Milk & More as advertised in the title above is a new upgraded milk delivery service to your front door from the Dairy Crest group. As well as proving a traditional daily milk delivery service, they also claim that they can also deliver a selection of over 250 essentials to your door including both food and drink products. The Milk & More service has not only replaced the previously named Dairy Crest milk delivery service, but it has also replaced milk delivery services from Express Dairies, United Dairies, the Co-op and Unigate which are also part of the Dairy Crest Group. Milk & More cover a large amount of the UK, in fact in many areas they have taken over as a monopoly which means some people are either forced to use them or not have a doorstep milk delivery service at all.

Now if Milk & More provided any sort of reasonable service and if they kept to their promises it would be in theory much better than the traditional milk delivery service that it’s replaced. Unfortunately from personal experience they couldn’t have possibly provided a worse service in my case, in fact it’s been so awful that they’ve caused me nothing but stress and inconvenience to the extent that I just had to write this article to warn other people and in the hope that Milk & More eventually improve their service. Even though my experience of Milk & More has been utterly abysmal to the extreme, it doesn’t mean that other people may experience similar, there are also likely to be many satisfied customers in different parts of the UK and I’ve even read of a few praises, although it is also a fact that Milk & More have more than their fair share of complaints throughout the Internet at the time of writing, just search online for “Milk & More complaints” for numerous horror stories.

Milk & More – My Personal Experience: (Utterly abysmal!)

Firstly you may want to see Milk & More’s recent TV advert at the time of writing, obviously everything sounds brilliant:

After watching Milk & More’s above TV advert which is still being shown at the time of writing in late May 2011 and also after seeing their excellent free £10 offer to new customers, I decided to sign up and place my first order. Their website initially all looked very good and I was given my local milkman’s name stating that he delivers to my area Monday to Friday. Out of the advertised 250+ daily essentials, there is quite a reasonable selection of goods which can be ordered on-line, some products cost a bit more than in the shops, although this is expected when it’s delivered to your door, saying that there was even quite a few decent offers at the time of ordering. According to Milk & More’s TV advert, you can order up to 9pm for your order to arrive the following working day to your door and this also seemed to be the case when choosing a delivery date for my first order. Since it was my very first order however, I thought it better to give Milk & More an extra day to deliver to make sure it arrives on time since I was ordering at about 7.30pm, even though it was officially still comfortably within time for a next day delivery. My first order came close to £20 and I ordered quite a selection of goods including milk products and fruit juices, but with £10 free it only came to an extremely reasonable £10. I really looked forward to my delivery as promised and assuming it all went well I would have become a regular customer, but unfortunately when the delivery date came everything started going terribly wrong.

If my £20 food and drink order was simply left on my doorstep it could easy be stolen, especially since I live on the ground floor in a low rise flat complex with various people often coming close to my doorstep every day, so I stayed in all day waiting for my delivery on my chosen delivery date, hoping to meet my milkman for the first time to get a better idea of future delivery times. It started getting very late and there was still no sign of my milkman so I called Milk & More to find out what was going on before their office closed. After lots of phoning around, speaking to different people including my local distribution centre, I was given the poor excuse that they couldn’t deliver because my local milkman was off on leave. With any reasonable milk delivery service, when a milk person is off on leave, another milk person automatically takes over or the extra work is shared equally to neighbouring milk people. Customers are never normally simply left without anyone bothering to turn up at all on the promised delivery date, so I thought this was a really pathetic excuse for not delivering. After lots more phoning, speaking to different people who didn’t or wouldn’t help, I finally got to speak to a manager. She carefully retook my order over the phone and personally assured me of a delivery on the following day with her apologies which on this occasion I accepted. The following day I again stayed in specially waiting for the order to arrive, but there was still no sign of a milk person. Again I called and spent ages on the phone trying to speak to someone who could help including my local distribution centre who claimed they didn’t even have an order for myself even though it was clearly written in front of me after logging into their website. Eventually I got through to someone to have my order taken yet again and I was assured yet again of a delivery on the following day, but yet again I stayed in specially for no sign of a milk person and yet another broken promise. This amazingly went on for over a week with various pathetic excuses for not delivering each day, even though my local milkman had long returned from his apparent leave. By now I had completely run out of patience with Milk & More repeatedly breaking their promises to deliver each day. So much for not having to run out to the shops for my daily essentials and for the little store that comes to your door as they so clearly advertise. In fact it didn’t matter who I spoke to at Milk & More, they appeared to be totally incapable of making one single delivery to my address and I didn’t want to inconveniently stay in any more for yet another false promise of delivery. I therefore finally gave up and cancelled my order by finally speaking to a manager after more phoning around, being put through to different people. At least the manager apologised for my awful experience with Milk & More and she assured me that the account was most certainly closed and that the order was cancelled. Despite receiving an utterly abysmal service (well no service what-so-ever), I still managed to stay polite at all times over the phone, even when sometimes Milk & More were less than polite to myself, mainly when speaking to my local distribution centre.

