Last call for business to return cash

For people working in the communications industry, the directors of Pop Telecom seem oddly averse to communicating.

I’ve been trying for weeks to get a response to a complaint from a reader furious at how his late mother was treated.

Steve Budd says that his mum Jean, from Marlow in Bucks, was cold called by Pop Telecom, despite being registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

Jean, who was suffering from a heart condition and needed regular hospital treatment, was persuaded to change her phone supplier to Pop.

Steve says this resulted in her bills sometimes being double the ones she’d received while with BT.

Furious, the family cancelled the contract.

“Pop then extracted an early cancellation fee of over £600 from Mum’s account despite the fact that no T&Cs were received until I made a complaint,” he said.

“Pop have flatly refused to entertain reimbursement.”

Steve obtained copies of the sales call as recorded by Pop and says there was no mention of the length of contract or termination penalty.

“Initially I felt they might take the human approach, refund the money and we could put it towards a headstone,” he added.

Pop Telecom has two directors, David Curran and Deborah Curran, both 51 and from Chelmsford, Essex.

Neither has replied to my requests for comment.

Their company has notched up numerous complaints on online review sites, with one TrustPilot commentor scoring it one out of five, saying: “Only given one star because I have to. I wouldn’t even give 0.”