Lowell claimform - old TAlk Talk debt

[BankFodder]

I'm a bit surprised that the move results in a new contract rather than simply a transfer. Have you seen that in any of their terms and conditions? Could you post there terms and conditions here or at least provide us with a link please

[BankFodder]

Thank you.

You come onto this forum and ask questions but actually you haven't set out your story.
I think it will be very helpful if you will now set out your story in a chronological bullet pointed way so that we can understand the complete timeline of events.

Keep it factual – not too much narrative

[BankFodder]

Hang on, what I'm reading here is that the cancellation was nothing to do with moving but was because you'd been slammed by another provider. Is this correct?

 

Whatever the situation, please will you send an SAR off to TalkTalk immediately – today. Use one of our templates and send it by recorded delivery. Don't hang around

[BankFodder]

Also send a request to Lowells for disclosure of information under CPR 31.14

Please get that off today as well. Don't hang around

[BankFodder]

Yes, so it turns out that we don't really know what has happened at all.

If you have been slammed – then who was it? Did you actually end up in a contract with the new supplier?

I'm not sure if it still goes on but a few years ago slamming happened a great deal. It seemed to have been accepted throughout the industry – even by the big players like British Telecom. There were industry agreements which simply meant that if they were approached by another supplier, then they honoured that suppliers instruction to close you down and to transfer your service without any authority from the customer. It was assumed that the new supplier had obtained this authority. In fact this wasn't the case. I don't know what happened but I can imagine that unscrupulous employees were selling off data to unscrupulous suppliers who would then use the slack systems and not worry about data breaches in order to get customers transferred from their existing suppliers.

Of course, it is entirely possible that the cancellation occurred as a result of a move – but even that would be recently easy to defend against based on what I have seen in TalkTalk's terms and conditions.

Although you have tried to lay out methodically – I'm afraid it's still not massively clear.

Did you have one move or two moves? For some reason or other it occurs to me that you had two moves and that in one move they transferred without any difficulty and in the second move we have the issue cancellation – which may or may not have coincided with you being slammed.

Who was the new supplier and did you use them?

By the way, have you filed an acknowledgement of service? You should do this immediately

[BankFodder]

Slamming is an industry practice whereby a telecoms supplier pretends to have your authority to take over your account.

The problem is that we don't really know what the claim is about. This is why you are sending an SAR and also eight CPR 31.14.

If the claim is because – as you have originally thought – it is because you moved home and so therefore your contract with restarted, then we have to ask ourselves why did it only happen in one case and yet in the second case it didn't appear to happen.

This inconsistent approach is helpful to you because it suggests that there is no contractual term which allows them to do that. Secondly, looking at the terms and conditions, I don't see anything there which says unequivocally that this is what will happen. They say that they will cancel your contract if you move and they say that they "may" start a new contract – but there is nothing firm. In any event, it seems to me that if you were obliged to move home and they use that opportunity to cancel your contract and yet penalises you for an unused contractual portion and then go ahead and open another contract, then this is an unfair term. In fact I will also say that it is an unfair trading practice.

On the other hand, if what has happened here is that you have been slammed then we would want to know about that because we would then have an issue with the company which slammed you and also with talk talk for letting your account go without your authority. Of course they would then say that they let the contract go because that is industry practice. This has been the standard excuse throughout the industry for ages. I find that an unacceptable excuse and I see that there is no reason why should we should simply say to them that that might be practice within the industry but it doesn't affect you as a customer because you are not part of the industry.

That's all theory. We need to find out more. You should certainly find an acknowledgement with intention to defend. You can always change your mind later.

Don't hang around. I think it's a shame that you even have to wait until tomorrow. It would have been nice to get the letters off today in today's post.

[BankFodder]

I've asked you a couple of times which company took over the contract from TalkTalk – but you haven't answered and in fact you haven't even referred to it

[BankFodder]

How do you know that the service was taken on by new supplier? Was the transfer to the new supplier carried out during your occupation at all? I'm getting a bit confused.

I had gathered that during your tenancy, there had been a change to a different supplier.

[BankFodder]

Okay, in that case the account hasn't been slammed.

So I understand that you have had several moves. Each time you continued with talk talk at your new address – but you haven't understood whether in fact it was a continuation of the same contract or each time it was a new contract.

The issues seems only to have arisen after you moved out of your last address. Presumably you've moved to a new place now? You haven't taken talk talk with you. Is this correct? I'm struggling to get a full picture here.

[BankFodder]

So what I'm hearing from you is that you have been with talk talk, you have moved home twice and each time you assumed that TalkTalk weren't recommencing the minimum period with a new contract.

If in fact the contract was simply being continued – the same contract but at different addresses them by your calculation you had one month left to go. You moved home but for some reason rather they didn't offer to transfer the contract to your new home.

However, the amount of money that they are claiming appears to be for a much longer period than that and you now think that they have been starting off on a new contract each time.

Does that summarise it correctly?

I notice that in your explanation of the claim that they have brought against you, they say that you failed to make payments and so therefore they terminated the contract. Did you have a poor payment history?

When you made your final move, did you approach them at all to transfer the contract to your new address?

I don't know why but I'm finding it very difficult to nail the story down – although I have the feeling that we are getting there.

 

Quote

May 2014 took out contract

October 2014 moved home and continued contract

May 2015 moved again – continued with talk talk

October 2015 moved again – instructed to keep on paying.

2015 TalkTalk service was cancelled – presumably on instruction from new tenant

TalkTalk claimed £256.91 early cancellation

was the TalkTalk contract a 12 month contract or a 24 month contract?

I don't think there will be very much you can do until you get the SAR and also the CPR 31.14

[BankFodder]

Okay. I hope you are going to send off those requests first thing tomorrow.

Follow the instructions given by site team member: DX but do this on about 6 April and if you haven't had a response to the CPR 31.14 then when you defend, you will simply say that the claim is denied. That you are not indebted as alleged, that the claim can contains no details which allow you to formulate a defence and your request per CPR 31.14 for details of the documents referred to in the claim has not been complied with.

[BankFodder]

Whoops!

[BankFodder]

I generally think that mediation never works and I always recommend that people don't accept it. This is at odds with other members of the site team as you have seen.

please could you tell us briefly here what was it that lead you to the conclusion that mediation was not going to work.