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Mail offers from Sunrise could not be rejected due to an error. And the resolution should cost over 1600 francs.
A UPC customer from the canton of Aargau noticed during the holidays that his “Unlimited” mobile phone subscription from UPC is anything but unlimited when surfing abroad. The UPC hotline therefore recommends that customers take out an alternative subscription from the parent company Sunrise. If you send him an e-mail offer, he says he should take a look at it.
“Reject offer” automatically triggers a contract
The e-mail offer arrives at the beginning of September, but the UPC customer does not want the new subscription. Instead of clicking on the big “Buy now” button, he instead clicks on “Reject offer” further down in the email. But an error message follows. He tries every day without success, and a week later he calls Sunrise saying he doesn’t want to accept the offer.
A call center agent confirms his request, but just one day later an e-mail arrives: “Thank you for choosing Sunrise”. Sunrise would like to thank you for your order and your trust. The Sunrise hotline confirms to the Aargauer that something went wrong and promises that it will be corrected in the system.
Chaos in Sunrise customer service
Just a few days later, there is another post from Sunrise, this time a letter with the title “Welcome to Sunrise”. Sunrise sends the UPC customer a new SIM card.
A call center employee told me I could throw away the SIM card, it was done.
Of course, the dismayed UPC customer calls the hotline again: “A call center employee told me I could throw away the SIM card, it was done. He writes it down again, for the third time, »says the Aargauer to the SRF consumer magazine «Espresso».
“Operational costs” of 1638 francs
It’s quiet for a month, then the next letter comes. It is a reminder that he should please send a power of attorney for porting his phone number. Here, too, calling the hotline is of no use: in mid-November, the next letter from Sunrise will be in the mailbox, which is quite a lot.
The link to decline was incorrectly stored, so that a contract was triggered.
He signed a contract with Sunrise, “unfortunately we haven’t heard anything from you,” it says. He has to report by November 28, otherwise the porting will have to be cancelled. “This is associated with administrative costs of 1638 francs.”
The Aargau definitely no longer understands the world. It seems absurd to him that he should pay a cancellation fee of more than 1,600 francs for a contract he never signed.
What’s going on at Sunrise?
The Sunrise media office admits that something went wrong. Two mistakes happened: «First, the link to reject was incorrectly stored, so that a contract was triggered. The second mistake was that the agent didn’t do the cancellation properly.” It was a very unfortunate case, we apologize for it, says spokeswoman Therese Wenger.
Link stored incorrectly for weeks
Spicy: The “Reject offer” link was not only wrong for the Aargau UPC customer, the error also existed for other potential customers for weeks. Therese Wenger cannot explain why such an error led to the complete failure of Sunrise customer service. “It does not meet our standards of good customer service and we are sorry for the customer,” says the spokeswoman.
However, the person concerned does not receive more than nice words via the SRF consumer magazine. No letter, no phone or email to apologize for the hassle, the many phone calls and the strained nerves. The person concerned only finds out that the case is now definitely closed when asked by “Espresso”, in a dry e-mail.