to think this mobile phone company are crooks?

[chicaguapa]

So the short story is that 1 year ago I called Crooked Communications Company to cancel my phone contract and was put through to retentions. I was paying £14.85 a month at that time and they offered me £16.20 a month to stay with them, saying that was the lowest they could go. I accepted as it was still better than I could get elsewhere.

Fast forward a couple of months and the bills were coming through at £24.30. On querying it I was told that apparently the notes didn't support what I was offered and instead say that I'd accepted £24.30 (a 10% discount).

But as I had been paying £14.85 the previous year (a 45% discount), they saw that it was reasonable that I'd have been offered £16.20 (a 40% discount) to renew. I was promised a credit for the difference for the whole year as they couldn't amend the monthly amount. This never materialised and still hasn't. It transpires that there are no notes for this conversation either.

I've raised a complaint with CCC and we have reached a deadlock as they won't give me the credit. This has been going on for months.

I have now been told (after 1hr on the phone they finally decided to mention it) that they have obtained a recording of last year's phone call in which I had upgraded and the transcript says I was offered a 10% discount and I accepted it. They are blatantly lying as I know that's not what happened. I told him that they should be ashamed to have sunk that low and tell me such a barefaced lie.

AIBU to think that the original retentions guy had a target to meet and offered me 40% but put through 10% as he might not have been supposed to give me 40%?

I think it's suspicious that there is no record of that conversation (though it does state that I called to cancel) or the one where I was offered a credit (even though my phone records show I had a 35 mins call to 191).

And they are now being completely underhand in pretending they have a phone recording that disproves what I'm saying, even though I know I am right. He even said he had read the transcript himself and they would make the recording available to the Ombudsman on request, as he dug himself deeper trying to maintain that he was telling the truth.

Vodafone are useless. When I was having problems with them someone on here told me to contact Customer Relations in the U.K. rather than 191 - 0333 304 0567. They managed to sort out my problems and I'm happily back with O2.

Yes. Vodaphone are appalling. A combination of
stupidity and incompetence is one thing but lying and defrauding customers seems to be all in a day's work to them. IME.

I read your OP and thought "ahh, vodafone!" I left them and went to O2, no problems with them at all so far. We've all gone to O2 in this house.

You don't need a letter of deadlock. You raise a complaint with the ombudsman (online form), they will contact you back and in our case, gave us a number to ring (for the ombudsman which they would then transfer you from to Vodafone - vodafone have a dept for dealing with people who have come through the ombudsman). We spoke to an entirely reasonable man at Vodafone who then sorted out all the problems we had been having and so far, so good. We never had a letter of deadlock.

Oh and btw ours had been going on for months, in total I think dh and I had spent approx 6 - 8 hrs on the phone with them.

I'm with O2, never had any problems.

I have had no problems with 02, all the household phones are with them. The most irritating thing is they do contact you very frequently to try and sell you an upgrade or other stuff but I ignore it all now. You have the right to ask for the call recording, in fact I would ask them for all of the calls that they have.

You have a right to listen to the recording yourself, I'm sure of it. If they refuse to release it to you, get the ombudsman involved

You aren't entitled to the actual recording, however, you ARE entitled to a transcript of the call (which it sounds like you have been given).

If you dispute the contents of the transcript - then as mentioned, get the ombudsman involved and they should be able to get it.

Also you can also file what is called a "Subject Access Request" (it will cost you £10 and can take 40 days though) with this you can request all information the company hold for you (this will also include notes left by advisers on your account). However, they will only supply the info YOU ask for, so detail what info you want.