Speaker 1: Lunch with Pippa Hudson and now Consumer Talk featuring Wendy Nolla.
Speaker 2: Wendy's back in the studio with us today. Always good
Speaker 2: to have you on the show. Wendy, welcome, thanks so.
Speaker 3: Much, Papa, good to be back in person, and yeah,
Speaker 3: nice to have you here.
Speaker 2: We are talking, as I've mentioned, about cell phone contracts
Speaker 2: and getting out of them when you want to cancel.
Speaker 2: I'm also happy to make some space for open line
Speaker 2: calls towards the end of the hour, So do you
Speaker 2: send your question on seven two five six seven one
Speaker 2: five six seven. I hope everybody has taken their blood
Speaker 2: pressure medication, is what I want to say first, because
Speaker 2: this is a talking point. Wendy, the cell phone contract issue,
Speaker 2: You and I collectively could write a book with all
Speaker 2: of the case studies plus our personal experiences over the years.
Speaker 2: It goes wrong so often. But won't you just set
Speaker 2: the scene for us before we introduce this week's case studies.
Speaker 3: Okay, So, anyone who's ever tried to cancel a fixed
Speaker 3: term contractor it's not just cell phones, it's also vehicle
Speaker 3: tracking that's happened to me. Jim, whatever the chances are
Speaker 3: you ahead with a very hard cell pitch and an
Speaker 3: attempt to keep you tied to the company, to get
Speaker 3: you to contract further, so you want to say goodbye,
Speaker 3: and they keep trying to make you stay with all
Speaker 3: kinds of sweet promises. Now, whenever I'm confronted with one
Speaker 3: of these cases, which is often, it thinks makes me
Speaker 3: think of my son, John's favorite game to play with
Speaker 3: me when he was a little boy. He's now twenty six,
Speaker 3: but he called this was his name, never letting Go.
Speaker 3: So he said, get on the carpet on the floor,
Speaker 3: and he'd entwine his little limbs with mine, and then
Speaker 3: I had to try and extricate myself from his grip,
Speaker 3: which was quite considerable. Sweets, yes, very sweet, and he
Speaker 3: would literally say, come on, let's play.
Speaker 1: Let never let him go.
Speaker 3: And I think of that every time I get one
Speaker 3: of these complaints, because it's a game which the cel
Speaker 3: phone companies in particular like to play with their subscribers
Speaker 3: who want to cancel the contracts. But it's not nearly
Speaker 3: as much fun, at least not for the subscribers.
Speaker 1: So having taken up to such.
Speaker 3: And never letting go cases recently, sort of at the
Speaker 3: same time, I thought it was a good time for
Speaker 3: us to revisit this issue, tell these stories and maybe
Speaker 3: because or not, maybe definitely give some solid advice on
Speaker 3: what you should do, what your rights are, the kinds
Speaker 3: of blocking mechanisms that the companies use, and to be
Speaker 3: they valid or not. Spoiler alert, they're not valid.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. Okay, So I mean you, as
Speaker 2: you point out, Wendy, if you're an Emptyn customer, the
Speaker 2: first clue that it's not going to be easy to
Speaker 2: get out of a contract is the email address that
Speaker 2: you're obliged to you.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to get a hold of retentions.
Speaker 2: Retentions department handles cancelations.
Speaker 3: Yes, I've never had anybody say to me how ridiculous
Speaker 3: that it's retention.
Speaker 1: There should be cancelations.
Speaker 3: But it just becomes sort of normal, Like you upgrade
Speaker 3: your contract.
Speaker 1: You're not upgrading. That sounds like you caught a luck.
Speaker 3: On a plane, you know, being upgraded to business class
Speaker 3: or seat. You're choosing to get yourself committed to a
Speaker 3: completely new contract with possibly in probably different terms. It's
Speaker 3: sort of upgrading they want, but it sounds so much,
Speaker 3: but it sounds almost obligatory and sort of lovely, like
Speaker 3: a favor that you're going to upgrade.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: You know, we get so sort of bamboozled by the marketmology.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we start using it ourselves, Like people write
Speaker 3: to me about their one seater that went wrong.
Speaker 1: It's a chair, but the industry fair the three seat
Speaker 1: of the two seaters and the ones that chair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So our first case study today is from
Speaker 2: Nicky and Claremont, and I mean this is this just
Speaker 2: says it all, Wendy, Because if ever there was a
Speaker 2: case where a cancelation was obviously needed and there was
Speaker 2: never going to be a renewal of this contract, and
Speaker 2: that should have been obvious from the very very start.
Speaker 2: It should have been a simple case of please cancel
Speaker 2: this contract, yes, thank you very much, we will, and
Speaker 2: with a great deal more empathy than was shown. Won't
Speaker 2: you just tell us what happened when Nicky tried to
Speaker 2: cancel her father's long standing contract with Empty.
Speaker 3: Okay, it had moved on to a month two month basis,
Speaker 3: so he wasn't locked into a fixed term contract, meaning
Speaker 3: he could cancel at any time with a month's notice.
Speaker 3: So important thing to say right up front. Still, after
Speaker 3: all these years. Many people think, especially with their gym
Speaker 3: contracts and with their cell phone contracts and the tracker contracts,
Speaker 3: that if the end date is the fieth of November,
Speaker 3: then it's just going to automatically stop fall away along
Speaker 3: with your obligations.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't. It rolls over.
Speaker 3: The industries talked the Consumer Protection Bill back in the day,
Speaker 3: they saying, you know, it will prejudice consumers if it
Speaker 3: just automatically expired, because they could find themselves in an
Speaker 3: emergency situation, not realize their cel phone contract had expired,
Speaker 3: and not be ultimate an emergency call that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So it rolls over onto a month to month basis,
Speaker 3: meaning it will carry on doing that until you give
Speaker 3: them a month's notice. So you suddenly wake up at
Speaker 3: the end of November, give them a month's notice, You've
Speaker 3: still got to pay for December in this case. So
Speaker 3: that's all that was required in terms of Nicki's dad's contract.
