Un-asked for mail
martinwitnam
Posts: 439
About three weeks ago two men arrived at our front door selling broadband from a chatty company.
They talked to my wife type person and she told them that even though their offer was good, we would probably look at moving to their company when our current phone line contract expired due to having to pay a dis-connection fee.
The following morning we received an automated call from this talkative company welcoming us as customers.
My wife was rather mad about this as she didn't want their service at present. We have since received about ten seperate letters welcoming us but we have made a similar number of phone calls to them stating that we don't want their service.
Cut to the chase, somewhere in the middle of all this they sent us rather a nice router modem but during the many conversations have not asked for this back. At what point does it become our property as it is un-wanted mail?
They talked to my wife type person and she told them that even though their offer was good, we would probably look at moving to their company when our current phone line contract expired due to having to pay a dis-connection fee.
The following morning we received an automated call from this talkative company welcoming us as customers.
My wife was rather mad about this as she didn't want their service at present. We have since received about ten seperate letters welcoming us but we have made a similar number of phone calls to them stating that we don't want their service.
Cut to the chase, somewhere in the middle of all this they sent us rather a nice router modem but during the many conversations have not asked for this back. At what point does it become our property as it is un-wanted mail?
Can we fix it?
Yes we can!
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Comments
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I think the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act says you can give them 30 days to collect it (at a time convenient to you), and you own it if they miss the deadline, or do nothing and it's yours after 6 months.
Trouble is, if the company is so rubbish at communication, you may find you end up with their debt collectors, although you will be in the right, legally, things can get messy. I would send the "30 Day" letter recorded delivery so I could prove things if necessary. And don't post the thing back, insist they call round to collect it, say Sunday at 6.00pm.
However, you may find that your ISP has been changed without your agreement - though they shouldn't actually be able to do this without a MAC number, which you get from your current ISP, so probably this shouldn't happen.
I had a visit from an nPower salesman last year - I said NO, NO, NO, go away! Refused to sign anything. The salesman actually started out by pretending he was independent, and just checking that I was getting all the discounts available (a ploy to ascertain my account details). He said if I signed the form he would investigate whether I was getting the best deal! Only on strong questioning did he admit he was selling for nPower.
Next thing is I get a welcome letter and my electric provider has been changed! Nightmare. But worse than that, he attached my name and address to a meter for the flat above! Extra complications, as they then refused to discuss things with me as it was not my electric supply - I was just getting the bills! Repeated complaints to nPower got nothing more than a standard acknowledgement letter. Had to complain to the regulator as this is unscrupulous miss-selling, I suggest you do the same, Offcom in this case. In December last year nPower were fined £1.8m for such doorstep selling.
Nail the b*stards! Less astute customers than you are getting ripped off by such tactics and may not even realise.0 -
This comes under the unsolicited goods act. I think they may be able to request that you make it available for them to pick up. But its illegal for them to ask for any payment for it.0
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alfablue wrote:I had a visit from an nPower salesman about 6 months ago - I said NO, NO, NO, go away! Next thing is I get a welcome letter and my electric provider has been changed! Nightmare.
I can better that on nPower. A few years ago when I lived in Edinburgh a similar thing happened with my gas supply. nPower chased me for about 2 years on estimated bills which racked up to several hundred pounds. I reckon I made a few hundred telephone calls in this time, most of them with me amused more than angry as they were trying to take me to court. The thing I found funniest was that there wasn't any gas supply in my house!!!
They were however my electricity supplier and when me and Mrs EMD called them several times to tell them that our electricity meter had stopped working, we were told that it was impossible in a very condisending (sp?) manner. It did start working after about 6 months in which we didn't pay anything apart from the service charge!0 -
Jeez, nPower have got to be the worst clowns in the business! My other utility suppliers, EdF and EoN were perfect examples of customer service by comparison, especially helpful when sorting the nPower mess out.0
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I had a similar experience a few years ago, British Gas claimed to have signed me up at a stand they had in a supermarket car park in Kent. I would never go shopping in Kent! I didn't have a car at that time and would have had no reason to make the journey into Kent by train and bus. They said they had my signature on the sign up docs which was a bit worrying....Do not write below this line. Office use only.0
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Thing is that our current ISP has been bought out by the ISP who want our business. If they had not tried to hijack our phone line etc. we would have taken their offer up as soon as our current contract with BT ran out but we're now thinking of moving everything to BT!
Can we fix it?
Yes we can!0
