MIDLAND TML - Consumer Code of Practice on Complaint Handling and Dispute Resolution
Introduction to our company and services
MIDLAND TELECOMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT LTD (hereafter known as Midland TML) is an independent company that delivers communications services to domestic and 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
The Code informs you about our products, services, and customer care policies. Our code has been approved by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UK communications industries.
How to contact us
Please contact our Customer Service Team
By phone: on 0800 652 9 653 (24 Hours including Bank Holidays)
By e-mail:
enquires@midlandtml.co.uk By fax: 0800 652 9656
By letter: MIDLAND TML, 255 Hospital Street, Birmingham B19 2YF
Via our website:
www.midland-telecom.com Our commitment to you
We are committed to providing you with the highest quality of customer service. When we purchase our services from wholesale providers, we choose those providers carefully to ensure that you get a high quality service. We make every reasonable effort to supply services that satisfy your requirements. We work to all relevant laws and regulations.
Our products and services: • Analogue and ISDN digital landlines
• Landline calls
• CPS-Carrier Pre-Selection of landline calls
• WLR-Wholesale Line Rental
• ISDN-digital telephone lines
• Broadband Internet Access
• Internet services
• Mobile telephone and mobile data services
• PBX Equipment and maintenance services
• Non Geographical numbers and call services
For more details on any of our products and services, or to place an order immediately, please contact our Network Services Team on 0800 652 9 655
Marketing We work to the principles in the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, which are stated on the website,
www.cap.org.uk Terms and conditions When you subscribe to a service from MIDLAND TML, 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 0800 652 9 655. We may carry out a credit check as part of our assessment procedures.
Where applicable, the minimum contract term for our services is three months although contract lengths vary. We aim to provide most call 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. We aim to provide most fixed landline services within twenty five working days subject to survey. If we need to arrange a survey of your premises or lay additional cabling we will advise you of the revised timescales as soon as we can. There can be delays in obtaining line services in rural areas, we will advise you as soon as a survey is completed of the estimated delivery date. We cannot guarantee the delivery date of any line service, nor the issue of new telephone numbers until BT actually bring that line into service.
Cancellation
If you decide to cancel your order or agreement before we have provided the services, you may do so without charge within fourteen days of placing your order. After fourteen days we will charge you an administration fee up to a maximum of all of the standard connection charges that would be due under the agreement and an additional fee amounting to the total of the first year of rentals that would be due under the agreement.
Should you wish to terminate your contract within the minimum term, we will charge you all of the remaining line rental charges that would be due until the end of your minimum term contract. After the minimum term you can cancel any service by calling our Customer Service Helpdesk on 0800 652 9 655 giving us one months notice.
Faults and repairs Please call our Fault Service Team on 0800 652 9 653 if you experience a fault with any of our services. We aim to have this investigated and repaired within four working days for a residential service and two working days for a business service.
Compensation and refund policy
As we have no direct control over the provision of new call or line provision and their subsequent repair, we cannot accept liability or compensate customers for loss of business.
Our policy is to review each claim for compensation on a case by case basis.
Where a customer has suffered a loss of service due to late delivery of a new line service or late repair of a line, we can claim compensation on your behalf from BT Wholesale of £5 per telephone line per day for a business line or £3 per line per day for a residential line. This compensation is paid for any day or part thereof where the repair or late delivery exceeded the maximum repair time or delivery dates given herein. Furthermore where BT fail to attend an appointment at all, we can claim a one off compensation of £5 for you for the missed appointment.
Price lists
Our pricing structure is available from our Customer Service Team on 0800 652 9 655 and on our website. We will write to you in advance if we change the pricing structure on your products and services.
Billing
We will bill you monthly for calls services and either monthly, quarterly or annually for line, broadband and internet services.
You can choose to pay us via a range of options including cheque, BACS or bank transfer and direct debit. These are agreed at the start of your contract. If you wish to change your method of payment at any time, please call our Customer Service Team. We provide itemised bills for calls costing more than fifty pence; you can request itemisation down to a single penny by contacting our customer service team.
If you have difficulty paying your bill, please contact us on 0800 652 9 655 and we will try to arrange a different method of payment. We will do all we can to help our residential and small business customers to manage their bills and avoid disconnection.
Disconnection
If you do not pay your bill on the due date you will be sent a red reminder letter. If you still have not paid your bill within thirty days of the due date our credit controller will try to contact you by telephone to warn you that you face disconnection within seven days if you do not pay immediately and that this will result in a service charge of £25.
If you still fail to pay the charges due you will be sent a disconnection notice in writing and if payment is not made within three days of the receipt of the disconnection notice we will suspend the outgoing call service until full payment of all outstanding amounts is made. We will add a service charge of £25 to your bill due immediately if it proves necessary to disconnect. We will not cease a land line permanently (with the loss of both inbound and outbound service) until we are satisfied that you are unable or unwilling to pay us and cannot make a reasonable offer of payment. We may also insist (where practicable) that you pay future bills by direct debit. Failure to pay after disconnection will result in County Court action being taken against you unless you can make an offer of payment to settle the whole outstanding amount within twelve months.