Now you might think that after cancelling my order and my account that this is the end of the story – well wrong, amazingly Milk & More’s sheer incompetence to manage to do anything right or as promised didn’t stop here. A couple of days after cancelling I had an unexpected phone call from a Milk & More milkman that was apparently lost trying to delivery to my address. I politely explained that after over a week of failed deliveries I had cancelled my account including the order a couple of days ago, but the milkman then became very rude and aggressive over the phone, threatening to charge me for the order anyway if I refused it as if it was my fault for Milk & More’s sheer incompetence. I told him to do what-ever he wanted so I could get him off the phone without getting into an unwanted argument. Okay, I can understand the milkman’s frustration at being told to deliver a cancelled order, especially since he may be self employed working under the Milk & More name, but he unfairly took it out on the customer when he should be complaining to Milk & More management instead. Luckily I took the precaution of cancelling my direct debit to Milk & More straight after cancelling as a couple of weeks later they incredibly attempted to take unauthorised money from my bank account for the cancelled order that I did not receive. I logged into Milk & More’s on-line system to see that my account was showing up in red because it was in debit, plus it was suspended pending a failed payment. I obviously called Milk & More again and I politely explained that I had cancelled the order previously and that I don’t owe them anything since I hadn’t received anything from them, but the operator then became extremely rude and said that they’d had enough of me, complaining that I had been previously rude to them over the phone which is very untrue (I challenge Milk & More to listen to their recorded conversations from my phone number if they want proof). I now strongly suspect that the very rude and angry milkman who attempted to deliver my previously cancelled order had black listed my name on their system as a problem customer, even though he was certainly the one who was rude while I stayed polite throughout, plus he also charged my account for the cancelled order I didn’t receive, most likely to get his own back for being messed about which is entirely Milk & More’s fault and NOT mine. Is this the kind of unprofessional behaviour one normally expects from a representative of what is supposed to be a large reputable company in the UK? Anyway, after being spoken down to like a piece of dirt by a Milk & More operator on this occasion, she apparently refunded my account as requested before making it plain that they don’t want to speak to me ever again. What amazing customer service, now one might understand why I said that it couldn’t be any worse.

Now surely one would expect this to be the end of the story after Milk & More promised to refund my account for the cancelled order that I didn’t receive? Well unbelievably not, a couple of days later I logged back into Milk & More and my account is still showing up as in debit due to a failed payment and it is still suspended pending an overdue payment by myself. Milk & More have certainly proven that not only are they totally incapable of making a single delivery to my address, but they cannot cancel an account either no matter who one speaks to and they will also continue charging no matter what one says or does, even if one doesn’t receive a single order. They are also often extremely rude and their so called customer service has proven to be worse than non-existent. I’m now not prepared to call them yet again after such a terrible experience on the last occasion, this time I have no option but to formally report Milk & More to trading standards as otherwise I will most probably start receiving threatening letters demanding payment when I owe them absolutely nothing and at worst it could even wrongfully blemish my credit file. From my personal experience I cannot warn people enough NOT TO USE MILK & MORE!

Like any reasonable company, Milk & More should look at all their complaints and reported bad feedback very seriously. They should take on board that they desperately need to look again at the quality of service they provide to their customers. Urgent changes obviously need to be made and some employees may also need to be retrained in the process. They also clearly need to review how their entire system works so that they can provide a reliable and good service. There’s clearly a lot of work to be done, but firstly Milk & More must at least admit to themselves that there is a serious problem or they will simply keep their head buried in the ground. It doesn’t matter how large the organisation is, if they don’t ultimately provide a reasonable service they will soon start to lose money before eventually going out of business. If Milk & More posted a formally apology to their customers, admitting their mistakes and how they’re going about rectifying them along with a special professionally run freephone helpline to address specific issues like my wrongfully suspended account for-instance, then maybe I would consider using them again as the service they offer would be excellent if only I could rely on it. If they continue to treat customers in a similar way to myself, then they also risk a very damaging appearance on BBC Watchdog or similar. Luckily for them BBC Watchdog’s current series has just ended until their new series starts in September 2011, so Milk & More have now got until at least then to improve as otherwise I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they are featured, if they’re still treating customers really badly by September 2011, then they will certainly deserve a feature and it will be entirely their own fault. Come on Milk & More please sort yourselves out.

Please visit https://www.milkandmore.co.uk if you still want to sign up to Milk & More.

Legal Disclaimer:

This article includes my own personal opinion that cannot therefore be declared as definite fact. It is a review of Milk & More based on my personal experiences of using their service, other people may have completely different experiences of the organisation that could be very positive. If Milk & More would like to respond to this article I would be delighted to include it. The article and any comments are without prejudice to Milk & More or any other organisation. The intention of this article is to do no harm, in fact it is written in the hope that Milk & More take notice to improve their service which would be in my opinion very good for their business. The video included is a TV advert for Milk & More that has been shown on British television from January 2011 up until the time of writing (late May 2011), it is currently hosted on YouTube. The TV advert remains the copyright of the Milk & More, all rights reserved. This article, any comments and all other articles on this website are also covered by my full legal disclaimer.

When one sets up a direct debit on the UK it is backed by and protected in full by the direct debit guarantee that applies to all UK banks and building societies.

