, I took some DVDs out and, not having a card on me, they asked me my address and name. Any of the dozen-or-so people in the queue could have overheard. Six days later when I returned the DVDs, the guy in the shop said "have you got the other one that you took out". I told him I didn't have any others out, and he showed me one (a film which I have not the slightest interest in seeing, which ironically is called "Cheats") that had been taken out later on the same night I took my three out. I said that somebody must have overheard my details and used them fraudulently, he ridiculed this idea and said "if somebody'd wanted to use your details to take out a DVD, they wouldn't have taken a £2 one, they'd have chosen a more expensive one". I left it at that, and a couple of weeks later got a letter telling me to return this DVD that I didn't have. I called the manager, explained the situation, he looked on my account and said "wait a minute, this has happened before hasn't it?" From then on, he didn't believe a word that I said, treated me like a common thief. So again, that's one company I don't think I'll be using any more (a shame, as there's no other handy shops nearby, although I suppose I could always sign up for Screenselect), which I'm really gutted about because I actually quite like it there and most weeks I would take out 3 DVDs.

Hmm, sorry about those little rants, I just had to tell someone :)

Sympathy/advice, please?

PS. What Kristian says is right, never ever lose your rag. It pays to be sickeningly nice.

Originally posted by DanSumption
County Court proceedings can be a lot of fun - I used to represent a fairly large company in CC proceedings. As long as it's for an amount under £1000, the judge has a fair amount of discretion.



My "debt" is for the pincely sum of ........








Wait for it........







Hang on......





£76.64!



I wouldn't mind so much, but it cost us over £150 to connect to BT when we first moved here (which was paid @ the PO, in cash), as there was no line installed. In fact, maybe I should bill them for the use of my home (connected to their pole) and for rental of my wall space by a plastic box that has only ever been used for incoming calls for the first couple of months we were here;).

We are currently in the middle of a rangle-tangle over our electricity bill.

We moved last August and naively believed our letting agent when she said she would pass our details onto the supplier. To cut a long story short, we heard nothing until November when we got a sizeable bill addressed to the previous tenant and then the fun and games started.

To date we still haven't paid a penny for electricity because they managed to take 6 months just to get an account set up and then failed to correct our details on the account in spite of being told several times that they had our name address and postcode wrong - all this was faxed to them in November.

We made arrangements to pay the outstanding balance in instalments over 3 months by direct debit which all seemed fine until we got a letter from them in April saying that the DD had been cancelled because they spelt our name wrong. The debt now stands at almost £500.

We sent a stiff letter of complaint but got no response (other than a threat to send debt collectors round) so we have been in contact with Energywatch for help. Just playing a waiting game now really......

On a happier note I got a reply from Asda today with a £5 gift card. I complained (rather flippantly) by letter because 3 varieties were missing from their (cheap) chocolate box assortment!

I was not really expecting or wanting a response but they sent a letter which sounded genuinely apologetic.

Well done Asda!

:clap:

Originally posted by jackieb
On a happier note I got a reply from Asda today with a £5 gift card. I complained (rather flippantly) by letter because 3 varieties were missing from their (cheap) chocolate box assortment!

I was not really expecting or wanting a response but they sent a letter which sounded genuinely apologetic.

Well done Asda!

:clap:

I got burnt off a dangerous ASDA product what exploded and splurted hot substance all over me. I have a scar on my hand and the burn hurt for ages... I sent a letter, with receipt attached and didn't hear anything about it for ages... So I rang them to find out why a serious complaint was not being dealt with and apparently they never received my letter. I forwarded them photographic evidence of my injury and the scene of the crime lol and was eventually awarded £30... However, if the letter *had* turned up, the case was to be sent to the insurance company, and asda claimed to admit all liability for my injury... But oddly enough, it never did turn up. (Hmm...) I was happy with the £30, it was nice of them to at least say sorry for it... Mind you, it serves me right not sending the letter by recorded delivery, or I could have been in for a couple of hundred quid compo!

Originally posted by caprice
I got burnt off a dangerous ASDA product what exploded and splurted hot substance all over me. I have a scar on my hand and the burn hurt for ages... I sent a letter, with receipt attached and didn't hear anything about it for ages... So I rang them to find out why a serious complaint was not being dealt with and apparently they never received my letter. I forwarded them photographic evidence of my injury and the scene of the crime lol and was eventually awarded £30... However, if the letter *had* turned up, the case was to be sent to the insurance company, and asda claimed to admit all liability for my injury... But oddly enough, it never did turn up. (Hmm...) I was happy with the £30, it was nice of them to at least say sorry for it... Mind you, it serves me right not sending the letter by recorded delivery, or I could have been in for a couple of hundred quid compo!

Perhaps satisfaction is only gained when the complaint is as trivial as mine was? Not so well done Asda!

Originally posted by jackieb
Perhaps satisfaction is only gained when the complaint is as trivial as mine was? Not so well done Asda!

lol you had every right to complain! You might have got stuck with all the crappy flavour chocs if they left all the good ones out!

Originally posted by savbaby
also please post any stories of taking on these companies and winning!