Speaker 3: But he has Alzheimer's. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to
Speaker 3: speak for a number of years, so and he doesn't
Speaker 3: even have a phone anymore, so he needs this contract
Speaker 3: to end.
Speaker 2: And as you said, I mean, there's just no way
Speaker 2: there are no circumstances and no contracts going to be renewed.
Speaker 2: Even if they said we will give you a fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand round iPhone for free, there was no point very
Speaker 2: much just cancel it, okay. So you would have thought
Speaker 2: that even the most bulldoggish of agents would see that
Speaker 2: and would also have some compassion for the circumstances Wendy
Speaker 2: to say, we've received your notification and we'll action it
Speaker 2: right away. So that is not what happened.
Speaker 3: This isn't a case of them trying to build oze
Speaker 3: Nicki into taking out something else in her father's contracts place.
Speaker 3: It was just that she didn't get anywhere for weeks
Speaker 3: and weeks.
Speaker 1: It just stoled.
Speaker 2: Nicky's with us on the line. So let's bring her
Speaker 2: in at this point. And Nikki, I'm so sorry to
Speaker 2: hear about your dad, And I'm sure with all that
Speaker 2: you must be dealing with in that situation, I'm sure
Speaker 2: the very last thing you needed was grief over a
Speaker 2: cell phone contract. That's not needed. But thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us and being willing to share your
Speaker 2: experience with us today.
Speaker 4: Thank you, and hello, nice to be with you.
Speaker 2: Nice to have you on the show Nikky. I understand
Speaker 2: that when you first attempted to cancel this contract, it
Speaker 2: actually started quite well. Tell us what happened when you
Speaker 2: made that first call to empty and on the eleventh
Speaker 2: of September.
Speaker 4: So when I furned through, I was put through to
Speaker 4: an agent and she very quickly said, I can't do
Speaker 4: this because it's a third party. She wanted to speak
Speaker 4: to my dad. My dad has no language, you know,
Speaker 4: he has a phasire, so he can't speak at all,
Speaker 4: and even if he could, I don't think he would
Speaker 4: be able to know, you know, he wouldn't be able
Speaker 4: to answer any questions. So I explained the situation and
Speaker 4: she said, you know, she doesn't.
Speaker 2: Know what to do.
Speaker 4: So I asked if she could put me through to
Speaker 4: someone who could. So that was in a way of
Speaker 4: first surprise for me, because I would have expected that
Speaker 4: there must be many circumstances where an individual can't cancel
Speaker 4: their own contract and so somebody would need to do
Speaker 4: it on their behalf. But anyway, I got put through
Speaker 4: to someone and he was very helpful. He told me
Speaker 4: I had to either get a letter from my dad's
Speaker 4: GP or doctor saying that he was ill and sent
Speaker 4: me my ID and his ID and or I could
Speaker 4: go to the police and get an affidavit. So I
Speaker 4: got given these options, and he even gave me his
Speaker 4: name and email like his, you know, so I didn't
Speaker 4: have to go through the whole system. I could go
Speaker 4: directly to him. And so I went and got all
Speaker 4: that stuff, sent it through to him, and got sort
Speaker 4: of this response saying I'm afraid I can't help you.
Speaker 4: This is that you must go back to retentions. I
Speaker 4: wrote back, and I said, but I started with retentions
Speaker 4: and I was put through to you because they couldn't
Speaker 4: help me, and please, can you tell me who can
Speaker 4: you know? Just let me know? And that started this
Speaker 4: endless and they cannot believe how many emails are sent
Speaker 4: to him personally saying just give me a name, just
Speaker 4: give me a number, just give me somebody, And in
Speaker 4: fact he just didn't respond at all. And then I
Speaker 4: started sending to every I was sent to retentions with
Speaker 4: all the information again to complaints that at empty n
Speaker 4: I even sent to the legal at empty and you know,
Speaker 4: I just found every email address I could, but I
Speaker 4: got only one response from another person saying something like,
Speaker 4: please can you help this customer or can you please help?
Speaker 4: Can someone help this person? But I still didn't get
Speaker 4: any other response, and so eventually I actually went to
Speaker 4: Akaca in desperation saying, you know, like help what I do.
Speaker 4: And I got a very formal business kind of response saying,
Speaker 4: this isn't something they deal with. It's not their area,
Speaker 4: you know that they're responsible for. And then I thought,
Speaker 4: let me write to Wendy and they see whether she
Speaker 4: could help me. And I honestly thought it was too
Speaker 4: small an issue, you know, to get a response. And
Speaker 4: I was her relieved that she sat in Yeah, and
Speaker 4: care saved the day for me.
Speaker 2: I am too. I'm so glad you got somewhere, Wendy,
Speaker 2: and tell us what you what steps you took.
Speaker 3: I first want to just backtrack a bit, because NICKI
Speaker 3: did warm them all those departments, and that original agent
Speaker 3: that she was going to do that she currently I
Speaker 3: think you emailed them on a Thursday, Nikki, and you
Speaker 3: said if you haven't if I haven't heard, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't in bold.
Speaker 1: Capital letters or aggressively, no.
Speaker 2: Nothing like that.
Speaker 3: She just said, if I haven't heard from you by Monday,
Speaker 3: then I'm going to contact Wendy Nola, and whoever read
Speaker 3: it or didn't read it, they didn't get back to it.
