Cold Call

I like complaining. Of course I do. However, I only complain when there's a good reason for it. In this instance, my partner and I were sick to death of the behaviour of Kwik-Fit insurance services. What follows is my side of the telephone conversation I had with one of their customer services representatives. This is not a transcript. I am paraphrasing from memory. I wish that I had recorded the call... I hope that it is one of the calls that they recorded.

I received a call from one of your colleagues this afternoon, I was wondering if you could find out why they called.

[After being told that she couldn't quite work out why, and having had it suggested that it was someone in sales, since the car insurance policies I'd had with them had long expired...]

Ok, well my problem is this. It's started again. By that, I mean that, as happened last year, we're starting to receive unsolicited telephone calls. Some of the time, you pick up the telephone and there's nobody there. Sometimes, you pick up the phone and, after 15 seconds of saying "hello" it's someone from Kwik-Fit. That fact that you are calling regularly (several times in the past two days) and the fact that it's often just a dead line at the other end is a nuisance; in fact, it's more than that. It is harrassment.

And the times you are calling - the middle of the day... I've got something to tell you, and it may surprise you - I work. Yes, I have a job, so I'm not at home in the middle of the day. On the rare occasions when my partner is in to answer the call, and is able to tell your sales people that we have car insurance so are not interested in your services, they will not take her word for it and insist on ringing again. They promise to ring at half past six or seven o'clock, when I'm likely to be in, but either they don't bother, or they don't seem to be able to talk when the call comes through, and I'm talking to a dead line.

[At this point she tried to answer and I told her to continue listening until I'd finished speaking and had told her my demands; then she could speak].

Since clearly you cannot use your pre-emptive dialling system, I'd like you to take my telephone number out of it. I don't want to receive cold calls. If I want to speak to you, I'll ring you! In addition, since it seems to us like we've been receiving nuisance calls, I want a list of all the dates and times that you have called us - I want to know whether we are also receiving nuisance calls in addition to the irritation caused by your call centre.

I have the customer care person's assurance that my number will be removed from their systems today and that I will receive a letter confirming this and telling me whether they actually keep logs of all calls made. If they do, and if they are on computer, I think I can probably invoke the data protection act and examine those records... I'll see how belligerent I'm feeling.