Quick summary: Webhosting company Fasthosts, reviled in the press and all across the Internet (see below), hid the fact that they will bill customers every year without notification for their webhosting 'services,' which include letting hackers into client spaces to view customer records, going down repeatedly, etc. Well, caveat emptor--don't do business with Fasthosts, unless you like dealing with wideboys and refugees from Deliverance.
But although the recurring charge is treated by them as part of their contract, it doesn't appear in the contract at all. It is buried under a mountain of terms and conditions--I will post them soon and you can see if you can find them.
I do not have access to the email account I used to open the account with Fasthosts, so I cannot cancel my account, I cannot see why they are billing me five times what they did previously, and I cannot check to see if, as I suspect, they sent me no messages at all.
But their attitude towards customer service is at least refreshingly simple--they give you two fingers and tell you to get stuffed. They are defrauding their customers and giggling about it.
But they are not the only organisation involved. I have banked with NatWest for five years, and it is a NatWest credit card that was charged. Surely, my pointing out the fraudulent nature of this transaction would convince them to send the charge back to Fasthosts. After all, I am their client. Indeed, as NatWest would later point out in two letters, they have no relationship at all with Fasthosts.
This is where the tale gets really sad. I have had what I considered a good relationship with NatWest. I have my current account with them, two ISAs, two business accounts and was talking with my branch manager about a mortgage. The perniciousness of scum like Fasthosts is that they are capable of poisoning my relationship with NatWest, their owner (Royal Bank of Scotland) and their other subsidiaries, such as Tesco Personal Finance. Because the bank not only has rejected my request, they have done so without any investigation. The retailer (Fasthosts) tells them it is a recurrent subscription, they accept the claim and that's it. In their last letter they say 'I hope this clarifies the bank's position.' It does.
I don't know if this analogy is really apt--their spineless refusal to take their client's side is either like Pilate's washing his hands and asking 'what is truth' or they cannot upset the applecart that brings in fees and preserves their relationship with Visa International.
This is wrong. I did not authorize this charge. I did not know I was entering into a recurring subscription. Fasthosts went to great lengths to make sure I did not know. I cannot access my account, because Fasthosts won't let me. I cannot cancel my account, because Fasthosts won't let me. My banker, who continually tells me how much they value my business and how much they want to deepen their relationship with me, does nothing for me.
And the clock is ticking. If I pay the bill, the dispute is moot. If I don't pay the bill, my credit rating gets trashed. Is this really the way this country wants to do business?
Please contact me through the email address registered on this post, as I can't seem to track down a contact for you.
Posted by: Richard Kennedy | 04/15/2008 at 10:15 AM