I always fight big companies who seem to just expect me to get frustrated and go away. One specific case was with changing electricity companies. I was with N-Power and switched to Scottish Power. It did work out much cheaper, too. However, customer service was seriously lacking from both companies. Inept is not strong enough a word!

Anyway, after getting thoroughly PO'd with them both, and as I was moving house, I switched to British Gas at my new house. Neither of them deserve my custom. Anyway, after about 6 months a letter arrived saying that I owed NPower just over 11 quid. Now, I definitely knew that was wrong, especially seeing as I had been with 2 power companies since then and had paid up when moving each time.

Anyway, many weeks and many angry shoutings from me (I started off nice, but sometimes you have to yell at the poor operator just so that they give up and put you through to a manager) I managed to get information about the npower->scottish power handover. I got all the details off them, including what meter readings they had, what had been passed over, what payments had been received, etc.

Guess what; they didn't match. Not even close. The meter inspector must have been drunk or something, it was so far off. Anyway, I supplied the correct (as per my bills and the fact that I had the forethought to write the readings down) information to both companies and they reviewed their records. It turned out that NPower actually owed me £50, and Scottish Power owed me a tenner. Which was nice :)

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
I always fight big companies who seem to just expect me to get frustrated and go away. One specific case was with changing electricity companies. I was with N-Power and switched to Scottish Power. It did work out much cheaper, too. However, customer service was seriously lacking from both companies. Inept is not strong enough a word!

Anyway, after getting thoroughly PO'd with them both, and as I was moving house, I switched to British Gas at my new house.

british gas are the worst for their prices! also i recieved very bad customer servie from them,, i used to work about 60 hours a week and was never in for the meter reading so i went for about a year on estimates, i submitted a reading and that sorted that.. another few months went by and again no reading so in january this year i submitted a reading and they issued a new bill.. i switched from british gas to scottish power and provided reading... then i was hit with a £300 electric bill!!! turns out british gas had put my previous reading down for information only and when they issued the new bill i had made direct debit payments which is why it had changed! i was fuming as being on maternity and half pay £300 is like thousands to me! i told them to set their creditors on me and the guy said "fine" and hung up!!! i have since paid the bill and am awaiting a response from the company!!!

Originally posted by savbaby
british gas are the worst for their prices! also i recieved very bad customer servie from them
It's only in about the last year that British Gas have stopped chasing me to pay the gas bill for the football changing rooms on Ecclesfield Common. I have never had anything to do with those changing rooms, other than living in the (second) closest house to them, and even that I moved out of over three years ago.

I've had battles with several companies in my time, one about a product which turned out to be a falsehood and was dangerous, when the company wouldn't listen to me I visited my solicitor with evidence and never heard another thing about it.
A book club who kept sending books after I cancelled my subscription then trying to charge me. So I sent them a nice letter thanking them for the free gifts, which mysteriously stopped immediately.
Another group who made me go through a push button telephone system instead of talking to a person, I made them pay a £36 phone bill when there was no option for me and no one ever answered the 'speak to an operator' option.
A car rental company who tried to charge me £90 for a replacement tyre after they had already given the car the all clear when I took it back AND they took the money off my card without me allowing it (they had my card details on record from hiring the car). In the end, after a long verbal battle, they gave up and gave me my money back but asked if I would hire from them again - yeah right!
I hate it when big companies try to bully the customer and I will never ever stand for it.

Oh yeah, my biggest result against a big company - I got a very very large multinational electronics company, who are quite a nightmare to get through to, to give me a new (well, refurbished), £2,800 laptop in exchange for one I'd had some minor problems with. But they never picked the old one up, and the problems with it went away :)

(once again, all of this took me a year to wangle, and a lot of time hanging on 0870 numbers).

today i got my credit card bill and there was a charge on it for £25 for returned direct debit. i had cleared my balance and cancelled the direct debit with the bank but did not cancel with them.. i phoned them up and instanltly the woman removed the charge!!! i am shocked i did not have to argue with them!!:clap:

I've had a couple of run-ins with credit card companies as well and they've always (so far) accepted my side of the story, no questions asked, and credited me the money. If only mobile phone companies were so understanding.

Originally posted by jackieb
We are currently in the middle of a rangle-tangle over our electricity bill.

We moved last August and naively believed our letting agent when she said she would pass our details onto the supplier. To cut a long story short, we heard nothing until November when we got a sizeable bill addressed to the previous tenant and then the fun and games started.

To date we still haven't paid a penny for electricity because they managed to take 6 months just to get an account set up and then failed to correct our details on the account in spite of being told several times that they had our name address and postcode wrong - all this was faxed to them in November.

We made arrangements to pay the outstanding balance in instalments over 3 months by direct debit which all seemed fine until we got a letter from them in April saying that the DD had been cancelled because they spelt our name wrong. The debt now stands at almost £500.

We sent a stiff letter of complaint but got no response (other than a threat to send debt collectors round) so we have been in contact with Energywatch for help. Just playing a waiting game now really......

Finally sorted this out. They have knocked 20% off the debt and arranged payment over 2 years on top of our ongoing bills. According to Energywatch this is the best we could have hoped for.