The direct debit guarantee states the following:

* if there is a change in the amount to be paid or the payment date, the person receiving the payment (the originator) must notify the customer in advance.
* if the originator or the bank/building society makes an error, the customer is guaranteed a full and immediate refund of the amount paid.
* customers can cancel a direct debit at any time by writing to their bank or building society.

(The information above was taken from the Financial Ombudsman Service official website, please click here to visit.)

This is all well and good if your regular payment is in fact taken by direct debit, but unfortunately more and more companies in the UK are choosing to use continuous payment agreements instead (also sometimes known as a continuous payment authorities) and if there’s a problem customers are left with little power to stop companies taking payments as they see fit and there’s barely any protection to stop them. Many unfortunate customers don’t even realise that they’re entering into a continuous payment agreement and they often don’t realise the problem until it’s too late. When complaining to their bank or credit card company in an attempt to stop future payments, customers are usually surprised and sometimes dismayed to be told that only the company taking the money from their bank or credit card account is in the position to stop future payments and only they can refund any money already taken if they choose to agree to it. It makes matters much worse when a customer discovers that the company they are dealing with is less than reasonable and they could continue to take money from the customer’s bank or credit card account against their will while refusing to make any refunds. Customers can be left in a situation where they literally lose control of their own bank or credit card account where a company can keep taking payments as they please and there’s therefore non surprisingly been masses of complaints in the UK about continuous payment agreements / authorities. In the worse situation, customers can be left so desperate that they end up having to go to the extreme inconvenience of closing down their bank or credit card account to prevent more money being taken while left seriously out of pocket, this is extremely unfair to say the least and is in many ways as bad as a being conned by a scam, yet very little is being done to protect consumers.

With the on-line revolution and with credit and debit cards taking international currencies, many companies based outside the UK also sometimes use continuous payment agreements and in problem situations this can even further complicate matters since some of these companies aren’t even bound by UK law. For example, many foreign hosting companies use continuous payment agreements and while most are very reputable, one should be extra careful.

There are also many reputable and well known companies that still choose to use continuous payment agreements instead of using a direct debit agreement since with a continuous payment agreement money can be taken instantly at the time the agreement is made followed by future regular payments. When setting up a direct debt, a regular date must be agreed (usually monthly) and the bank or credit card company must be written to before any payments can be taken which takes time. Some companies however use a workaround where a direct debit is set-up for next months payment while the first payment or a deposit is paid with a credit or debit card, in my opinion this is a much better option than using a continuous payment agreement as after the initial immediate payment is taken with the full consent of the customer, the customer fully protected by the direct debit guarantee.

If you do choose to enter into a continuous payment agreement / authority, I strongly advise customers to check for reviews about the company in question to ensure that they are reputable (please also read the section titled, “Advice When Entering In A Continuous Payment Agreements Including Free Trails” lower down in this article).

How Do I Spot A Continuous Payment Agreement or a Direct Debit Agreement:

As I’ve mentioned above one is fully protected with any direct debit agreement by the direct debit guarantee, unfortunately there is little protection offered when entering into a continuous payment agreement / authority, but firstly one must be-able to spot the difference so they is no mistake when entering into a continuous payment agreement.

Continuous Payment Agreements:

A continuous payment agreement (also known as continuous payment authority) is set-up in the same way as a standard debit or credit card payment where the full card number is given. This is accompanied by the expiry date, usually along with the 3 digit security code on the back and in some situations the start date and/or issue number is also given with some debit cards. Sometimes a payment is taken immediately, on other occasions an agreed date is set and sometimes there is a free trial period where the customer must cancel within the trial period or money will be taken (see section below for more details on free trials). During the period of the continuous agreement, payments are taken at the intervals agreed which could be weekly, fortnightly, quarterly or even annually until the company cancels it (normally at the request of the customer). The payments could be fixed or variable depending on the product or service. In some cases even the date of payment can be variable, for instance some payment processors like Paypal can optionally set-up a continuous payment agreement so they can automatically take money from a chosen credit or debit card after a transaction has been processed. Be extra careful of entering into contractual agreements where there is often a minimum service period before one is allowed to cancel without any penalty, this applies even with direct debit agreements, but remember in the UK you are normally protected by a cooling off period where you can cancel within a limited amount of time, for full details please click here (a link to What Consumer).

A Direct Debit Agreements:

When setting up a direct debit agreement one is always asked for your full bank account number and sort code, usually along with the name of your bank or building society since the agreement will need to be sent off to them to authorise it. On a paper direct debit agreement you will always see the direct debit guarantee printed along with the agreement, while over the phone the operator should read the direct debit guarantee to you. Your credit or debit card number isn’t required to set-up a direct debit agreement, but occasionally a one off deposit or first payment needs to be taken immediately where you should be fully advised and only then would you need to give your card details, these immediate payments are sometimes taken since direct debits take a while to set-up. While fully protected with direct debit agreements, one must ensure that sufficient funds are in your bank on the due date since a failed direct debit normally incurs bank charges unlike with a continuous payment agreement / authority.

