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On Wednesday 16 January 2008 19:40:29 Neil Stone wrote: > Julian Hall wrote: > > Grant Sewell wrote: > >> /me notices that I still have around 13 months on an O2 contract left. > >> /me is not happy about this. :s > >> > >> Grant. > > > > /me also remembers buying a Bluetooth earpiece from CPW so my details > > are on their system. Oh great. > > > > Julian > > Mind you, they are not the only people to have sent duff info to credit > scoring systems.. I recently got a new mobile, i'm fairly sure they lied > too.. I used to have an account with VarTec Telecom, who got bought out by TalkTalk. We never got on. They phoned me out of the blue to say that they had taken over my account and asked me to set a password. I don't usually give passwords to uninvited callers, so I asked them to write to me, which they didn't. A year later, when I moved house, I wanted to terminate the account. I phoned them up and they asked me for my password. I knew I hadn't set one. They refused to discuss the account without one (citing the Data Protection Act, of course). Eventually I got an address out of them to write to, which I did, asking them to terminate the account. They, of course, ignored this, so I simply cancelled the direct debit to stop them taking any more money out of the account. They then sent me a threatening letter (redirected by the post office to my new address) saying that if I didn't pay the last bill they would terminate the account. I wrote back saying please terminate the account and then I will pay the bill in full. They wrote back another menacing letter. I ignored it. They wrote again saying they had terminated the account and would pursue me through the courts to recover the remaining £5 I owed them. I then sent them a cheque, as I promised. Perhaps they are just hopelessly incompetent, rather than malicious? Many organisations seem to be like this these days. I keep notes on all my interactions with these sorts of people, as I now expect them to fuck up. I got £400 compensation out of Powergen because they made a series of really dumb mistakes, and I had really good notes. They, stupidly, promised £20 compensation for each mistake they made, so I gave them a list. I asked if the meter was still running. Some just try it on. I had a threatening letter redirected from the Water company at my old address. The account hadn't been in my name. We'd told them we were leaving and paid off the account. They didn't have the next occupier's name, so plucked mine off the out of date Electoral Roll and started sending me threatening letters. An ideal way to encourage identity theft. There is a sort of depressing inevitability about it. With some companies the letters just bounce back and forth until someone accidentally deletes the account, and then they stop. I put it down to badly thought out procedures imposed top-down without consultation, operated by people who don't care. The people at the top are driven by naked greed, and couldn't give a damn about anything other than making themselves richer. The people at the bottom are powerless and have shit jobs they hate, so couldn't give a damn either. Not a recipe for quality service. D -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html