Speaker 2: So she didn't get hold of you, and you got
Speaker 2: hold of me, and you've got a response much more
Speaker 2: quickly than Nicky did I did.
Speaker 3: I've got a very swift response, which is gratifying but annoying.
Speaker 1: I'm not the customers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there needs to be a system and place where
Speaker 3: Nicki could get hold someone internally. That's the troubleshooter to say, like, I've.
Speaker 1: Been with us for weeks, they doesn't. They don't seem
Speaker 1: to have us kick up.
Speaker 3: They have escalations to the CEO's office. And then there's
Speaker 3: the media handling division for people like me, and they
Speaker 3: are super.
Speaker 2: Efficient media the media in all.
Speaker 3: The telecoms companies, most of them are big ones. They
Speaker 3: very responsive, but so at least.
Speaker 2: You know, if I may just say, they're very responsive
Speaker 2: to the media because they know how often they're going
Speaker 2: to be in the media because of the education. Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: so what person say to you?
Speaker 3: So there was a big apology. First, I was told
Speaker 3: that Nicki's dad's contract had been canceled with no penalties.
Speaker 3: Penalty exactly, and the reason I asked quite a lot
Speaker 3: of questions. Obviously, they had a comprehensive investigation to why
Speaker 3: Nicki was ghosted.
Speaker 1: It revealed that she did follow the correct process.
Speaker 3: In calling EMPTN and emailing retentions, and she was correctly
Speaker 3: advised on the documentation that she was required to supply.
Speaker 3: Four interactions were misrouted or incorrectly escalated, for example, mails
Speaker 3: sent to collections and legal which she was desperate alone.
Speaker 3: She wasn't getting responses from the other Unfortunately, these were
Speaker 3: not redirected or acknowledged, which is not acceptable. No customer
Speaker 3: contact should ever go unnoted or resolved. Tell that to
Speaker 3: the people at the cold face. There was no word
Speaker 3: on why the right people that Retentions Lot ignored.
Speaker 1: Multiple emails from Niki as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, just because I mean it's their job to
Speaker 2: process instructions, so widely they do it.
Speaker 3: I think you said it was about five times, Nikia, right,
Speaker 3: five separate roundhouts lost count.
Speaker 4: I think there were more. Five was just desperate. I'm
Speaker 4: repeating myself here. I haven't heard from you anybody. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So MTN says this case has highlighted a gap and
Speaker 3: internal handling of vulnerable customer scenarios. And one we deeply regret.
Speaker 3: I think they're referring to your father being vulnerable, but
Speaker 3: I think you felt pretty vulnerable to Nikki in the situation.
Speaker 3: I was told that immediate steps are being taken to
Speaker 3: make the necessary fixes. That's my summary of quite a
Speaker 3: long paragraph empty and claims to understand.
Speaker 1: Because sorry, I've got a problem with.
Speaker 3: You making people write to Retentions when they want to cancel,
Speaker 3: because that tells me and them that it's not going
Speaker 3: to be as simple sorry to see you go, thank
Speaker 3: you for your custom process, which would be the appropriately
Speaker 3: graceful way to let yourself describer go, but that it
Speaker 3: was going you were going to be bombarded with please
Speaker 3: stays in the form of this offer and that offer
Speaker 3: and all the rest. So they took my point and said,
Speaker 3: we understand your concern about the having to deal with
Speaker 3: a so called retentions team. Cancelation is indeed more intuitive
Speaker 3: and customer centric, and we are actively exploring how best
Speaker 3: evolve this naming. I mean, I would say just change
Speaker 3: it to cancelation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have to think about that one, you've
Speaker 2: already missed the.
Speaker 3: Has cancelations and I'm pretty sure at one point they
Speaker 3: also used to have retentions, so I'm not convinced that
Speaker 3: there will be much of a naming evolution because the
Speaker 3: company went on to say this is empty end that
Speaker 3: many customers who expressed the desire to cancel actually trying
Speaker 3: to resolve service issues, and when those are addressed, they
Speaker 3: choose to stay.
Speaker 1: But the retentions team.
Speaker 3: I was assured, is there to ensure that customers are
Speaker 3: fully informed and supported but not obstructed. I'm sure Litten
Speaker 3: is going to have something to say about that. The
Speaker 3: email box. This is something at least is managed. This
Speaker 3: is retentions directly by Empty n not third party sales teams,
Speaker 3: and we have strict quality controls to prevent undue pressure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Nikki, they've responded to Wendy, Have they got
Speaker 2: back to you. Has the contract actually now been canceled?
Speaker 2: Has that been communicated to you?
Speaker 4: No, No, one's actually communicated from Empty and directly with me.
Speaker 4: I'm checking my dad's bank statement. Yeah, so I will
Speaker 4: check it this month to make sure that I didn't
Speaker 4: actually know that they weren't going to impose the extra
Speaker 4: month penalty. So I've been yeah, I will check his
Speaker 4: bank statement, but I haven't had any response.
Speaker 3: It's not it's not a penalty. Sorry to jump, it's
Speaker 3: not a penalty. It's the notice period.
Speaker 2: They indicated they go to Rembicki for the exto months.
Speaker 1: They know they see.
Speaker 3: It's quite interesting, Nikki that everything you know has been
Speaker 3: is what you've heard Viro you.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that.
Speaker 3: I thought you'd been contacted directly, so that's not shocking.
Speaker 2: So even after so they've agreed to cancel it to you, Wendy,
Speaker 2: but they haven't actually come back to Niki to say
Speaker 2: we apologize firstly for what you've been through and you
Speaker 2: confirming we are going to cancel the contract. It actually
Speaker 2: hasn't happened in person to their customers still, which is
Speaker 2: just I'm sorry, that's sounds give me.