Free Trials and Cancelling Continuous Payment Agreements:

Free trials are often great since they give the customer or consumer a chance to try out a product or service freely for a limited period with no obligation. Unfortunately most trial trails expect you to give your credit or debit card details up front where you will need to cancel within the trial period to prevent being charged. In fact if a free trail really doesn’t need your credit or debit card details, it is usually clearly advertised with “no credit card required” or similar as this really is a great advertising point to let people know that they can truly use this particular free trial or offer without any possibility of future come backs. In other words when a free trial is not clearly advertised along with “no credit card required” it’s rare that they’re not required. People are often lead through a whole free trail sign up process and when it’s almost complete they are finally asked for their credit or debit card details. At the final stage there’s a smaller chance that people will back out of the agreement since they’ll have wasted their time getting this far and even if they do choose to back out, the company has usually obtained their full contact details so they can often continue advertising the product or service in future with the chance they’ll change their mind and sometimes other products and/or services will also be advertised or in some situations their personal details could even be sold to other advertising companies. By signing up to a free trial many people unwittingly enter into a continuous payment agreement / authority. Now there are many reputable companies that will cancel such agreements without any problems within the trail period and in this situation the customer has been able to enjoy the free trial as agreed without any cost what-so-ever, one such service from a reputable company that my both my friend and I cancelled within the trial period without any problems was The Credit Expert from Experian for instance.

Unfortunately there’s been numerous complaints about some less reputable companies which I cannot name for legal reasons and many offer free trials with continuous payment agreements. Problems can arise when attempting to cancel a free trial within the trial period. Often explicit instructions are given and must be followed exactly to cancel which might involve writing or phoning a particular phone number. Examples of complaints include customers who have tried to call the cancellation line given for it to be permanently busy or not available, then the first payment is taken from their credit or debit card against their will after they’ve tried calling repeatedly to no avail. Another common complaint is when a customer thinks they’ve cancelled the agreement after for-instance agreeing to cancel over the phone, but they later find a payment is taken anyway, in the worst situation customers have tried to cancel on numerous occasions to no avail while payments continue to be taken and sometimes the company claims they have no record of the person attempting to cancel. If a customer fails to read the terms and conditions and/or agreement carefully, sometimes the first payment could for much more than expected and this is another common complaint. The service could be advertised as for £15 a month for example, but the day after the free trial ends £45 could be taken for 3 months of service or worse £180 could be taken for a full year of service, this is in my opinion misleading.

Advice When Entering In A Continuous Payment Agreements Including Free Trails:

Prepayment Cards – Protect Yourself:

A great way to really protect yourself when taking out a continuous payment agreement is by using a prepayment credit or debit card. These cards can be used in most places as a normal credit or debit card except one has to top up the card first with a balance to be able to spend it, it is impossible to go overdrawn or to owe any money which means it’s not truly a credit card. Only the money topped up first can be used for making purchases and if an insufficient balance is available to cover a transaction, the transaction will simply be refused. If a continuous payment cannot be cancelled, simply spend any outstanding balance and don’t top up your prepayment card and no more money can be taken. Unlike a failed direct debit, there’s no bank charges for failed credit or debit card payments when the funding isn’t available and it’s not a disaster even if you need to destroy a prepayment card as they can be quickly and easily replaced and some are even free to obtain. Prepayment cards are available to anyone without any credit checks what-so-ever and some can even be picked up in various shops in the UK. The disadvantage of a prepayment card is there is always some sort of small fee along the line. Some prepayment cards are free to obtain, but the card company will charge small usage and/or top-up fees, while other prepayment cards might cost varying small amounts to purchase (E.g. £5 or £10), but they may have lower usage and/or top-up fees. Some prepayment cards have to be registered while other don’t, but one will often need to register to re-top-up and for a full service after an initial top-up when obtaining the card, the speed of registering for this service and what ID is required to do so also varies from card to card, so please read the terms and conditions. The other disadvantage of prepayment cards apart from obviously not having a credit account is there are a few companies that are attempting to recognise prepayment cards so they can refuse them, this happens much more often if the prepayment card isn’t registered since they can’t match up your name and address with the card details. If a company refuses a fully registered prepayment card I personally would choose not to use them. Different prepayment cards suit different people depending on their spending habits, so why not compare prepayment cards for the best card for yourself (this link details some of the top prepayment cards available in the UK, but there are many more so please shop around).

More Advice:

Please look for unbiased reviews about any company that you’re considering using and ensure you read any agreement and/or terms and conditions very carefully or enquire fully over the phone before handing over your credit or debit card details for a free trial or for any other continuous payment agreement (I personally prefer not to enter into such agreements over the phone however). In other words think carefully before handing over your credit or debit card details, especially if you’re signing up to a free trial. Always follow the exact instructions given when cancelling any continuous payment agreement so there’s no excuses for the company not to cancel. Always take down the full name of the person you’re dealing with over the phone, I would even ask their permission to record any phone conversation when cancelling, this is legal as long as the person agrees. If cancelling through the post, send by recorded / signed for delivery allowing quite a few working days before the end of a free trial period. Be very careful you’re not entering into a contractual agreement with a minimum term without fully knowing what you’re getting into, sometimes this could happen after a free trial ends (read any terms and conditions fully and I recommend avoiding making any agreement over the phone if possible). If you find yourself in a contractual agreement, it will often be almost impossible to cancel until the contract ends if it’s not cancelled successfully before the free trial ends or within a cooling off period and many contracts will require notice to cancel even then. As already mentioned earlier in this article, you are normally protected by a cooling off period when entering into a contractual agreement where you can cancel within a limited amount of time, for full details please click here. If you have further problems cancelling a continuous payment agreement and/or have had money taken against your will, please read the section below for further help.

