Refused refund on something i've been charged double for since early 2006!

[adzy31]

Hello guys - over a year ago we phoned our webspace provider to rent a new, higher spec account from them. We also around that time phoned again asking for our original account to be cancelled. They saidsure, that's fine, we'll do that now. I phoned up again later to ask that some domain names be transferred over from our cancelled account to our new one, and they said that was fine too.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that we've actually been charged for BOTH accounts for over a year now [a family member had complained that the charges seemed high but I never looked into it, our new account was after all more expensive than the first one], despite phoning to cancel the account over a year ago.

I informed the company via phone and email of the situation. On the phone the person at customer services said that we had been misinformed, they can't cancel accounts over the phone and it can only be done by the customer over a web administration page. She apologised for this. This apology to me is an admission that this whole problem was THEIR FAULT - although she refused to send me a copy of said apology in writing, the clever sod. I emailed complaints dept, explained the situation, their apology, and I stated that we needed refunding for the past year of false charges. Eventually they got back to us saying that they "simply can't" refund us for an entire year, only the past 3 months.

I can't actually believe that the complaints department were rude enough to even contemplate saying they "simply can't" refund us - it's our money, they have it when they shouldn't, and it's their fault!

Any ideas would be warmly welcomed!

[chazza]

Was this paid via credit card? If so you have some protection and should be able to claim it back.

If not, I would advise going to the citizens advice bureau and asking them whether it is worth your while going to the small claims court over it

[doirecormac]

as most companies record their calls these days you could ask for copies of the calls under the DPA and once you have these you could lodge a claim in the small claims court