Speaker 4: I must say, there's a part of me that is
Speaker 4: wondering whether I'll be writing to Wendy to say, just
Speaker 4: come off my father's accounts again, because I haven't received anything.
Speaker 3: I should have interrogated that with no penalties. I think
Speaker 3: what it means though, is often there is a penalty
Speaker 3: to pay if you're in a contract and now you
Speaker 3: want to cancel early. But I think the notice period
Speaker 3: will apply so that don't be surprised if there's a
Speaker 3: last debit order of what was it two fifty eight
Speaker 3: or something in that region at the end of this month,
Speaker 3: that will be the last. And if it's not the last,
Speaker 3: and please let us know.
Speaker 2: Thank you just before we let you go. Nikki, I mean,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about I mean, how has this
Speaker 2: process made you feel about the experience at the MPTN.
Speaker 2: Because it's one thing to get a resolution in the
Speaker 2: end and have Wendy be able to tell you the
Speaker 2: contract is going to be canceled, But I mean the
Speaker 2: frustration that you've gone through, the amount of time you
Speaker 2: have wasted chasing all that. How you know, how are
Speaker 2: you feeling at this point?
Speaker 4: So I'm an I'm grateful that they've given Wendy this response,
Speaker 4: it's it hasn't left me with a good feeling. I haven't.
Speaker 4: I don't feel positive. I certainly won't take art and
Speaker 4: MT and contract myself right now, you know, just because
Speaker 4: I feel like the whole situation, I don't feel like
Speaker 4: I think it was a complete lack of response. I
Speaker 4: really do understand that people don't want to just cancel
Speaker 4: a contract with a third you know, party, person. But
Speaker 4: you know, I was willing to do whatever they needed
Speaker 4: to give the proof that I'm my dad's daughter, and
Speaker 4: you know that he's ill and unable, and I think,
Speaker 4: you know the silence after that, really it left me
Speaker 4: so unbelievably frustrated. I didn't know what to do. I thought,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be paying this until I can supply
Speaker 4: a death certificate, obviously, which I'm terrible, but it just
Speaker 4: it was just I felt so I thought, I she's
Speaker 4: vulnerable as the word. I felt like this is a
Speaker 4: big company. They should have a system in place. I'm
Speaker 4: sure I'm not the first person who's got a father
Speaker 4: who's got Alzheimers can't actually act on his own path.
Speaker 4: You know, if someone is ill with another illness, surely
Speaker 4: they have some system in place. So I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 4: the gobsmacked.
Speaker 2: To be honest, Nicky, I'm so sorry you've had this
Speaker 2: terrible run around, but thank you so much for being
Speaker 2: willing to join us on air to share the experience
Speaker 2: with us today and really, fingers crossed, toes crossed and
Speaker 2: everything else that I canceled cross hoping that it is resolved.
Speaker 2: You're not alone. Interestingly, Jay's written in saying I had
Speaker 2: a very similar situation a few years ago. After weeks
Speaker 2: of the same kind of red tape that NICKI has had,
Speaker 2: I eventually rang back and just said I was the
Speaker 2: other person and they canceled the contract for me. And
Speaker 2: I mean that, I mean that's at impersonating somebody else
Speaker 2: on lying, which is you know, obviously not something that
Speaker 2: we endorse or condone, but you can understand how how
Speaker 2: you got there. Elsan's saying, my husband has been trying
Speaker 2: to kind of cancel his empty and contract for six
Speaker 2: months and has now given up.
Speaker 1: I'm shocking.
Speaker 3: It's so let me just share with our listeners for
Speaker 3: the record. According to empty in, this is how you
Speaker 3: go about canceling contract for somebody who is, as they
Speaker 3: put it, incapacitated. So you've got to email went further
Speaker 3: notice retentions at emptn dot com. You've got to include
Speaker 3: a certified copy of the account holder's ID, medical proof
Speaker 3: of their incapacity, proof of your relationship and AFFIDAVID or
Speaker 3: birth certificate in the case of children of the account holder,
Speaker 3: and then your contact details.
Speaker 2: Okay, and it's still as skillful now to retentions at
Speaker 2: empty dot com. Well, we have a bother comcase to
Speaker 2: share after the eyewitness news and some more listener feedback
Speaker 2: as well. Join the conversation. Join the conversation with Kep
Speaker 2: talk well before we go onto the Vodicom case. Another
Speaker 2: unhappy MPTN customer. Listen to this. Jeremy writes, I contacted
Speaker 2: MTN on the thirty first of October twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: to request that my contract be canceled on the thirtieth
Speaker 2: of November, in other words, giving them the required notice
Speaker 2: of a calendar months. They told me I could only
Speaker 2: cancel after the expiry date, so effectively charged me for
Speaker 2: another month. This is an unethical business practice. I will
Speaker 2: never support the company again, says Jeremy.
Speaker 3: I've had a case like that before, one or two
Speaker 3: and I take it up and they go, no, it's nonsense,
Speaker 3: we'll we'll deal with the call center agent.
Speaker 1: I mean, what nonsense is that?
Speaker 3: And the other thing I want to talk about is
Speaker 3: that I've had cases where the self phone company has
Speaker 3: prescribed to the person on the way that they should cancel.
Speaker 3: So they've said, no, we only accept cancelations on the phone,
Speaker 3: or no you can't, you can't phone as send us
Speaker 3: an email. The Consumer Protection Access only that you must
Speaker 3: give a month's notice in some recordable form. So as
Speaker 3: long as the call centered was their call center, and
Speaker 3: as long as that email address was valid email address
Speaker 3: within the company, it stands in some affordable, recordable form. Right,
Speaker 3: So this and I've taken up those cases. Of course
Speaker 3: at the top level they so, no, that's that's not correct. Yes, no,
Speaker 3: we follow the we we comply with the c P
Speaker 3: A blah blah.