Money Has Been Taken Against My Will and/or I Cannot Cancel A Continuous Payment Agreement:

Despite not having the backing and protection of a direct debit guarantee, there’s still things some can do to cancel a continuous payment agreement and to get a refund from any money already wrongfully taken. Firstly one should complain to the company in question. In most situations the company will be reasonable and they will cancel the continuous payment without too much of an argument. If you believe that money shouldn’t have been taken, most reputable companies will also refund your money if you explain what has happened. My friend for-instance entered into a continuous payment agreement with LoveFilm.com and money was taken from his bank account via his debit card after cancelling the agreement during a trial period over the phone, on complaining to LoveFilm.com they fully rectified the mistake by refunding his money and the continuous payment agreement was stopped without any further problems (full credit where it’s due).

If a company is being unreasonable where money has been taken against your will and they won’t offer a refund, or if a company refuses to cancel a continuous payment agreement on your request you can still complain to your bank or credit card company that an unauthorised payment has and/or will be taken, plus you can if necessary escalate your complaint the Financial Ombudsman Service (please see link below) and often just the threat of doing this will be sufficient to make many unreasonable companies cancel the agreement and refund your money. Banks and credit card companies often initially won’t help and will explain that only the company taking the payments can stop and refund such payments, but it’s a different situation if it become fraudulent and/or unauthorised, sometimes customers will need to be a little persistent to get banks and credit card companies to help. One solution to stop future continuous agreement payments is for your bank or credit card company to cancel the card in question while sending a brand new card replacement. If you feel that you’ve been tricked into entering into a contractual agreement, again firstly complain to the company and if necessary contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (please see link below).

HELP: Link to The Financial Ombudsman Service detailing how to complain.

Finally please remember that there are also many reputable companies that also offer free trials including those who use continues payment agreements and they suit their purpose when used responsibly, it’s a shame that a few less reputable companies spoil it for everyone else.

Featured On the BBC – The One Show:

The problems associated with continuous payment authorities (also known as continuous payment agreements) was featured on BBC TV on The One Show, for full details and their helpful advice please click here.

Conclusion:

Continuous payment agreements simply don’t provide the customer anywhere near an adequate level of protection in the UK at the time of writing and unfortunately people often don’t realise until there’s a problem where money is taken unknowingly or against their wishes. Sometimes customers don’t even realise that they’ve entered into a continuous payment agreement instead of a direct debit and some less than reputable companies are using this loop hole to their advantage in the UK. In my opinion it’s totally unacceptable for anyone to lose control of their own bank or credit card account to any company that uses a continuous payment authority (also known as continuous payment agreement) and this situation should change urgently so that continuous payment agreements are formally regulated in the same way as a direct debit guarantee so customers are fully protected from unauthorised payments. Like a direct debit guarantee, customers should have the right to formally demand an instant refund when an unauthorised payment is taken and they should also be-able to instantly block future payments on request. Unfortunately there’s no imminent plans for any major changes to continuous payment authorities / agreements and I therefore suggest people write letters to their local MP detailing their concerns. The more people write to their MP, the more chance the problem will be taken seriously by parliament. I do however congratulate the One Show on the BBC for bringing the problem to the attention of the masses, the media is very powerful and when used in the correct manor programmes like this can significantly improve the chances of change for the better.

Legal Disclaimer

This article contains my own personal opinion that cannot be declared as definite fact. Although we try to make all our articles as accurate as possible, it’s is supplied as is and we cannot be held responsible for any mistakes made. The writer of this article is not a qualified financial advisor, for any financial matters we recommend you take appropriate professional advice. The article is without prejudice to any organisation including LoveFilm.com and Experian who have both been referred to as a reputable in this article, it is also without prejudice to any organisation using continuous payment agreements, as we have mentioned, most companies are reputable and it doesn’t make them any less reputable just because they happen to use continuous payment agreements. Many reputable companies offer excellent free trials and again this doesn’t make any company less reputable. It is the purpose of this article to do no harm. We have chosen to link to the BBC’s website since they have featured relevant information and advice regarding continuous payment authorities (also known as continuous payment agreements), we are not linked in any way to the BBC however and if the BBC would like as to remove this link we will gladly do so immediately, please contact us. We have taken some information from The Financial Ombudsman Service’s website, we have linked and given full credit where it’s due, but if the organisation would like us to remove this information and/or any links, please contact us and we will do so immediately. This article, any comments, all other articles, and anything else displayed on this website is also covered by our full legal disclaimer.

