Including our Basic Code of Practice and our Code of Practice for Premium Rate Services and NTS calls
Introduction to our company and services UNITEL DIRECT LTD is an independent company that delivers communications services to business customers While we may not provide all the component parts of our services ourselves, we do take responsibility for the services delivered to you. So we will liaise with our suppliers to ensure that any problems with their services are resolved promptly.
Purpose of this Code of Practice This code informs you about our products, services, customer-care policies and where to find information about our charges and terms and conditions. This Code of Practice is published on our website at www.uniteldirect.co.uk. Additional copies are available on request and free of charge to any domestic and small business customer. It is also available in alternative formats, (e.g. large print, Braille,etc.
How to contact us Please contact our Customer Service Team : By phone: 0330 124 7118 (From 8am until 6pm Monday-Thursday and Friday 8am – 4.30pm,
By email: customerservices@uniteldirect.co.uk By fax: By letter: Website: www.uniteldirect.co.uk
Our products and services
contact our Customer Service Team on 08447451111
You may also purchase our services from local dealers and retailers around the UK. For more information, please contact the Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118 or see our website www.uniteldirect.co.uk Marketing We work to the principles in the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, which are set out on the website www.cap.org.uk Terms and conditions When you subscribe to a service from UNITEL DIRECT LTD, we will send you our Standard Terms and Conditions and ask you to sign a contract, if applicable. If you have any questions, please phone our Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118. We may carry out a credit check as part of our assessment procedures.
Where applicable, the minimum contract term for our services is 24 months. We aim to provide services within three working days of your original request, subject to the availability and installation of any equipment and, where appropriate, lines to your premises. If we need to carry out a survey of your premises or lay additional cabling, we will inform you of the revised timescales as soon as we can.
Cancellation If you decide to cancel your order or agreement before we have provided the services, you may do so without charge within twenty eight working days after your order is placed. After (twenty eight) working days we will charge you an administration fee as set out in your contract. If you wish to terminate your contract within the minimum term of 24 months, please call our Customer service Helpdesk on xxx we will charge you a fee as set out in your contract. After the minimum term you can cancel any service by calling our Customer Service Helpdesk on 0330 124 7118 giving us 30 days notice.
Faults and repairs Please call our Fault Service Team on 0330 124 7118 if you experience a fault with any of our services. We aim to have this investigated and repaired within 10 days.
Compensation and refund policy Our policy is to assess each claim on a case by case basis. We aim to investigate any claims and respond within 10 working days. Any refunds that are due will be credited to the next month’s invoice.
Price lists Our pricing structure is available from our Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118 and via our website (www.uniteldirect.co.uk) (include any reinstallation fee). We will write to you in advance if we change the pricing structure on your products and services.
Billing We will bill you
monthly
We provide itemised bills as part of our service to you on request and for a fee of £1.50 per month.
If you have difficulty paying your bill, please contact us on 0330 124 7118 and we will try to arrange a different method of payment. We will do all we can to help our small business customers to manage their bills and avoid disconnection. Please refer to UNITEL DIRECT LTD’s company Code of Practice for
Billing and Disconnection.
If you are moving home or office Please call our Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118 no later than 30 days before your move date. We will amend your account and billing requirements as necessary. We will endeavour to offer you the same telephone number to minimise disruption but please note that for geographic numbers this is not always possible.
Number porting UNITEL DIRECT LTD recognise that keeping your existing telephone numbers may be important to you. If you move your business to us and wish to keep the number that you have with your old provider, we will arrange it if you ask us. We will work with you to ensure that the services are switched over at a convenient and appropriate time. For more information, please call our Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118.
Complaints We make every effort to ensure that our customers are happy with the level of service, and the products and service they receive from us. However, despite our best efforts, things can go wrong. We take customer complaints very seriously and aim to resolve them quickly and efficiently.
Nuisance calls We take the problem of nuisance calls and malicious communications very seriously. We tackle it by working closely with the police and others in the communications industry. If you have been a victim of this activity, please call the Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118 to report the incident and for information on how to deal with it.
We encourage parents to register the mobile phones of their children, and take responsibility for all customer care enquiries.