Speaker 1: But actually the lived.
Speaker 3: Experience of people is this sort of nonsense. You must
Speaker 3: go people. Actually that case was a cel C case.
Speaker 3: I think, no, you must you've only that's right. The
Speaker 3: bandanas is now coming back to me. You have to
Speaker 3: cancel on a particular day. You have to do it
Speaker 3: on the first otherwise you kind of do what a
Speaker 3: lot of it's this never letting go, bizarre kind of
Speaker 3: antics that that happened. So no, I think they're hoping
Speaker 3: that you will forget to go back and cancel and
Speaker 3: now buy another month or two of subscriptions from you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we have a second case study today. And
Speaker 2: NICKI wasn't the only one at grappling with the cancelations problem,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't only empty, and we also heard it
Speaker 2: around about the same time from Yvonne Meyer having similar
Speaker 2: difficulty canceling a Voticom contract.
Speaker 3: Sure, so it wasn't anything to do with incapacitation. She
Speaker 3: was actually on behalf of herself, so NICKI he is sorry. Yvonne,
Speaker 3: who is seventy she left South Africa two years ago
Speaker 3: November twenty twenty three, to live with her daughter in Ireland,
Speaker 3: and she kept a contract going. It was due to
Speaker 3: expire or end in February of twenty twenty four, so
Speaker 3: she says, I know many well sorry. She cleverly because
Speaker 3: a lot of people assume that their contracts, as I
Speaker 3: said earlier, automatically fall away. She made a note and
Speaker 3: in the January she sent them. She phoned call center
Speaker 3: and said, I give notice to cancel, so my last
Speaker 3: subscription should be in February, but she said they still
Speaker 3: build her for March in April twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 3: when she didn't pay, they handed it over to dead collectors.
Speaker 3: She had at that point been a customer of Verticoms
Speaker 3: for thirty years, so you can imagine how well this
Speaker 3: went on when she'd been so scrupulous in remembering to
Speaker 3: give the notice and you know, to everything properly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to be so the instruction was not followed. She's
Speaker 2: not only built incorrectly, she's then I mean the indignity
Speaker 2: of being handed over to debt collectors, which obviously is
Speaker 2: a huge concern for people that impacts your credit record.
Speaker 2: The knock on impact to that kind of stuff is huge.
Speaker 3: She said in her email to me, I write Verticom
Speaker 3: every month, and I explained that I gave proper notice
Speaker 3: of cancelation and my February twenty twenty four payment should
Speaker 3: have been my final one.
Speaker 1: I've told them to go back and.
Speaker 3: Listen to the recording. And this is the other thing
Speaker 3: we've spoke about, trying to that recording stanzas proof of
Speaker 3: what was said or wasn't said then, but now you
Speaker 3: need it as the You don't have your own recording,
Speaker 3: which is why I say always make your own recording.
Speaker 3: And now you have a dispute and you just can't
Speaker 3: get through to them around just call the recording up
Speaker 3: it or prove what I'm saying, and you.
Speaker 2: Just get coosted.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so bottom line was more than a year later,
Speaker 3: she's still blacknestant and still being held responsible for the
Speaker 3: unjustified debt. She said, I just need them to close
Speaker 3: my account and stop hounding me for money. Their call
Speaker 3: center messed up, she said, So.
Speaker 2: What happened when you contacted votcom.
Speaker 3: So I put it to them that firstly, maybe you know,
Speaker 3: this is a hot point for me because a I'm
Speaker 3: getting older and be you know, my parents and my friends'
Speaker 3: parents are in this situation where they, you know, are
Speaker 3: less and less able to handle their own affairs. So
Speaker 3: I put it to them that older folk, who have
Speaker 3: always paid their dues, for them to suddenly be accused
Speaker 3: of owing money that they don't actually own is massively stressful.
Speaker 1: So it's not just an impact.
Speaker 3: It doesn't just impact them financially, but emotionally as well.
Speaker 1: It is real trauma for them. It deeply unsettles.
Speaker 2: Them, not just older people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think to some extent they feel more
Speaker 3: vulnerable around it, you know. So again, in this case,
Speaker 3: I got a very swift response from Vertocom, and Yvonne
Speaker 3: got almost instant justice. In fact, more than she thought
Speaker 3: that she was entitled to. The response from Verticom was
Speaker 3: we acknowledge that Yvonne did indeed contact a Vertcom call
Speaker 3: center to cancel her contract. We've also listened to the
Speaker 3: recordings and we can confirm that the agent did not
Speaker 3: follow the required process. So we have taken appropriate action,
Speaker 3: lots of action after the fact after I get involved.
Speaker 3: So her contract was never canceled, which and it now is.
Speaker 3: And I think there were there was must have been
Speaker 3: some more successful debits that happened that perhaps Yvonne wasn't
Speaker 3: even aware of. But she's going to get everything that
Speaker 3: was paid that went to Votercom in respect this contract
Speaker 3: after the end of February last year.
Speaker 2: They're going to reimburse her for those extra.
Speaker 3: Emit, yes, and they're going to well, they requested that
Speaker 3: her payment profile be updated on credit bureau because now
Speaker 3: she's blacklisted as a non pair.
Speaker 2: Okay, so her credits record is the money is being refunded,
Speaker 2: so obviously a great result. Yes, But I mean, as
Speaker 2: you've said now before, the issue here Wendy is neither
Speaker 2: Ivon nor Nicky should have had to go to the
Speaker 2: kind of lengths of coming to the media to get
Speaker 2: the simplest of instructions. I'm issuing you with notice of cancelation,
Speaker 2: please action. It end up story. There should be a
Speaker 2: very bog standard customer has requested cancelation time boom boom
Speaker 2: boom happens exactly, and it's not happening as they get
Speaker 2: you hooked up exactly. So it's it's it's just it's
Speaker 2: unconscionable that that that that consumers have got to jump
Speaker 2: through all of these hoops and then still have to
Speaker 2: end up coming to you to try and sort it out.