Introduction

Unwanted and often persistent telemarketing calls has become a big problem in the UK as well as other parts of the world. Many of the products and services offered are of poor quality or value, or are designed to mislead the customer into purchasing a product or service that they don’t really want. On occasions unwanted sales calls could even be part of a deception in an attempt to completely scam the person out of their hard earned money. It’s also common for marketing calls to be disguised as market research calls or similar, some may incorrectly inform the person that they’ve won a large prize for a competition that they haven’t even entered. In my opinion if a company has to resort to cold calling, then one should approach with caution and I personally will never purchase anything on a cold call, especially if it involves giving my bank or credit card details.

This article is written to help people report and stop these unwanted and unsolicited telemarketing calls.

Introducing the Phone Spam Filter:

Firstly, if you are receiving unwanted telemarketing calls and they haven’t withheld their phone number (dial 1471 for the last number called), then now one can get your own back by reporting them quickly and easily. If enough people complain, this free service will actively work towards getting them blocked. If the phone number is withheld, please scroll down to “What If They Withhold Their Number?” later in this article, but thankfully the majority of marketing organisations don’t withhold their number as yet in the UK.

For more information please see:

http://www.phonespamfilter.co.uk/ (Phone Spam Filter)

By Using the website above one can also find out if complaints have been made previously about specific phone numbers or you can even list existing complaints in a specific area code.

For a more effective search and to more effectively work against phone spammers and unwanted cold callers, one can report them to more than one website – please read on below…

Reverse Phone Number Lookup:
(as well as complaints against phone spammers…)

Similarly to the website detailed in the paragraph above, one can also report spam phone callers and unwanted marketing numbers to the following website while also checking past complaints from specific numbers, but it also is excellent for a performing a totally free reverse phone number lookup where one can establish what area in the UK a particular phone number has come from along with the telephone provider as well as whether any past complaints have been made about a particular number.

One starts by clicking the “Reverse phone search” button towards the top of the main page, then one is presented with a list of area codes along with the location each code covers. When one selects a specific area code, one can then select the next part of the telephone number for more localised information. One can continue selecting each part of the telephone number in question until the full telephone number is selected when any past complaints will be displayed.

Please see:

http://www.411phonesearch.co.uk/ (Reverse Phone Lookup For Great Britain)

Other Reverse Number Lookup Services:

As well as the 2 sites detailed in the 2 paragraphs above, here are some links to other free services that also offer reverse phone call number lookup services:

http://www.ukphoneinfo.com/ (A quick an easy reverse phone lookup service, just type in the full number and see information on location and telephone provider Etc.)

http://www.reversenumber.co.uk/ (Reverse number – also report and comment on particular numbers to help stop phone spammers and unwanted cold callers.)

http://whocallsme.com/ (A very popular International reverse caller lookup service.)

What If They Withhold Their Number?

Unfortunately none of these services are helpful if the telephone marketer or unwanted caller withholds their number and unfortunately rogue organisations are more likely to withhold their number to reduce their chances of being caught, but there are still things you can do. I always at first go along with the unwanted call and ask for the name of the organisation that’s calling me which is normally always given if you appear at least slightly interested, obviously once you have the name of the rogue organisation you can show your discontent towards the caller, but now you can then use this vital information to ultimately complain about them.

Your telephone provider including BT can also often help regarding unwanted calls and can at least advise about optional services to help put a stop to them, this is also the first place to go for advice on preventing other types of unwanted calls as well as telemarketing calls. One might want to consider changing your phone number which can often be free if you explain to your telephone provider why you need the change, but this is often not a desirable option when one has to inform a lot of people about the change. Some services to stop unwanted calls might be free from your telephone provider, but unfortunately the best services are often chargeable (as an absolute last resort, please also see the last paragraph below for some reputable chargeable organisations that can help). It’s however well worth registering with The Telephone Preference Service which is always totally free and they also now take complaints against unwanted callers should the service fail, please see paragraph below for more details…

The Telephone Preference Service:
(Register to reduce or stop marketing calls to your phone number…)

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the official central opt out register on which you can record your preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls in the UK and it’s totally free and easy register. This service is ALWAYS FREE, but please beware of illegal scams where people call and claim to be from the Telephone Preference Service asking for a payment, for more information on these bogus callers please click here.

Most reputable marketing organisations register with the Telephone Preference Service and they automatically won’t call telephone numbers that are registered with the free service.

To register with The Telephone Preference Service, please see:

http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/

If registering with the TPS service proves not the be effective after 28 days, then please read on for further action that can be taken.

Making Official Complaints:
(To The Telephone Preference Service and The Information Commissioner’s Office…)

Before any complaints can be made officially in the UK one must first register with the Telephone Preference Service (see paragraph above for full details) and then you must wait at least 28 days for your phone number to be opted out of telemarketing calls effectively.

Unfortunately often the worst and most persistent of unwanted telemarketing callers aren’t reputable organisations and will ignore the Telephone Preference Service’s rules and regulations completely. When receiving such calls, the caller will often hang up immediately when one states that you are registered of The Telephone Preference Service and sometimes this is enough to stop them calling you again. If you are still hassled by persistent unwanted marketing calls after being registered with the TPS for over 28 days, then the good news is the Telephone Preference Service now take complaints against such organisations where they will forward your complaint as part of a regular report to Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). It is the ICO who are the body responsible for enforcement.

