Anyone here use Onetel (1877 prefix) international calls?
Michael Kilpatrick
that uses the 1877 prefix? And if so, is it working properly and are you
being billed properly?
Alena has a Onetel account and it only gets used for the odd call to
parents in Venezuela or old friends in France (it happens that more
than the usual number of calls have been made this summer).
However, since July, Pipex, my (former, needless to say) broadband
supplier, decided that all these 1877 calls would be charged to my
broadband account. I never had *any* sort of phone agreement with Pipex,
only a broadband account - which, naturally, I cancelled when I was
unable to get through to them that they had no right to charge me for
calls made with the 1877 prefix!
I observe that Onetel and Pipex are part of the same company now, but
that's no excuse for any silly mistakes. I've given up trying to phone
Pipex and explain, so with my patience wearing thin I wrote them a
recorded-delivery letter last week repeating that the only people
entitled to charge me for phone calls are BT, or for Onetel to bill
Alena if she dials 1877.
Despite several phone calls and the recent letter I've just got another
demand for outstanding balance (these letters either threaten you with
debt collection agencies or to cut off your outgoing calls, which is
rather laughable if your line-rental and calls are contracted to BT).
Alena's next Onetel bill is due in a week or two, so I'm waiting to see
what's on it...
Needless to say, I really don't recommend going anywhere near any
company which is part of the TalkTalk group. Especially with their
unintelligible overseas (I assume) call centre and useless staff.
Michael
Roland Perry
10:38:38 on Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Michael Kilpatrick
<ne...@mkilpatrick.cospam.uk> remarked:
>I've given up trying to phone Pipex and explain, so with my patience
>wearing thin I wrote them a recorded-delivery letter last week
>repeating that the only people entitled to charge me for phone calls
>are BT, or for Onetel to bill Alena if she dials 1877.
This doesn't make a lot of sense unless Pipex have co-incidentally
bought Onetel, or your Pipex broadband was on an unbundled line (with
Pipex and not BT billing you for the calls).
So you haven't given us enough information. But in the end, a billing
dispute like this will end up with the telecoms Ombudsman.
http://www.otelo.org.uk/membercompanies.php?sort=P
--
Roland Perry
Theo Markettos
> This doesn't make a lot of sense unless Pipex have co-incidentally
> bought Onetel, or your Pipex broadband was on an unbundled line (with
> Pipex and not BT billing you for the calls).
CPW bought OneTel, and CPW bought Pipex, so they're all the same company
now. I wouldn't be surprised if they've amalgamated their customer
databases somehow, and 1877 is now routing calls on the wrong tariff which
(due to the different branding) shows up on a different bill.
Theo
Michael Kilpatrick
Whatever they've done with their databases, they cannot simply merge
multiple customers (from their different company contracts) who happen
to share the same address and phone line, which is what they may have
done. My wife and I are separate entities and there is nothing to say,
for example, that a similar situation might not arise in a house with a
lodger who uses the 1877 prefix or a residence with joint tenants with a
single phone line and an organised means of separating their phone call
bills. I think the landlord in the former and the other joint tenants in
the latter would be rather shocked to find phone call charges being
arbitrarily moved between their separate accounts!
Also they can't start charging phone calls to an account which is only
broadband.
Michael