Speaker 2: And just to prove the point, we got another case
Speaker 2: just this morning.
Speaker 1: Rob he says.
Speaker 3: He said he had the experience of trying to cancel
Speaker 3: his elderly parents' Votocom contracts.
Speaker 1: He says, absolutely exhausting, exhausting. They are like dogs with bothes.
Speaker 3: No matter how many times you tell them you just
Speaker 3: want to cancel, they have a million spills about special
Speaker 3: offers and free incentives and you're a special platinum customer.
Speaker 3: One feels for the poor people in the call centers,
Speaker 3: as I believe they are measured on how many cancelations
Speaker 3: they prevent. And my question is companies really need to
Speaker 3: learn to let their customers go with efficiency and grace
Speaker 3: because you know what, there's not a lot of competition
Speaker 3: in some of these markets, and you might want to
Speaker 3: come back one day, but you're going to have this raw,
Speaker 3: horrible memory of how you were treated, and that might
Speaker 3: just be a limiting factor. You might just decide to
Speaker 3: stay where you are, even if there's a better deal
Speaker 3: to be had, because you can't bear to have to have.
Speaker 2: To deal with that department again. Yeah, here's another example
Speaker 2: of the kind of nonsense that gets set. I mean,
Speaker 2: listen to Abdul I retired and wanted to move from
Speaker 2: a Votericon vip read to a lower priced contract. Retentions
Speaker 2: inform me they cannot do it. I have to go
Speaker 2: in person to the Vodicon shop and canal walk. What's funny,
Speaker 2: I've just says, I refuse to go to a shop.
Speaker 2: Why when I'm able to move to a higher contract
Speaker 2: via attentions, why should I have to go to a
Speaker 2: shop to move to a lower contract.
Speaker 3: Very, very good point. It's just laughable. Really, it is laughable.
Speaker 3: So everything with it that that involves you getting committed
Speaker 3: to them or committing to pay them more is easily done.
Speaker 3: Downgrading your contract or getting out altogether.
Speaker 2: We'll put every obstacle way. Yeah, we've got a couple
Speaker 2: of voice notes that have come through. Let's take a
Speaker 2: listen to one of those, and remember you can carry
Speaker 2: on sending WhatsApps to O seven two five six seven
Speaker 2: one five six seven.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks for a very very good topic just today.
Speaker 5: I think these companies are disgusting. I think Nikki's description
Speaker 5: of the word vulnerable is very apt, and I think
Speaker 5: one needs to think very caft before taking a contract.
Speaker 5: We kept my dad on pay as you go, thank goodness,
Speaker 5: because a he has neither a computer nor a smartphone,
Speaker 5: and we were trying, they trying to pressure us into
Speaker 5: a contract, and I kept him on a pay as
Speaker 5: you go. And when my contract is up, it's a
Speaker 5: serious consideration because the way these people act is absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Another voice note in from Larry, I
Speaker 2: think can we take listen to that.
Speaker 6: I had a very similar experience with vodocram. My dad
Speaker 6: died on the eighth of June twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 6: ever since then, I've been struggling to cancel his agreement,
Speaker 6: his contract. And then the thing is that's really strange
Speaker 6: is that I paid on a monthly basis. I could
Speaker 6: see what was coming off. So when I eventually when
Speaker 6: I phoned them, and I've firll spoke to so many
Speaker 6: people and they couldn't help, and they couldn't help anything.
Speaker 6: Go back to attention and you couldn't get it done
Speaker 6: by a branch, but you just couldn't get hold of
Speaker 6: the right people. So when I eventually got to the person,
Speaker 6: is actually pretty rude because you just get to that
Speaker 6: point where you actually say, just damn it, I just
Speaker 6: want to get out of here and do it, and
Speaker 6: they said, okay, well it'll happen now. Then you get
Speaker 6: to say semes that comes and says okay, well, thank
Speaker 6: you very much, or an email whatever it was to say, right,
Speaker 6: you'll be receiving a message shortly just confirming the cancelation.
Speaker 6: Well guess what to this day and it's probably about
Speaker 6: two years later, I still don't have that message. So
Speaker 6: I just understand the frustration and my people just give up.
Speaker 6: I think it's criminal one and I just we just
Speaker 6: know that these institutions just don't want to do it,
Speaker 6: and that's flat true.
Speaker 2: One mont to thank you, I'm so sorry you've been
Speaker 2: through that. So as Evan writing, my father died and
Speaker 2: empty and still send him an account more than two
Speaker 2: years later, he wasn't even tied into a contract. I
Speaker 2: will never use empty and personally or for my business,
Speaker 2: as you said, Wendy's that's the point people get to.
Speaker 2: They just went go, I'm walking away, and I will
Speaker 2: never do business with this company again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking I'm to get my mom into a pace.
Speaker 2: You go, Yeah, I mean I've been on one for
Speaker 2: a long time now, because I just simply took the
Speaker 2: decision that I will never take out another contract with MTN.
Speaker 2: But I know it's going to be no better anywhere else,
Speaker 2: so I'll just go the pay as you go route
Speaker 2: for the rest of my life, I think. Peter says.
Speaker 2: We also tried to cancel a Votcom contract. I recorded
Speaker 2: the conversation, and after two years, when they again phoned me,
Speaker 2: I simply sent the copy of that recording to Votercom.
Speaker 2: They did eventually cancel the contract and clear my credit record.