If one continues receiving unwanted calls over a month after complaining to the TPS, one can complain to the Information Commissioner’s office directly, for full information about when and how to complain with other useful information, please visit:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints/privacy_and_electronic_communications.aspx

Paid Services To Stop Unwanted Calls Once and For All:

In my opinion it’s simply wrong that anyone should have to resort to paying for a service to stop unwanted calls to their private telephone number, but occasionally unwanted calls may continue despite trying everything mentioned on this website, sometimes these persistent calls can originate from organisations operating outside of the UK which makes them difficult to punish. If you desperately want to stop unwanted calls and have tried every other method listed on this website, then there follows a list of reputable organisations that can help for a small fee.

As mentioned earlier in this article one can also contact your telephone provider for help and advice as they also usually provide effective chargeable services to help prevent unwanted calls by providing services like anonymous call reject and choose to refuse from BT instance, but most other telephone providers provide similar services. For BT customers, please click here for more information about stopped unwanted sales or marketing calls.

Reputable fee paid organisations (recommended by the Telephone Preference Service):

http://www.callstop.info/ (£19 a year, £29 for 2 years, £59.99 for 3 years or £99.99 for 5 years.)

http://www.callpreventionregistry.co.uk/ (Various services and they also sell an “All-IN-ONE Call Blocker” device at £49.99!)

http://www.stopunwantedcalls.net/ (Down at the time of writing – will check and remove if they don’t come back on-line within a few days)

http://www.nomoremarketing.co.uk/ (Currently £3 a month, £29.99 a year or £59.99 for life.)

WARNING: There are many other organisations that offer similar services and many are also likely to provide a reasonable service, but please beware of less reputable organisations that may overcharge for such services and/or they may not provide an effective service.

Legal Disclaimer:

Image used: We assume that the image at the top of the website can be freely used and we have linked to the website where we initially saw the image underneath the image in question, if however we are indeed misinformed and the copyright holder would like this image removed, please contact us and we will of-course remove it immediately.

Although we try to make the information as accurate as possible, PJCNET cannot be held responsible for any mistakes made. We have linked positively to various useful organisations, if however any organisation mentioned in this article would prefer us to remove their link or would like us to change this article in any way, please contact us and we either shall remove the link or update this article as appropriate. We list a few chargeable services that are recommended by The Telephone Preference Service, PJCNET cannot be held responsible for any individual’s personal experience when dealing with any 3rd party organisation whether recommended by PJCNET or not. Even though we warn people about possible existence of less reputable organisations that may also provide services to prevent unwanted calls, we are certainly NOT saying that any organisation that isn’t listed isn’t reputable, people should judge each and every organisation on their individual merits and make their own choice. If any organisation would like to advise us about a good service that they provide, I will be pleased to add it to this website. Our full legal disclaimer applies to this article, any comments and all other information on this website.

Virgin Media decided to sell their Virgin TV channel network to their arch rival BSkyB back in Summer 2010 for a total of £160 Million and at first the massive takeover only meant minor changes to programming, unfortunately for TV subscribers this has now all changed for the worse.

The Virgin TV network included the Living TV network of channels, all Bravo TV channels, Challenge TV (Now just Challenge) and also Virgin One (since renamed Channel One). Unfortunately Virgin One (now Channel One) and Bravo TV were seen as direct competition to other Sky channels like Sky One and Sky Three, so Sky have decided to destroy the competition completely rather than continue broadcasting these channels even though they were very popular indeed. Bravo, Bravo+1 and Bravo 2 went off air in the New Year 2011 while Channel One will be going off air permanently at the end of January 2011 at the time of writing.

For Bravo TV it very sadly ends over 17 years of successful UK broadcasting since it launched on Astra 1C on July 22nd 1993 (I watched the launch). Back then Bravo broadcast mainly older classic and cult TV programmes from 12 Midday until Midnight, although they started broadcasting more modern programmes mainly aimed towards the male viewer after 1997 when the channel started broadcasting from 8pm until 6am, although the channel became loved by both male and female viewer alike. In more recent years Bravo went from strength to strength and managed to gain various exclusive programming while also launching it’s sister channel Bravo 2. Virgin One started it’s life much later on the 1st October 2007 in direct competition with Sky One. In fact BSkyB saw the channel as a major rival, especially since many people were receiving it freely on Freeview. Virgin One was rebranded to Channel One when BSkyB took over the Virgin TV network during Summer 2010 and even though the channel has only existed for just over 2 years it’s become very popular and it’s very sad to see it’s early demise.

