UPC refusing to cut service.

Esoteric_

Hi there, qeury on behalf of my mother.

A Sky rep called around, offering us a really good deal. We signed up to it, and sent out a registered letter giving 30 days notice of diconnecting our broadband, phone and television with UPC. My mother's contract ended with UPC in August, although in March they refused to give her a rebate of money they owed her unless she agreed verbally to stick with UPC until March next year. My mother has recordings of these phone calls. She never signed a contract, she continued with her contract until August, when her written contract ran out.

They are claiming they never received the letters of notice to terminate the services, despite us having registered the letter and having received notification that it was delivered. They have now threatened to cut us off, but still bill us up til March next year. The rep on the phone also refused to allow my mother to speak and threatened to hang up on her when my mother disputed this.

My mother's written contract specifically says that after 12 months, cancelling the service will invoke no charges.

My mother agreed in March verbally to stay with UPC until March next year, only because they refused to refund her the money they owed her unless she did this. My mother asked to speak to somebody higher up and the rep refused to allow her to and told my mother to hang up the phone.

What are the legalities of this? I know a verbal contract is legally binding, but surely being coerced into it by the witholding of money owed would make this null and void?

Esoteric_

Sorry - should also point out that we are on 25mb speed, supposedly. It has never once reached even 20mbs. At the very most, it ONCE reached 18mbs on a brand new laptop, and since then has been reaching between 2-14mbs on the same laptop, and has never reached above 5mbs on the desktop.

I have also been told that the UPC rep eventually told my mother that she had spent too much time talking to her, and hung up the phone on her.

foggy_lad

Wow, the lengths some people will go to to get a sale are astonishing! UPC must be feeling the pinch in the current climate as they are quite a lot dearer for tv services than sky and a lot must be moving.

Your mother should keep the recordings she has where the rep tells her money she is owed will be witheld unless she agrees to a contract extension as this in my opinion is illegal. This will be handy if UPC decide to threaten your mother with debt collectors and court proceedings!

Your mother should cease all payments and cancel all direct debits with this company and make sure she does this in person in her bank as they will print off a form and get her to sign it.

Basically your mother has a contract but the contract is based on dishonesty and menace on the part of UPC so is VOID

TheUsual

UPC are a nightmare to deal with, by far the worst.

I have left them, I will never pay them another penny ever again.

thefinalstage

foggy_lad wrote: »

Wow, the lengths some people will go to to get a sale are astonishing! UPC must be feeling the pinch in the current climate as they are quite a lot dearer for tv services than sky and a lot must be moving.

Your mother should keep the recordings she has where the rep tells her money she is owed will be witheld unless she agrees to a contract extension as this in my opinion is illegal. This will be handy if UPC decide to threaten your mother with debt collectors and court proceedings!

Your mother should cease all payments and cancel all direct debits with this company and make sure she does this in person in her bank as they will print off a form and get her to sign it.

Basically your mother has a contract but the contract is based on dishonesty and menace on the part of UPC so is VOID

You do know the recording is worth nothing if the agent did not agree to be resorded...

airsofter2012

happened to my oncle and he got charged 20euro for dropping sports and movie packs its discracefull and should be illegal .

airsofter2012

poisonedstream wrote: »

You do know the recording is worth nothing if the agent did not agree to be recorded...

so they can record you and you cant record you that should be illegal .

Arciphel

As far as I know, since they tell you when you call them that calls may be recorded, then you are entitled to do the same. They told me before I was due a refund, then later denied it and said they couldn't find the recording - but when I bluffed and told them I had it recorded, it was suddenly sorted in 5 mins. Cancel all your direct debits to UPC in writing to your bank and let them go lump it.

JDxtra

But she did agree to stay until next March, right?

Oh, Sky don't do broadband by the way. You'll now have to get a landline or sign up to a wireless provider (*shudders*).

JDxtra

NEVER just cancel your direct debits as it will affect your ability to get services or loans in the future.

aidan_walsh

airsofter2012 wrote: »

so they can record you and you cant record you that should be illegal .

You're advised at the start of the call that it may be recorded. By continuing the call, you agree to be recorded. You need to advise an agent if you are recording the call on your side and they need to agree to be recorded for it to be admissible.

nxbyveromdwjpg

If you agreed to be recorded then the call is obviously recorded their side aswell and you can have full access to this under data protection anyway.
I agree with previous posters, just stop paying them.

jor el

JDxtra wrote: »

NEVER just cancel your direct debits as it will affect your ability to get services or loans in the future.

