Yes, I'm absolutely serious. My older brother (OB) passed away last year and when it happened my younger brother (YB) asked TalkTalk for details of our OB's most recent phone calls to help us work out what had happened. The only way we could get this account access was to change the account into YB's name, which he did. Having found out what we needed, YB closed the account and paid the outstanding bill. Then TalkTalk claimed that as the new account holder my YB would have to pay a cancellation fee of around £70.
My YB explained that he had not signed a contract when he'd taken over the account so he couldn't have known about a cancellation fee. Call me silly but since the circumstances of taking over the account were so unusual we expected to be treated with a little ummm...consideration? Well, the man he spoke to insisted that even if he'd not been sent a contract by TalkTalk he should have known about it - well, nobody at TalkTalk had ever mentioned such a thing, and he was hardly going to get that info from my OB, now, was he?
Eventually YB sorted out the situation with TalkTalk, who I presume apologised for being such insensitive mongrels and promised to cancel the cancellation fee. However what they didn't say was that they'd passed the account to a debt collection agency. TalkTalk then had three weeks within which to call off the debt collectors. But they clearly didn't as I picked up a threatening letter which arrived at my OB's address this week, threatening the usual nonsense about county court orders and sending bailiffs round. Once again my YB called TalkTalk who rather sheepishly admitted that actually they owed HIM money.
Now please. Am I being unreasonable to expect that when someone dies their phone company should have a policy of treating the relatives with a little sensitivity?