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The RATS venture above ground again: Mobile phone group 3 attacked over ‘disgraceful’ sales tactics!!
United Kingdom Created: 5 Sep 2006
SALES agents acting for 3, the mobile-phone company, persuaded an elderly and mentally handicapped man to take out 10 contracts for expensive 3G handsets in only a few months.
Most of the sales were made by direct-selling firms that contacted the 68-year-old by telephone, having seemingly acquired his address in Wimborne, Dorset, from database companies.
Although the handset contracts were all registered to the same address, 3 had not picked up the problem by the time the man’s older brother attempted to recover the hundreds of pounds withdrawn from his younger brother’s bank account.
The company initially refused to deal with the older brother, who does not wish to be identified, because of the Data Protection Act.
This weekend 3 said that the problems with its customer in Wimborne were “very clearly an exceptional case”. However, it highlights concerns about the quality of the customers 3 has taken on in its dash for growth.
Ten days ago, Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong conglomerate that owns 3, referred to the “poor average quality” of its UK business.
Hutchison’s half-year results revealed that 3’s customer turnover, or churn, was running at a far higher level than the company had previously admitted.
Most of the sales to the mentally handicapped customer in Wimborne seem to have been made in May or June, when 3 said it was focused on improving the quality of its business.
Industry sources said the customer should have passed a credit check each time a new phone was sent out to him.
The man’s brother said: “The industry is disgraceful for its telephone-selling tactics. I’ve put the whole lot in front of trading standards.”
One sign of apparently slipshod sales techniques is the frequent mis-spelling of the customer’s name. It was spelt correctly on only one out of eight contracts of which The Sunday Times has been given details.
According to a man who gave his name as Keith Cunningham, a supervisor in an Indian call centre, Letscall, an online-phone retailer with offices in Frimley, Surrey, was responsible for selling four of the phones.
Fone Logistics, another small firm, was responsible for another sale. Ian Gillespie, its managing director, said: “If the network credit-checks the customer and he passes the credit check, then we dispatch the product to him.”
In a statement, 3 said: “Once it was brought to our attention we suspended the accounts. All the accounts have now been closed and a cheque will be sent reimbursing the customer(s) for any money he has paid us.
“We apologise to the people affected and we will now be investigating the background of the case.”
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Source: Agnes: By Paul Durman. The Sunday Times - Business

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