If you have a dispute with your bill you must notify us by telephone, fax, letter or e-mail before it becomes more than thirty days overdue. While a dispute exists you will be allowed to withhold payment only on the disputed amount and not for other services that are due.
If you are moving home or office
Please call our Customer Service Team on 0800 652 9 655 no later than 60 days before your intended 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
MIDLAND TML recognises 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. If you cannot have your old numbers at your new premises we can arrange for the calls to be forwarded to the new site or callers can receive a message telling them of your new numbers. Charges apply for forwarding calls and giving messages, contact our customer service team on 0800 652 9 655 for more information. It may be possible to port your numbers from a cable operator such as NTL or Telewest to BT or vice versa, we can tell you within two working days if this is possible. We are able to port mobile telephone numbers, non-geographic numbers and broadband services between suppliers. We will work with you to ensure that the services are switched over at a convenient and appropriate time. Please contact our Customer Service Team on 0800 652 9 655 for more details.
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.
If you have a complaint about any part of our service, please contact our Customer Service Team on 0800 652 9 655. Our advisors will ask you about your complaint and seek to resolve the problem while you are on the line. During any discussions we will protect the privacy of the information that we hold on you. To do this we may have to ask you questions to confirm that we are speaking to the right person.
You may also send your complaint to us in writing (see “How to contact us” above).
We will try to resolve your complaint quickly and efficiently, and to keep you informed at all times. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction, you can take it further within our company, and ultimately to the Managing Director. If we cannot resolve the problem, we will write to you to say so.
If you remain unhappy and wish to pursue your complaint further, if your complaint has been outstanding for more than 12 weeks or you have received a letter from us saying that your complaint has reached “deadlock”, then you may ask for help from Otelo.
Otelo is an independent organisation which is approved by Ofcom to provide an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service. Ofcom-approved ADR services have been set up to sort out disagreements between communications providers and their consumer and small business customers. Their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story. They look at the facts given to them before recommending any action that may be needed to put things right.
Statement of social responsibility
We take very seriously the problem of nuisance calls and malicious communications. 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 0800 652 9 655 to report the incident, and for information on how to deal with this situation.
We take very seriously the problem of nuisance calls and malicious communications. 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 0800 652 9 655 to report the incident, and for information on how to deal with this situation.
We encourage parents to register the mobile phone of their children, and take responsibility for all customer care enquiries.
We are aware that telephones can provide access to premium rate services, including adult content through independent companies’ services. Our Customer Service Team can restrict the access to premium rate services. Please call them on 0800 652 9 655 for advice on this service.
If you receive nuisance telemarketing calls you can take action to prevent this by contacting the Telephone Preference Service and if you receive nuisance marketing by fax you can take similar preventive action contacting the Fax Preference Service. See listing for both services below.
Services for people with special needs We are committed to helping all our customers to communicate easily. We offer the following additional services on request for customers who are older or who may have a disability, including:
Priority access to the Customer Service Team
Priority fault repair and assistance
Additional help and support if you have difficulty paying your bill
A free Directory Enquiries service for people who are unable to use the printed phone book
Copies of bills in large print, on computer disc (or in Braille) for customers who have difficulty reading their bill
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.
Useful addresses
Otelo, PO Box 730, Warrington, Cheshire, WA4 6WU. Tel: 01925 430870 or 0845 050 1614
e-mail:
enquiries@otelo.org.uk Website: www.otelo.org.uk
Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 9HA. Tel: 0845 456 3040 or
020 7981 3000 e-mail:
contact@ofcom.org.uk Website: www.ofcom.org.uk
ICSTIS Ltd, Clove Building, 4 Maguire Street, London, SE1 2NQ. Tel: 0800 500212 or 020 7940 7474 Website:
www.icstis.org.uk TPS, Telephone Preference Service DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8SS
Tel: 0845 070 0707 fax 020 7323 4226 e-mail
dma@dma.org.uk Website:
www.tpsonline.org.uk FPS, Fax Preference Service DMA House, 70 Margaret Street, London, W1W 8SS
Tel: 0845 070 0702 e-mail
dma@dma.org.uk Website:
www.fpsonline.org.uk Federation of Communication Services (FCS), Burnhill Business Centre, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT. Tel: 020 8249 6363 e-mail:
fcs@fcs.org.uk Website:
www.fcs.org.uk This code has been licensed by The Federation of Communication Services Limited 2005
Licence number 001682
Published July 2005. Correct at the time of printing. ©The Federation of Communication Services Limited 2
