Rights to cancel

Paul,

If you only have an oral contract you can in principle rely on what you were told and ask for the contract to be honoured as per your agreement "immediately" and if they dont and provided the breach is serious enough stop paying.

The detail of what you should do is a little more than that though.

How did you arrange to make the payment and were you referred to any terms and conditions?

Where did the 12 months minimum creep into the equation?

Hi Paul

Found this link which maybe useful but from what i can gather it may not apply to advertising - Internet, mail order and telephone shopping : Directgov - Government, citizens and rights

Im not a legal expert but if there is no signed contract im not sure how they can hold you to it, unless they went through a verbal contract over the phone.

If there is failure to perform i'd advise them you are not happy & you wish to terminate the agreement and find out then what they are proposing.

Once you have this "proposal" come back and share and im sure between us all we can offer further advice.

I would think bought as a business and as such consumer rights don't apply in the same way That is my assumption but I may be wrong about that).

What exactly was offered and agreed to is very important and Garde is right that 12 month minimum can't be introduced without some prior knowledge.

Bill - thanks for responding

Advertising in the local papers has for me always been the most successful - when placing adverts usually a months worth at a time the reps started to mention the 'find it' and how I would get a reduced rate of adverts if I was signed onto the find it.

So from there I agreed to have a listing placed on 'find it' the rep told me that someone from find it would contact me for more info regarding tags and search engine terms etc (this never happened) I sent to the rep a brief description and a photo/logo and the listing 'went live' - about 2-3 weeks later I remembered that the find should have been up and running and ran through numerous searches and could not find my listing.

5 minutes after phoning the 'find it team' my listing miraculously appeared.

I was still not happy when using certain search terms that I was not found, after talking to the rep he said that they have a list of terms for hypnotherapists and they had used that () he asked me to send in my list which has never caused any change. He did say something about (he used a specific word that I can't remember) the amount of changes that can be made to a listing or a certain amount of time that is spent with each client? I had insisted though that I had never actually been contacted by anyone. Someone did phone me regarding the listing but nothing changed.

So after giving it a reasonable amount ot have changed I phoned in to cancel the listing, at that point I could not speak as he was not in so the person I was talking to then asked me If i had received the agreement from the rep which I had not. The next day I got a letter through which basically is an invoice for the total amount of a years subscription at a rate of the X amount that we had spoken about...

There is also a 'Direct debit guarantee' which at the bottom says that I can cancel the direct debit at any time by contacting the back and must also contact them.
Am I OK to cancel the Direct Debit and contact them to say it has been cancel or will they then demand the full amount?
When the letter arrived as an Invoice that was the first point it was clear that the "It's only x amount per month" meant but you have to agree to 12 months. that was never made clear to me.

Sorry to have rambled on a bit -

That's a useful link Garde thank you.

Hi Paul

No worries re the link, although im not sure if it applies in this instance.

Personally and I take no responsibility here lol, but if i was in the same situation, i would cancel the DD and tell them that as there is no signed contract im walking away and amounts paid already will cover them for the time they have so far spent on the project.

No doubt they will come back and threaten you for balance of payment but as there is no agreement signed im not sure what they can do about it. Id tell them that they have at no time told you that you were entering into an agreement and as such had you known you would not have agreed to it.

Im guessing again they will demand payment to which i would refuse. It depends on the amount that you owe as to if they pursue you but worst case you get a legal letter you can write back with your reasons of non payment and if it escalates to legal action you have an option to defend it in Court or simply pay up at that point.

Like i said i take no responsibility for your actions but would be happy to speak further about this.

Oh I love a court case, gives me a reason other than for funerals to dress up... If theres no written or signed contract I can't see why you can't just cancel the direct debit, the only thing I'm struggling with is why you would sign a direct debit mandate, not knowing what you are going to get. I wouldn't pay on principle if I had been misled, I would however give the company every chance to resolve any issues I had. Thereby if it did go legal you can always show that you have been reasonalble..

I did not sign a direct debit mandate.

Just a quick note to let people know that this matter is now closed. (they agreed to cancel)
Thankyou to everyone posting.