Kingston Communications

[cymro79]

My husband and i changed address in September - previously all utilities had been in my husbands name but as we bought a house together we wanted all the bills changing into both names. Initially when he rang KC Comms we were told that a name could not be added to the account. When we spoke to them recently they said that we could, but it has cost us £11.75 and i had to be credit checked. If i had any option i would have cancelled my contract with them but as they are a monopoly in my area i had no choice but to accept this..... any advice?

[Thermometer]

You are right, Kingston Communications does have a monopoly in the Hull area and they are now beginning to look like an expensive phone company.

 

At one time they used to charge people for being ex-directory! But a ruling by the Information Commissioners (or whatever it was at the time) meant they can no longer charge for that!

 

Fairly recently they changed their contract (you will see it is no longer published in the White Pages). Nowadays you have to give the company one month's notice if you wish to cancel the contract (e.g. moving house) no matter how long you have had service with them! They tried to charge me for this when I moved out of the Hull area - but I was still on the old contract so their demand for payment fell on deaf ears!

 

They also have a habit of charging £11.75 for many of their 'services'. If you want to bar calls to premium rate/overseas numbers they charge you £11.75p - unless you have a bad credit rating and they put on the bar for free!

 

They are also now expensive on phone calls. Their mimimum charge is 5.5p (6.5p incl. VAT). Ok, you can make an untimed local call for that price, but if you used http://www.18185.co.uk you can make untimed national calls for 5p (incl. VAT). I am not sure there is much you can do about the £11.75p charge - just vote with your feet and use www.18185.co.uk - that is still possible on a KC line! 18185 will also give you very cheap calls to mobiles and overseas.

[buzby]

I agree it was better when it was all run by Hull Corporation, but I don't think they're being too unreasonable. They have a policy of anyone taking out a contract with them must be credit checked - this is no different than if you were added to your husband's mobile account, you are BOTH liable for the actions on the account, and in all probability he was never credit checked as an existing customer. Now, it is YOUR choice to change the status quo, so why should you not pay a reasonable admin charge of £10 plus VAT to amend the record? IF you just left it alone there wouldn't be a charge, so it is not as if you are being forced to pay it. I've no problem for paying for work my requests generate - I'd be unhappy if the cost of constant name changes was being met by everyone else!

[cymro79]

I agree the credit check is a reasonable request but i dont agree at being charged to add my name to an account that i pay for - it didn't cost us to change the address (luckily!!). I would have left it as it was but they wouldn't speak to me about the account and meant my husband was constantly having to take time out of his work to speak to them if we had any issues (and believe me there have been a few!). No other utility or billing company have asked us to pay to add my name to a bill surely it doesn't cost £10 to add a name to a computer system? I have worked in local and central government, imagine the response we'd get if we said it would cost £10 to add someone's name to a benefit claim....?

The other problem with KC is that they dont allow you to take your number with you when you move although BT do... as a result were regularly having calls for the previous tennant which can get pretty irritating we get enough sales calls of our own without having to answer other peoples.

It would be nice to have the option to go with a different company as i am totally disatisfied with KC's charges and Customer Service. Isn't there an anti-monopoly law and why are Kc exempt?

[Thermometer]

The other problem with KC is that they dont allow you to take your number with you when you move although BT do...

That is incorrect. You can keep you number providing you move within the same exchange area. The same applies to BT - only if you move within the same exchange area can you keep your number.

 

 

as a result were regularly having calls for the previous tennant which can get pretty irritating we get enough sales calls of our own without having to answer other peoples.

you could have paid £25.85p to get the number changed!

 

It would be nice to have the option to go with a different company as i am totally disatisfied with KC's charges and Customer Service.

You are stuck with KC for line rental but you can make your calls through another provider (see my earlier post)

 

Isn't there an anti-monopoly law and why are Kc exempt?

Other providers can offer line rental in the Hull area but choose not to do so.