While it would effect your ability to get services from that company ion the future, it will have no impact on getting loans. UPC cannot effect your credit record, unless they get a court injunction against you.

If you cancel the payments to a loan however, that would be bad for you, and would be recorded on your credit record.

If the recording that UPC have will show that the agent withheld a refund that was due, in order to extend a contract, then that would be very illegal. Any contract formed on that basis would surely be void. First step is to request that recording from UPC, but do not tell them you already have it yourself, as you can't use that anyway.

You may safely cancel the direct debit at this point, as you know you are out of contract and not due to pay anything. All you need is to get them to understand that too. If you need to get the regulator involved, it is Comreg. You should at least tell them that UPC withheld money that was owed in order to force a contract extension anyway.

uck51js9zml2yt

We cancelled with UPC earlier in the year without issue.
I wrote in an cancelled and then once the cancellation had occcured got in touch with the accounts dept to get a cheque issued for a refund of what had been paid in advance.

Arciphel

As usual, jor el speaks the truth. Even if it is sorted out eventually, you should get in touch with Com Reg anyway to inform them. If they are not made aware of how these companies are acting then they cannot do anything about it.

TheUsual

Arciphel wrote: »

As usual, jor el speaks the truth. Even if it is sorted out eventually, you should get in touch with Com Reg anyway to inform them. If they are not made aware of how these companies are acting then they cannot do anything about it.

Totally agree, UPC are the worst cowboy outfit operating in Ireland today.

I wish I had complained when they bullied me to ComReg at the time.

Crowd of jackals.

Merch

TheUsual wrote: »

UPC are a nightmare to deal with, by far the worst.

I have left them, I will never pay them another penny ever again.

TheUsual wrote: »

Totally agree, UPC are the worst cowboy outfit operating in Ireland today.

I wish I had complained when they bullied me to ComReg at the time.

Crowd of jackals.

I never really like ntl or UPC when i had to deal with them, but so long as i was getting my service I was paying for I stuck with them. The only thing is they were impossible to get a hold of if you did have a problem, that improved a bit, now again i am having an issue with them, shutting off my tv service and sending me texts saying telling me they are cancelling my account, this in part seems to be due to their use of from what i can see/tell are contractors to do the business that do not care about customer service and due to the fact that they seem to have (or so they have told me) call centres in clonmel, limerick and waterford, I am actually unsure if this is accurate or if they are fobbinng me off, anyway, while my problem seems sorted (although i was told this numerous times) I am now sick and tired of them and am leaving even if it costs me more.
I plan to go to sky for tv, maybe, phone and broadband if they do it.
I aim to get a cheaper service, and while I was happy having my internet/tv and broadband all in one bill, they are appaling to deal with.
They even threatened to bill me for equipment they had sent to me but which i did not order, I told them I would not be hanging around all day to return it. Far as i am concerned it will be left on the doorstep.

Esoteric_

Well, my mam got back onto them yesterday and the other rep she was speaking to admitted that my mother is NOT on a contract with them at the moment, but was still banging on about how she will be charged for a year if she disconnects because by staying on a month after her contract expired, she accepted a new 12 month contract. I'm pretty sure this is absolute sh!te, because AFAIK, continuing a service after the contract is expired makes it a rolling contract or something to that effect.

Anyway, my mother had it out with her and also made a complaint about the rep yesterday who hung up the phone on her. The woman defended the rep, saying that she had spent long enough talking to my mother.


In the end, my mam decided to call their bluff, and said 'but the girl never even gave me a chance to say that I only want to cancel the TV, I still wanted to talk about a deal for phone and broadbad!' They immediately agreed to cancel the TV, phone and broadband with no penalty, and put my mother on to the rep from the other day to discuss a deal for phone and internet. What they're offering for phone and internet is actually cheaper than anywhere else we could find (31 euro a month for broadband and phone with unlimited free local and national calls and X amount of minutes free internationally), so I think my mam has decided to stick with them for the phone and broadband, even though I'm warning her against it as the broadband is atrocious!

Anyway, all's well that ends well, I guess. Thanks for all the advice, will be encouraging my mam to go to Comreg anyway about this.