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Sales and sign-up

We can help with your complaint about how a provider behaved when selling you a product or service, including what information they provided. We can also help with complaints about contracts that you didn’t agree to. To resolve your complaint about sales or sign-up, we’ll consider the law, good industry practice and fairness.

Types of sales and sign-up complaints

We deal with complaints about sales and sign-up such as:

  • providers giving consumers misleading or inadequate information about a product or service and its terms and conditions
  • providers harassing or coercing a consumer to buy a product or service, such as during telemarketing or door-to-door sales
  • contracts that a consumer didn’t agree to, or didn’t have the capacity to agree to
  • providers not telling a consumer about the risks of entering a contract to buy a product or service for someone else
  • providers selling post-paid services without checking that the consumer can afford them.

What you should expect from your provider: the law and industry practice

You should not be pressured into signing up 

It’s illegal for providers to harass, coerce, mislead or deceive consumers during door-to-door sales or telemarketing. Providers must not give you false or misleading information about their product or service and whether it is suitable for your needs.

You should be given the information you need to make a decision 

So that you can give your informed consent to enter a contract, providers must give you a critical information summary with key information about a product or service. They must also make sure the full terms and conditions can be downloaded from their website.

Providers should check that you can afford a post-paid service 

Before selling you a post-paid service – that is, a service you pay for after you begin using it – providers should take reasonable steps to check that you can afford it. For example, they might check your credit file or payment history, or ask for evidence of your income. If you can’t afford it, they must tell you and offer you an alternative.

More information

For more detailed information read our guidance:

How we've helped other customers

Complaint
A consumer was transferring his service from one provider to another, and lost his number in the process.
Outcome
Both the new and the old service providers managed to solve the issue and the new service provider gave the consumer a credit on their account.
This page was last updated on
31st Aug 2021