Clear Business - demanding £600 from a pensioner in her 90s

[Tangerine Beret]

I am writing this on behalf of an elderly relative, a lady in her 90s, my partner's mother who is living alone in sheltered accommodation.

 

Somehow, several years ago, she found herself with a phone/broadband contract with a company called Clear Business

Clear Business: Cost-effective Business Services for SMEs

WWW.CLEARBUSINESS.CO.UK

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Clear Business provides business services for UK SMEs, with cost effective essential Business Services, including Water, Energy and Telecoms.

 

My partner tried to contact the company to get the internet sorted out but to cut a long part of the story short, they didn't fix it. My partner told the company that if they didn't sort it out, she was going to migrate to another provider. It wasn't fixed so the phone and broadband service were migrated to Plusnet - less than half the monthly charge, I might add.

 

Now the company is demanding payment of £600 (£300 for phone and £300 for broadband) for early termination of the contract - kind of ironic that their website claim to provide all services for 'one low cost bill' and the company seem to provide utility packages for businesses - so how have they ended up providing telephone and broadband to a lady in her 90s in a single bedroomed sheltered apartment for more than twice the market rate for domestic users. I can only imagine that she was cold called and taken advantage of.

 

I left a review on TrustPilot reflecting what has happened and it seemed to create a bit of attention as there seemed to be some attempt to resolve the matter but since then, they have been phoning her and causing distress. My partner is doing her best to deal with it all.

 

I just looked at the TrustPilot reviews and they don't really make any sense, customers are either leaving one star reviews or five star reviews with very little in between and all the five star reviews have started to make me think that they may be fake - they all mention somebody's first name. Most have only ever left one review and those which have left more all seem to have left the same kind of review, e.g. 'Spoke with Robert this morning, he was great. Very helpful.'

 

I get angry when I get bad customer service but when I see somebody vulnerable get treated like this I get furious.

[dx100uk]

ignore them

nothing they can do.

 

 

[Tangerine Beret]

It isn't my partner or me that is getting harassed, though, it is my partner's mother. She is getting a call or more every week.

[dx100uk]

has she not got a call blocker on her phone?

 

or buy her a truecall box best £100 i ever got 15yrs ago!

 

might be an idea at her age for everything, then she wont get one scam caller either and you can totally take control of  her line remotely.

 

if not get her to sign a letter giving you total power to deal with clear business and deal with them.

 

the fca are very firm that charges till end of contract are not fair when the service was never usable in the first place neither was the consumer using the service till the end of the contract.

 

 

[Tangerine Beret]

I'll pass that all on, thanks.

 

I think the Amazon link you posted might be wrong, I got a microphone that looks like earbuds. I bought BT phones with call blocking for myself as I was getting about three weird calls a week but there were hardly any calls registered in the call list after that, I think my number must have only been on a dial list for a short while. I think it might be a little complicated for her, though.

[dx100uk]

ok yes

 

just search for truecall box on line brilliant device for pensioners kills everything but once you list all her friends numbers is totally transparent.

 

she wont need to configure anything you'll be controlling it via the control panel on line.

 

get that letter signed by her and deal with this debt for her..

 

SAR is the 1st port of call to CB

get all the paperwork.

 

dx

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Yes, send them an SAR. This is an essential first step. It will be interesting to know the history of the setting up of this service. I can imagine that it was done on a cold call and that your mother-in-law didn't know what was going on but was simply sweet talked into some deal which she didn't understand.

You're right to be very suspicious of these reviews. I'm sure that your suspicions are well-founded.

Apart from anything else, this company – Clear Business – are meant to be provided to businesses and not to private individuals. They have stepped out of their domain.

Send the SAR. Ineffably separate letter – send them a recorded delivery letter telling them that they are not to make any further telephone calls because these are causing stress and they are considered to be harassing. Tell them that all calls now are being logged and that after this letter, any recurrences will be reported to the communications regulator. All for the communications must be in writing.

In the meantime make sure that you have sent the SAR separately and then let us know what happens.
It seems to me that the easy thing to do here would be to get your mother-in-law to sign a Power of Attorney in respect of this matter so that you can take complete control of it and deal with it on her behalf and she won't be troubled.