Speaker 2: So that's a smart to Peter to record it yourself,
Speaker 2: because you're going to have a run around to try
Speaker 2: and get the recording out of them. Wendy.
Speaker 3: The other thing is when people cancel retailer accounts, it
Speaker 3: is so hard to get them to supply you a
Speaker 3: letter that says the count is canceled and it was
Speaker 3: fully paid up and is now canceled. I went through
Speaker 3: this exercise myself years ago, back in the days when
Speaker 3: I used to get a Christmas bonus, and I used
Speaker 3: it to close a lot of the re some of
Speaker 3: them had opened as a consumer research exercise, and I
Speaker 3: did it on a personal level, and I also did
Speaker 3: it to document and share my experience as a consumer journalist.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: To get those letters, to get them to it's it's
Speaker 3: ridiculous because if they come at you afterwards, years later
Speaker 3: and claim that you owed money, you don't have that
Speaker 3: letter to.
Speaker 2: Say, yes, yours, I've given you that.
Speaker 1: I've never back down, no matter how hard.
Speaker 3: They make it, no matter how many times your ghosted.
Speaker 3: Just keep on until you get that letter.
Speaker 2: Your talk WhatsApp on O seven to five six seven
Speaker 2: one five six seven right, several people asking how to
Speaker 2: cancel with votcom Wendy, So you gave us the information
Speaker 2: for MTN as that retentions email address. Where do you
Speaker 2: go if you want to cancel with voterko.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you can go into a store. And the
Speaker 3: same applies for empty inn which if you've got the time,
Speaker 3: you've got to walk away with a piece of paper
Speaker 3: saying you canceled, right, So that's that's the laborious way
Speaker 3: of doing it. Their cancelation department is zero A two
Speaker 3: one nine five eight two for Protocom nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 3: Easy to remember if you're born in that year. I
Speaker 3: would say, if you're doing it over the phone, follow
Speaker 3: our listener's advice. It's very easy to download one of
Speaker 3: those apps that allows you to record your conversations and
Speaker 3: definitely record and save that particular conversation and get into
Speaker 3: the habit of doing making call recordings for contractual conversations
Speaker 3: as a sort of default thing that you do because
Speaker 3: it will save you a lot of drop drop.
Speaker 2: Several people also asking other than coming to Wendy to
Speaker 2: take her O case, and you can't just emphasize again,
Speaker 2: Wendy can't take up every one of these cases. You
Speaker 2: would be doing nothing else seven days a week if
Speaker 2: she did. Is there a watchdog? What should be about on?
Speaker 2: But to complain to whill you go?
Speaker 1: So if it's a.
Speaker 3: Technical issue, I would say you can go to CASA.
Speaker 3: But if it's a service issue such as this, you're
Speaker 3: trying to cancel a fixed term contract that defaults under
Speaker 3: the Consumer Protection Act, and then so your avenue would
Speaker 3: be the consumer goods and Services on.
Speaker 2: Board Consumer goods and Services. Okay, thank you for that, Sheila.
Speaker 2: Listen to this one. She says, I lost my phone
Speaker 2: in early October. I took out a contract which included
Speaker 2: a new phone the next day. I hadn't been keen
Speaker 2: to take out another contract for a new one, but
Speaker 2: I was persuaded it was a good idea. Over the
Speaker 2: next few days, I thought about it and decided it
Speaker 2: hadn't been a good idea, and that I should buy
Speaker 2: the phone outright and cancel the three year contract i'd
Speaker 2: taken art. I thought to use the seven day buyer's
Speaker 2: remorse when I asked them to cancel the contract, and
Speaker 2: this was by now six days after she had taken sorry,
Speaker 2: five days after she'd taken it out. They're willing to
Speaker 2: cancel the contract, but there are a number of extra costs.
Speaker 2: I feel I should only be paying for the phone,
Speaker 2: but there are also extras, such as for this cancelation. Short,
Speaker 2: to cut a long story short, the cancelation is going
Speaker 2: to cost her an extra six hundred and twenty rand
Speaker 2: and Vodacom tells me there is no such thing as
Speaker 2: seven day by remorse as far as phone contracts are.
Speaker 3: Concerned, unless she took it out over the phone.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I think she just confused
Speaker 2: what applies to an online sale versus an in person.
Speaker 3: So what online sale? It must be a direct marketing sale.
Speaker 3: So they called you up out of the blue to
Speaker 3: say you quit for an upgrade of whatever terminolnergy they
Speaker 3: want to use. But in other words, they initiated the
Speaker 3: transaction as opposed to you initiating it by either making
Speaker 3: the call yourself or walking into a store of your
Speaker 3: own free will and at your time of your.
Speaker 1: Choosing to do it.
Speaker 3: So if you went into a store and did it,
Speaker 3: they didn't have to actually cancel it at all.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they are right in saying, okay, So.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised it's only six hundred rand. Frankly, I'm not
Speaker 3: saying it's fair, but I'm saying legally, they could have
Speaker 3: just said.
Speaker 1: Sorry for you.
Speaker 2: You're liable for the whole contract that you signed up for. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as seven day by is remourse
Speaker 2: on phone contracts. Again, that wouldn't be true if Vodacom
Speaker 2: had called her and say, hey, we're offering a special
Speaker 2: do you want to take to if it would be onlin.
Speaker 3: Line sorry no, if they'd sorry not online, if they
Speaker 3: had phone two yes, if they had being direct marketing,
Speaker 3: so they initiated it. She was going about her business,
Speaker 3: got this call and as a result of the sales call,
Speaker 3: thought okay, yes, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: It's five business days, so effectively a week in most weeks.
