being charged for services without knowledge

[Needhelpandadvice]

Hi Guys,
A bit of a stupid one... but maybe somebod came across this.
We had an email service that we signed up for for a yearly charge. Then a marketing person called to say we have this feature - do you want it - it is free. We said on the phone only if it is free - put it on if you want but we do not need it and are not prepared to pay for it. Have not really been checking out account and they've been taking a charge through paypal for 2 years... only discovered now as checked the account and queried what that was for... They are saying they will not refund charges, however, we did not use the service or the feature they were billing us for, and we specifically said we did not want anything else that we would be charged for. HOwever it was done over the phone - but neither them nor us have any proof... Their argument is that we should have checked our charges. My argument is - we should not have been billed on the first place... Anybody encountered anything like this?Sorry if it sounds stupid but due to our commitments we just did not check....

 

[ALewis]

Hi there,
The yearly charges are legal, as you've opted in for the service, whether you used the service or not is not of relevance.
However there should not be an additional charge for features which a) a marketing person said was free and b) you agreed to provided it was free

Your legal basis is the Law of Cobtract, whereby the contract was misrepresented. Even phone calls can form a contract. My advise to you would be to ring up, speak to a manager and ask if calls are recorded. If the answer is no, do you have any witnesses to the phone call? Do you have an idea of the salespersons name? Could they check who formed your contract.
I'd also advise the manager that unless they can prove otherwise, you will contest the contract at court . (however of course you would not go to court for a £10 additional charge, let us know how much it was worth and we can advise further)
Thanks

 

[Needhelpandadvice]

Hi,
Thanks very much for this.
The money at stake is £250. They are maintaining that nobody would add anything without us knowing and they sent us invoices and if we did not want the service we should have cancelled. I am not disputing the yearly charge at all. it's the monthly charges of nearly 15 pounds that i'm disputing as we only agreed for the features to be added for free and we did not agree to pay. It was not explained it was going to be charged and this is my point - invoices or no invoices - we live busy lives and have not been able to check these things. And this is their defence - we did not check our account and invoices. Furthermore they took it out of the bank twice a month - i.e. splitting the cost to £7 odd pounds twice monthly and it made it harder to noitce. It is misleading marketing and unlawful in my view but they are standing by their decision. The phonecalls recorded but only for 30 days so going back nearly 2 years ago they don't have the recording, but equally - then they have no proof...I'm just so angry... Please if you could advise anymore I would very much appreciate it.
Many thanks