Copies of this Code are available in larger print and other formats on request
Data protection We comply fully with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Premium rate services Premium rate services (PRS) are telephone numbers that offer some form of information or entertainment that is charged to your phone bill. UK-based PRS numbers are normally prefixed by “09”. 0871 is now also designated as a Premium rate number and subject to PRS regulation. Typical services include TV votelines, mobile ringtone downloads, technical helplines, charity fund-raising and adult entertainment. Charges for these services are added to your telephone bill. Calling a PRS number generally costs between 8.51 pence and £1.2766 per minute, per call or per text (excl. vat). Calling these services from, for example, mobile phones, cable networks or public payphones will generally cost more than the advertised rate. Our charges for calling these services are shown in our price list, which is available on request from our Customer Services Team and via our website. If you have a problem with PRS, we can help. We can provide advice on checking the telephone number of any PRS charges that appear on your bill and will try to help you identify the premium rate service provider. We can use call barring to restrict access to “09” numbers. Please
call our Customer Service Team on 0330 124 7118 for advice on this. We can give you a factsheet on PRS. You can also ask for help from PhonepayPlus (formerly ICSTIS), which is the industry-funded regulatory body for Premium Rate Services. PhonepayPlus operates a code of practice that sets out standards for the operation of PRS. You can use the PhonepayPlus website at www.phonepayplus.org.uk to check PRS numbers direct or to download a complaint form. PhonepayPlus has legal powers to require a provider of PRS to amend its service or promotional material (or both) and can also impose penalties on content service providers. For other ways to contact PhonepayPlus, see the “Useful addresses” section below.
Number translation services Number translation services (NTS) are based on numbers that are normally pre-fixed “08”. For example, 0800 and 0808 are used to provide freephone services (some freephone services are also provided on 0500 numbers). 0844 and 0845 numbers are used for dial-up pay-as-you-go Internet
access and customer service helplines. 0870 numbers are used for information services, technical helplines and telephone banking. They are also used by organisations to help them provide call-management features such as intelligent call routing and fax-to-email services.
Charges for calling services on NTS numbers are added to your telephone bill and standard prices range from free up to 10p per minute or per call (excl. vat). Calling these services from, for example, mobile phones, cable networks or public payphones will generally cost more than the advertised rate but communications providers must publish prices for calls to 0870 numbers where these are higher than for calls to geographic numbers. Our charges for calling these services are shown in our price list, which is available on request from our Customer Services Team and via our website. We can also give you a factsheet on NTS.
If you are unhappy with the help you have received from us on a problem with PRS or NTS, please contact (Customer Services on tel: 08447451111 or email: customerservices@uniteldirect.co.uk), who has responsibility for compliance with our code of practice for PRS and NTS. You may also complain using the complaints procedure set out in our complaints code including, ultimately, referring your complaint to CISAS.
Internet diallers If you use the Internet, it is possible for software to be placed on your computer without you knowing – using the same methods as for computer viruses. This type of software (known as Internet or rogue diallers) can then make calls to PRS and NTS numbers without your knowledge. Software is available to detect this activity and we can help you to access this – please contact our Customer Services Team for details.
PhonepayPlus has been given responsibility for policing this type of activity and you can contact them via
www.phonepayplus.org.uk to ask for help or to report examples of this type of abuse. For other ways to contact PhonepayPlus, see the “Useful addresses” section below. We can also help by barring calls to 09 numbers.
The Telephone Preference Service If you don’t want to get sales and marketing calls you have not requested, you can add your details to a list run by the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). If your number is on the list, it is illegal for a company to call you for marketing purposes. You can contact the Telephone Preference Service
via www.tpsonline.org.uk or by telephoning 0845 070 0707.
Useful addresses
Cisas– 24 Angel Gate, City Road, London EC1V 2PT, Tel: 0845 1308 170 or 0207 520 3827 e-mail: info@cisas.org.uk Website: www.cisas.org.uk
Ofcom – Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Tel: 020 7981 3040 or 0300 123 3333 email: contact@ofcom.org.uk Website: www.ofcom.org.uk
PhonepayPlus (formerly Icstis)- Clove Building, 4 Maguire Street, London, SE1 2NQ. Tel: 0800 500 212 or 020 7940 7474 Website: www.phonepayplus.org.uk email info@phonepayplus.org.uk
Telephone Preference Service – DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London W1W 8SS Tel: 0845 070 0707 Website: www.tpsonline.org.uk
Federation of Communication Services (FCS) – Burnhill Business Centre, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT. Tel: 020 8249 6363 email: fcs@fcs.org.uk Website: www.fcs.org.uk
Published August 2012. Correct at the time of printing. © The Federation of Communication Services Limited 2012
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