JD Williams Group: Trained to Harass?

Since having my landline installed at the start of August 2012, I have received phone calls from various companies operating under the JD Williams group. Simply Yours is the most recent and after dealing with a member of their team I certainly will never buy from the company again.

I have never bought anything from any of the JD Williams groups. All the phone calls that I am receiving are for someone that I have never heard of. The calls are from the collection departments. The calls occur once, twice, sometimes three times a day and even if I ignore them, they go through to my answer phone.  There have been times that my answer phone has been full within a week due to these calls. My guess is that the intended recipient changed her number to avoid this – what I construe as – harassment.

Informing Them of a Wrong Number

I have informed them of a wrong number numerous times; each time, being informed that they would take the number off the system. However, the calls continue to happen. On October 2, 2012, I received another call. This one was from Simply Yours for the exact same person. Again, I informed them that they had the wrong number and wanted the number to removed from the system. My number was a private number and I had not given the number out and they were not asking for me – or anyone else living in the house.

Refusal to Remove the Number

Surprisingly, they refused to remove the number without me giving them my personal details. This is never something that I am comfortable doing unless I have contacted the company. The company contacted me, so my argument is how they can expect me to give them personal details that can be used for identity theft purposes. The member of staff continued to ask for my personal details.

I went on to ask to speak to a manager. The member of staff simply said that he could not do that. After asking why – and it took three attempts for him to give me a reason, other than “I don’t want to” – he said that my reason was not valid. At no point did he ask why I wanted to speak to a manager. I wanted to make a complaint and by this point this member of staff was starting to become part of my complaint. He informed me that he could handle the complaint and would not be put through to a manager. I knew that he would not log the complaint correctly after the way he had been speaking to me on the phone, so I continued to ask for a manager; it was my statutory right to speak to someone in charge.

As he continued to refuse to do this, I asked him for a direct phone number to accounts to sort this mess out. As he refused to do this, I stated that I would be writing a letter of complaint and I wanted his name. Of course, he refused to give me his name – even his first name. Alarm bells always ring when a member of staff refuses to give a name and by this point I was getting extremely angry, frustrated and upset. All I wanted was my number to be removed from the system without having to give my personal details – something that I don’t feel like I should have to do as it breaches my right to privacy.

Phoning Simply Yours Directly

The member of staff hung up on me in the end, stating that there was nothing he could do. Well, there was – all he had to do was give me his name or put me through to a manager or just remove the number completely. I ended up calling the company directly to sort out the mess and put in my complaint. Since there was no name, there was no way of making a complaint but I have finally had the number removed – or so they say. Annoyingly, I did have to give some details; my name and postcode as I refused to give anything else so that they could not send me unwanted mail, set up an account or use my details in any other way. Apparently my number will be removed from the system within 24 hours.

Is it really hard for a company to simply put up their hands and say, sorry we have made a mistake and we will rectify that? The amount of calls I get and the way the collections department talk to people is harassment in my eyes. I have written a formal complaint with all the details about the call that I could give; hopefully they will look into who was working on the day and time and make sure that this does not happen again. I have also reported the company to the Business Regulator in the UK. I am now on a mission to ensure that everyone knows to stay away from the JD Williams group if you want to avoid this harassment.

Luckily, I am a person who knows my rights and is willing to protect my privacy. I stand my ground and make sure something happens. I fear for those who are timid, don’t know their rights or simply scared to argue back. Companies should be banned from expecting people to give them personal details so they take their number off the system; they should be banned from constantly calling a wrong number after being informed of such; and they should not be allowed to talk to people – customers and potential customers – in the way that they do.