This is a real story about the victim of a totally incompetent company and a tricky internet advertisement. In other words, how a simple thing can turn into a nightmare...
Please let me comment on your answer to my query regarding the outstanding balance of £2.96: IS THIS A BAD JOKE??? You cannot be seriously saying that a payment made for a specific order went to cover something else, especially if that particular thing has been already paid for twice!
I do not know how many times I already did, but I will again explain my unfortunate experience with BCA.
In early 2007 I was tricked by a dodgy internet advertisement into ordering some books. I received them weeks later, paid for them and considered the matter closed. However, shortly after that I started to receive regular packages that I had no idea who they were from and why they were being sent to me. They turned out to be Editor's choices, which I never wanted, repeatedly tried to return and explicitely requested not to be sent any more, everytime assured that a collection would be organised and you would sign me off the Editor's Choice recipients' list.
Alas, tens of pounds spent on phonecalls to your extremely efficient customer service resulted in nothing else than a big pile of unopened parcels occupying space in my room, lots of idle promises that you would stop sending new books and that really, really this time someone would turn up to collect the unsolicited parcels.
The only result achieved was a series of payment notices that culminated in the debt collecting agency CCS threatening me with legal action on your behalf. Although by that time (May 2008) I had already dragged all the parcels to the Post office, had drawn £30 from my own pocket and had returned the books to you myself, I still had to pay £236,67 to CCS to prevent legal action being taken against me, since the return was not yet recorded in your database. Thus I had neither books nor money and paid everything, including the books, late payment fees, fees for collections that never took place and additional fees set by CCS and Groundwell Recovery Service.
I paid to CCS the 22nd May and literally a day later, two weeks after I complained in a letter about all this, I received a response from BCA's representative Jitesh Nambiar, issued the 15th May, stating that my Editor's Choice account was credited with £236,67 (which was a mistake, the issuer did not mean "credited", but "cleared of the outstanding balance") and subsequently closed.
Since the debt was cancelled and the books returned, I asked for a refund, first in July by letter (with attached the slip from the cheque paid to CCS) and then last week by email. Both requests have been solemnly ignored... You can verify both the CCS cheque slip and Royal Mail postage receipt, as well as the letter from BCA, in the attachment.
On top of that, all the parcels and letters were simply left in front of my door, none of them was sent as recorded mail or at least delivered into my hands. I have never had the chance to knowingly accept or refuse them, and should they been lost in the post, stolen by passers by, swept away by the wind, thrown into the rubbish as unknown junk or should I have simply relocated, I would never know anything about this issue. Where would that lead? Would I be now facing a court order to pay all the expenses for something I never wanted, tried to return several times and could not because of your totally inefficient service?
While all the described mess was happening on the Editor's Choice account, I ordered four books from BooksDirect to fulfill the commitment and to be able to close this account as well. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to contact me and inform me that the order could not be shipped due to previous outstanding balance, and there was no such note in my online account, either. After two weeks of waiting I called your customer telephone line and after being informed of the above mentioned, I performed a direct debit payment of £42.96, clearly stating that it was an advance payment for Blaze, Making Money, The Gunslinger and The Wee Free Men, which the person who took the call confirmed. Strangely enough, it took yet another phonecall and another few weeks of waiting until i finally received my books. Assuming that they were already paid and that one last step divided me from closing the account and forgetting the BCA nightmare forever, I requested the account closure... and here we come back to the currently outstanding £42.96.
I hope that you can appreciate my situation and understand why I am sick of it, why I am totally disgusted by BCA, BCA's methods and BCA's useless customer service, why I have no interest whatsoever in your offers and why my only wish is to close any relation with the company. The fact that over the last year and a half I have been bullied, lied to, almost dragged into a court and treated like a criminal, not to mention that it all cost me more than 300 pounds, is not only astonishing, but utterly outrageous!
In the light of all the mentioned facts, I ask: how dare you telling me that I still have an outstanding balance on my BooksDirect account?!!! How dare you even suggest that the money I paid for a specific order were used to pay collection fees when nobody ever bothered to turn up at my door and collect the books, even if I requested it more than five times?!!! How dare you suggest that you used those money to cover a debt you cancelled months ago, a debt I paid nonetheless and I even returned the goods!!! Not to mention the fact that I have been more than once told that BooksDirect and Editor's Choices are two different departments, have separate accounts and cannot be mixed in any way?
I will never, ever send a single penny to BCA again and I will in no way pay for Blaze, Making Money, The Gunslinger and The Wee Free Men for a second time!
I demand that you escalate this matter to a line manager or someone else competent enough to finally solve it, since dealing with customer representatives never brought any result. I also demand the outstanding amount to be cleared and my BooksDirect account closed without further delays. Finally, I repeat my request of refund of the £236,67 paid to you via CCS debt collecting agency (as mentioned before, a copy of the cheque slip was sent to you by post, but I believe that the attachment to this email will do, too).
Please note that I have already contacted the Citizens Advice Bureau and will seek legal advice on this matter. I want my money back and I will not let this scandal go unnoticed. My patience has a limit, and that limit is over.
I expect to hear from you in due course.
Yours faithfully,
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