'Full of lies' [4 July 1998]
A subscriber sent me an outrageous letter from CWC Customer Services. I have, up to now, deliberately avoided using the L-word, but CWC's misrepresentation of what the misbilling actually means could not be greater. My correspondent, rightly, described the letter as 'full of lies':
I can confirm having credited your account with £X as a gesture of goodwill.
Cable & Wireless do not offer 'cheap' evening or weekend rates during Bank Holidays' daytime period. BT has an identical policy. Please be assured however that you will be informed prior to any Bank Holidays if we plan to run any special promotions.
Free local calls are still available to customers on some of our older ex-Videotron packages during Bank Holidays. However, on Easter Monday they were not offered in line with Cable & Wireless policy as above. This was subsequently reinstated to honour our statement to customers on the older packages that we have no current plans to remove free Local Calls.
Any refunds to customers were done as gestures of goodwill. All Cable & Wireless charges are filed with Oftel and they make no promise of cheap or
free calls on bank Holidays.
I'm sorry, but it's nothing to do with CWC's other customers, gestures of goodwill or honouring statements (and, for 'some of our older', read 'all').
For several years ex-Videotron customers had off-peak call charges levied on all eight bank holidays (as opposed to Mercury customers, whose pricing structures CWC largely took on board, who had off-peak rates on only three bank holidays). That charging, explicitly stated as such on Videotron tariff sheets, is part of the Videotron contract; all Videotron contracts I know of define charging in terms of what the most recent tariff sheet says.
So CWC are obliged to refund ex-Videotron customers who were misbilled on Good Friday and Easter Monday: not doing so is at least a breach of contract. There's nothing voluntary or optional about making a refund in this situation.
Of course, CWC are far from being the first company to represent what they
have to do as being something they don't have to do but are doing out of the kindness of their hearts...
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