Contracts and service with telphone companys in France

• Be very aware with any Telephone operators/contractors in France as they have no service at all and charge you for it.
  They have a very strange system in that when you ask for a service such as a line or Broadband/ADSL then you are under contract which is a big con, becouse if your service is disconnected or cut off, then they cancell the contract and you have to start all over again and are still liable for the existing contract.
  In July this year there was some legilation that operators in Franch can only tie people into &é month contracts as this was é' months and you would have been made to pay this amount too. The other thing was to provide its customers a normal or free phone number to make contact. The only problem is that they have got arround this by making you have to ring another premium rate number and sometimes at a 1.50 Euros per Min to only be told that they cannot help you or they just put the phone down on you.
  Another trick of these unscrupulus companys is to put you into a automated system on a nuber that charges you 0.35 Euros when you get another automated message that takes you to somwhere else completely differant and you have just wasted 3 hours and got no where.
  Most people in France and including the French themselves are so scared to make any complaints in case the telephoner company cuts them off and becouse one is not able to get hold of anyone to complain, could be off the air for some time with no apopoligy or compensation of any kind.
  I am dealing with ' differant companies at present and none of them will ever respond to letters,even if they are sent recorded delivery which is what is recomended in France.
  By them not communicating with you at all allows them to contiune to take money from your bank account and not even give you a service at all. There are people pulling their hair out as there appers to be no regulators or organisations of any kind to assit. I have alreay used the Consumers and unions set up to assit,? but they are guided as to what they can do, so notting gets done of course.
  Please let me know if there are others out there with simmular, as i would be intrested to know as the most complaints here at present are the telecommunications companies and making a good living at the moment. I would like to make them accountable and have regulators control them. That way it would make this a much better invioment for us all.
  [email removed] Beziers France

  24 Oct 2008, 05:45 Ben Humble