Chess - cancellation of contract

[KennyVinegar]

Hi everybody

 

My brother runs his own business from home and is having a great deal of difficulty with a couple of telephone providers and it's been going on for months. I've asked him to explain what's been happening...

 

"Bloke from Unicom came round, signed me up on home & work phone. Told him i was under contract to Chess, he said that they usually don't bother, should let you go and even if they don't they can take the line at the end of the contract.

So, signed up. Home phone changed no problem. Get a phone call from Chess, saying that if i changed now then there would be possible cancellation charges. I said OK. then Unicom tell me that Chess refused to let them have the line - unicom said this was against the law, chess said it wasn't. Line finally moved on 3rd August. Unicom send me a letter to confirm this. I cancelled the Direct Debit to Chess. Get a bill from Chess at the end of August including 25 +VAT charge for cancelling the DD. Phoned them up, spoke to someone who said just to pay the call charges part, also spoke to someone who said they would see about getting the DD charge cancelled so sent payment for call charges for August. Now i'm getting letters saying that i need to pay them interest and that my service (which they haven't supplied for over 2 months) will be suspended if i don't pay. I also asked for a copy on the contract back in august, they said it was a recording cos its a verbal contract and would need to send away for it but would send it to me on CD. Still waiting. Wrote to them explaining all this and asked them to refund the charges and close my account. they wrote back saying that they can't refund them until i've had a invoice for cancellation charges

At the moment, the account is still open, the charges still stand as when i spoke to those people on the phone what they said never happened, i still haven't had a copy of my contract (latest on this is that the person who does it is 'away'). Whenever i ring them all i get is 'I can't do that it needs to go to this department or that department' I never get to speak to anybody who actually is able to do anything. Now they are saying that the charges still stand but they can't tell me what the cancellation charges are, can't tell me if the DD charge will be refunded and haven't sent me any final bills / cancellation charge invoices.

This has been going on for about 4-5 months now. Customer service is useless, i never get to speak to someone who can actually do anything, its always has to be passed on to another department but you never get to speak to that department. As far as i can see the current situation is that i'm waiting for this copy of the contract, my account is still open, i am probably going to get 3 months bills amount as cancellation charges with a possible 25 + VAT on top for cancelling a direct debit once my service with them had stopped"

Does anyone have any advice on what to do?? He just seems to be drawing a blank everytime he speaks to these people and I think one day he's going to implode!!! If he gets charged £25+VAT for cancelling a direct debit then that's just ridiculous. Should he send a SAR as they haven't sent him his contract yet?

 

Any help is very much appreciated.

[KennyVinegar]

bump

[kaz1982]

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