Dear Tiscali
Re: Your letter demanding £7.92
I am somewhat confused by your letter asking for payment of £7.92. You failed to indicate what the amount represented and I have certainly not received an invoice for this amount. Furthermore you will be aware that I have ceased using your service. I wrote to inform you in October that you had failed to uphold your part of the contract and that I was terminating it. You kindly refunded me for the service that I had paid for but was unable to use due to your incompetence.
Forgive me if I don’t choose to ring the 0870 number indicated on your letter but past experience has show me that I will invariable be on hold for up to an hour before getting to speak to someone. The person who I do speak to will either not speak any English at all or will have such a strong accent (Indian, Scottish or Irish) that I will be completely unable to understand what they have to say. Even if we do manage to communicate the customer support person will either be unable or unwilling to help or will just lose all record of the conversation. Hardly surprising if they have to deal with disgruntled customers like me all day long. If you don’t mind I’d rather not pay for the privilege of calling you to sort out your mistakes.
With regard to the sum that you claim is outstanding I will not be paying it. Even if it turns out that I do owe you the money I shall not be paying the bill. You sent me a cheque to refund me for service charges billed and for compensation. If you are so incompetent as to forget to deduct a fee for an outstanding amount then I hope that my non-payment will serve as a lesson to you. Tiscali could so very easily have done better.
Besides which you should be aware that I know that you will never refer such a small sum to your legal team to threaten court action or to try to recover the money. It simply isn’t cost effective for you to do so. However if you do decide to try to recover this money rest assured that I will make it as difficult as possible for you even if it costs me hundreds of pounds. Furthermore I will do my utmost to advertise your poor service to as many people as I can in order that customer confidence in you is weakened.
Why would I do this? The answer is simple. You failed to treat me with the respect that a paying customer deserves at every opportunity that you had and I choose to treat you with similar contempt.
Your sincerely
hoverFrog