Luckily the Living TV channels including it’s sister channel Livingit and also the newer channel LivingLoves will continue for the foreseeable future since BSkyB see these channels as uniquely popular and not in direct competition with other Sky channels, but you may have noticed that some of their programming changed after the takeover with shows like Most Haunted axed (love it or hate it, it was very popular). The first and main Living TV channel which is now named Living was first launched in 1993 as UK Living, but this was changed to Living TV in 1997 and then to Living in 2007. UK Living was initially launched to primarily broadcast programmes aimed towards the female viewer, although over time it’s become popular with both male and female viewers alike. Challenge TV (now known as just Challenge) will also continue to exclusively broadcast 24/7 game shows and it now has quite a cult audience of hardened fans (they now produce a few of their own game shows too, but most programmes are still old repeats or extremely old repeats, plus these repeats are often repeated many times over again and again). One might remember that Challenge TV was started as an exclusive game show channel on the 1st February 1997, so it’s certainly survived the test of time even after being taken over by Virgin Media and then BSkyB. Challenge TV was initially re-branded from The Family Channel that launched even further back on the 1st September 1993 where it at first broadcast a selection of family programming including game shows.

BSkyB are obviously happy with their recent investment since they’ve destroyed the competition which will increase viewing figures for their existing channels that in the long run will make them more revenue from advertising, especially when selected programmes from the axed channels are transferred to Sky, but not 1 penny of this extra potential revenue is going back to loyal Sky subscribers who are directly losing out. Virgin Media are happy since they’ve made a massive amount of money from selling their TV network to BSkyB, yet not 1 penny has gone back to loyal Virgin Media subscribers that are also now directly losing out. The main people who are left unhappy are loyal customers (TV package subscribers) who lose out big style, especially if like myself Bravo and Channel One (formerly Virgin One) were amongst my favourite channels. The very unfortunate and most hurt people of all are the poor employees of the former TV channels who are likely to face compulsory redundancies, obviously this ultimately ruins lives and families. All this in my opinion shows that in the television business money talks well above a television company’s obligation to create customer satisfaction. Making the most money possible is also clearly more important to television companies than their loyal employees livelihoods.

Since the reason for these channels being removed is directly caused by Virgin Media selling them to BSkyB to make a fast buck, it’s in my opinion unfair that Virgin Media customers should be paying their full subscription considering some of their channels have been / are being removed, especially when Virgin Media made £160 Million out of this sale. At the time of writing it’s unclear what programmes will be transferred to existing Sky channels and what channels they’ll be moved to, but at present there’s numerous very popular programmes that people can’t watch at all. It’s also possible that some programmes could be ultimately moved onto channels that require a higher priced Virgin Media subscription for them to be included in the subscription, E.g the XL package, and if this happens it would be in my opinion even more unfair. As a customer, I have complained to Virgin Media and I will update with their reply in the comments below this article.

BSkyB customers are losing out the same as Virgin Media customers and Sky can be blamed as much as Virgin Media for the loss of channels since they’ve make the final decision to axe the channels against what the majority of customer actually want. Like Virgin Media customers I think it’s also unfair for them to pay a full subscription for a reduced service, at least while many programmes aren’t available to watch.

For Freeview customers, it’s rumoured that they will be seeing Challenge (Formerly Challenge TV which BSKyB also brought from Virgin Media) replace Channel One (Formerly Virgin One), but in my opinion this isn’t a fair replacement since their programming is totally and utterly different and in my opinion Channel One was/is (until the end of January 2011) much more popular. A minority of people who are addicted to watching game shows will off-course be delighted if they get Challenge instead, but this will be against the majority that would have preferred Channel One, also game shows are relatively cheap to produce and most programmes shown on Challenge are currently old repeats which makes this channel low budget compared to Channel One. Unfortunately since Freeview is free (apart from the TV licence), customers aren’t really in a position to complain to anyone, even though many will be upset to see Channel One (Formerly Virgin One) disappear. Freeview customers couldn’t receive Bravo TV or Bravo 2 so for this they remain unaffected.

In the long run the lack of good competition can only be worse still for the customer and could even mean higher prices still for future TV subscriptions in the UK. Virgin Media are now controlled by BSkyB when providing cable TV services since they are now just a middle company between the customer and BSkyB who provide much of their TV programming, where before they had some leverage by owning some of the channels that BSkyB also wanted to broadcast for their customers.

Unfortunately since Virgin Media and BSkyB are such large and powerful organisations in the UK, one customer can do very little about the loss of programming and unfortunately all the decisions have already been set in stone. BSkyB and Virgin Media subscribers can however like myself write a complaint about how they feel about the loss of programming, perhaps even asking for a discount on their subscription in compensation, at least until most of the programmes are restored to other channels (assuming they will be). I cannot guarantee one will get anywhere regarding a subscription discount, but the more people complain asking for their favourite shows back, the more likely these large TV companies will eventually listen, especially BSkyB who are still yet to decide the final fate of many of the lost TV programmes at the time of writing.

Legal Disclaimer

This article includes my own personal opinion which cannot be declared as definite fact. It is without prejudice to BSkyB, Virgin Media or any other person, persons or organisation. The image above was taken from http://en.wikipedia.org” and since it’s a final test card we assume that there wouldn’t be any objections from displaying it here, if however the owner of this website would like it removed or if the owner of Bravo TV (BSkyB) want it removed we will do so immediately, the logo remains the copyright of Bravo TV / BSkyB all rights reserved. My full legal disclaimer also applies to this article, any comments and all other information on this website.