Speaker 1: Just cancel it and you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they're not they're not strictly correct in saying
Speaker 2: it doesn't apply to phone now. Very does apply if
Speaker 2: it's through direct marketing. But Sheila, unfortunately you initiated this,
Speaker 2: this this purchase and this contract. You went to them
Speaker 2: saying I've lost my phone. I need a new one
Speaker 2: and a new contract to go with its. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 2: doesn't apply. They are right in saying it doesn't apply
Speaker 2: in this circumstance, but it's fudging the truth to say
Speaker 2: it never applies to phone contracts. That is not the case. Okay,
Speaker 2: there's another voice note that's come in and it's not
Speaker 2: a cell phone, but it's a similar issue to this
Speaker 2: difficulty of canceling. And I think we all know where
Speaker 2: it's going next. But let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: Windy and prepared canceling contracts. My mom died eight years ago.
Speaker 7: I canceled her TV license, gave them the dats to figure,
Speaker 7: went in myself to hand in all the documents, and
Speaker 7: they keep sending me notices that Mom's TV licenses over
Speaker 7: you and I'm going to bed and she's going to
Speaker 7: be handed over. She owns examount. I just ignore it.
Speaker 7: But it's eight years. What a waste of somebody's time.
Speaker 1: Being built to this NBC by the lawyer.
Speaker 2: Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, all right, So
Speaker 2: just to sort of circle back and summarize, if you
Speaker 2: are going to cancel retentions, is the department to quit
Speaker 2: n VOTERICOM has that that that owe it to ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Let them tell you.
Speaker 3: I would say, even if you do it over the phone,
Speaker 3: make you in recording and then say I want to
Speaker 3: actually have a record of this, to which email addresses us,
Speaker 3: I send my cancelation notice, and then you've got it
Speaker 3: on the recording as well, and then you send it.
Speaker 3: It's worth an extra sort of double process. So that
Speaker 3: they come after you.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 2: You've got a written proof vastly predicted. That's very good advice, Wendy,
Speaker 2: thank you for that. Okay, do you talk?
Speaker 5: Consume it talk email Wendy on consumer at Lola dot
Speaker 5: seal don't today.
Speaker 2: I like this comment from Jenny. She says, if the
Speaker 2: person has already died and the estate is wrapped up,
Speaker 2: let them pursue it. That's what I did with telcom
Speaker 2: af my mom died. They mailed me with threats and
Speaker 2: I told them to sue her. Then they wouldn't have
Speaker 2: had much like with that way. Jenny, thank you very quickly. Wendy.
Speaker 2: An interesting follow up from last week's show that I
Speaker 2: wanted to share with you and get a view on
Speaker 2: lorna mailing. After our chat about clothing labels and if
Speaker 2: you missed last week's show, we answered a listener question
Speaker 2: and confirmed emphatically that clothing is meant to contain a label,
Speaker 2: and amongst the things that you expect to see, like
Speaker 2: the composition of the fabric and the care instructions, that
Speaker 2: label should also reflect the country of manufacture. Now, Laura
Speaker 2: regularly shops, she says, at ap Jones department store in fishuok.
Speaker 2: And she says over the years she has from time
Speaker 2: to time encountered items which had no label inserts at all,
Speaker 2: not just no country of origin, but not even a
Speaker 2: note on the care instructions or the fabric composition. And
Speaker 2: she says in the past, when she's queried it, she
Speaker 2: was told it's the supplier at fault. On her most
Speaker 2: recent expedition there she encountered the same issue again. She
Speaker 2: raised it with one of the owners and the same story.
Speaker 2: They said to her, we have asked the supplier to
Speaker 2: put the label in, but they just ignore our request
Speaker 2: for them to put a label in. And Laura says,
Speaker 2: is that good enough? In this case? She voted with
Speaker 2: her wallet. She said, she put the two items back
Speaker 2: on the rack and walked out without buying them. But
Speaker 2: her question is is it good enough for the retailer
Speaker 2: to say it's the supplier's fault. They're not there. Surely
Speaker 2: that levial obligation in some way exists for the retailer
Speaker 2: as well as the manufacturer.
Speaker 3: It's the whole supply chain. But you give your money
Speaker 3: to the retailer and so they are responsible for ensuring
Speaker 3: that their uplin is complying with the CPA. So it's
Speaker 3: not enough to shrug your shoulders and say, oh, let's
Speaker 3: our supplier. You've got to ensure that you choose suppliers
Speaker 3: that are going to comply with the presiding legislation and.
Speaker 2: Hop out, and if they're not, you've got to tell
Speaker 2: them we're not going to engage with you at work
Speaker 2: with you if you cannot fulfill the legal obligations, because
Speaker 2: we're then legally libel. Surely that's the correct response, not
Speaker 2: just please put it in. It's please put it in,
Speaker 2: and if you won't, we won't do business with you.
Speaker 3: Their reputation at stake because the most consumers won't be
Speaker 3: able to engage with the supplier. They engage with the retailer,
Speaker 3: they hand the money to the retailer. So's that's an
Speaker 3: unfortunate and disappointing response.
Speaker 2: Okay, thanks for that and thank you very much. Was
Speaker 2: a lorna for flag yet with us, Wendy, as always,
Speaker 2: thanks for all the hard work on behalf of our listeners,
Speaker 2: and we'll chaut again next week Wednesday. You can always
Speaker 2: reach out to Wendy on her website. Wendy Nola dot
Speaker 2: co doted on tomorrow's show, we'll find out about a
Speaker 2: new NGO dedicated to promoting the arts in South Africa.
Speaker 2: We'll spend some time in the garden with the team
Speaker 2: from Fakelerchen, and we'll bring you our quarterly pet care special.
Speaker 2: And our was Doctor amir Anwarin on Prime Media Class
Speaker 2: on DStv channel eight eight five and across the city.