Code of Practice for Complaint Handling

Ofcom approved Code of Practice for Complaint Handling
(Approved Issue 1 – 15th February 2007)

About Us

First City Telecom is a leading Provider of Telecoms services tailored to the needs of business users. Our product portfolio consists of a wide range of services from dial-up access to non-geographic telephone numbers. For more information about our products and services please visit our website www.firstcitytelecom.com.

The purpose of this Code of Practice

This code aims to provide:

Information on how to contact First City Telecom
Where to find information on our products and services
What to do when things go wrong

How to contact First City Telecom

Postal Address:
First City Telecom
Phoenix Mill Business Park
Estover Road
Plymouth, Devon, PL6 7PY

Customer Services Department
Telephone: 0808 165 0808
E-mail: customercare@firstcitytelecom.com

Our customer services department is open form 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday. Closed on Bank Holidays. Calls to this number are charged at your standard tariff.

Sales Department
Telephone: 0808 165 0808
E-mail: sales@firstcitytelecom.com

Our sales department is open from 09.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday. Closed on Bank Holidays. Calls to this number are charged at your standard tariff.

Accounts Department
Telephone: 0808 165 0808
E-mail: accounts@firstcitytelecom.com

Our accounts department is open from 09.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday. Closed on Bank Holidays. Calls to this number are charged at your standard tariff.

Information on our Products and Services

First City Telecom offers a range of products and services to help you make the most of the Internet. Our range of Business Solutions is designed to support both individual Teleworkers and multiple users in busy office environments and include:

Access services
Dial-up Internet
Broadband Internet
Webspace
Shared webspace
Dedicated webspace
Hosting and Co-Location
Content Services
Email filtering
Virus checking
Business services
Domain name registration
Domain name 'parking'
non-geographic numbers
carrier pre selection (CPS)
line rental

For more information about our products and services please visit our website www.firstcitytelecom.com

Pricing

The latest prices for our products and services are always available via our website www.firstcitytelecom.com or by calling our dedicated sales team on 01249-848-165, calls to this number are charged at your standard tariff rate

Billing

We accept payments by Credit Card, Cheque or Standing Order Mandate. Payments can be made either monthly or annually, for your ease and convenience.

Terms and Conditions of Service

First City Telecom provides a range of products and services, full details of which can be found at our website www.firstcitytelecom.com. Our Services are offered to you conditioned on your acceptance without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices. Our Terms and Conditions are available from our website http://www.firstcitytelecom.com/files/tandcv1.pdf

Suspension and termination of services

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your service where you have breached our Terms and Conditions, for example, if you fail to pay your bill. Customers should read our Terms and Conditions, which are available at http://www.firstcitytelecom.com/files/termsv1.pdf for further information.

Complaints Handling Process

All complaints must be put in writing and either e-mailed to support@firstcitytelecom.com or posted to:

Customer Services Department
First City Telecom
Phoenix Mill Business Park
Estover Road
Plymouth, Devon, PL6 7PY

We aim to acknowledge all letters of complaint within five days of their receipt. We will give you the name and job title of the person handling your complaint at First City Telecom .

A full response will be sent to you within ten days unless your complaint requires further investigation. We may, for example, need to consult with our colleagues in other departments, and in these circumstances we will send a full response to you within four weeks. In exceptional circumstances, the longest we will take to send you a final response will be eight weeks.

Dispute Resolution

First City Telecom is committed to providing its customers with an excellent customer experience. Should an issue arise then our Customer Services team will aim to resolve this quickly and efficiently by either telephone or e-mail support. Our objective is to ensure that the matter is resolved promptly and that corrective action is taken wherever possible to prevent reoccurrence.

If you are not happy with the response then you may ask for the matter to be escalated to the appropriate manager for further investigation.

If we have not resolved your complaint to your satisfaction after 12 weeks or if you have received a letter from us saying that your complaint has reached “deadlock”, you may make a complaint through Otelo an independent alternative dispute resolution scheme.

Contacting relating organisations
First City Telecom is a member of Otelo, also known as the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman.

Otelo will consider a complaint that has become “deadlocked”. They provide a free and independent service that has been approved by Ofcom. Their job is to investigate complaints fairly by listening to both sides of the story and looking at the facts of the case.

Should you wish to refer your complaint to Otelo they can be contacted at:

Postal Address

Otelo
PO Box 730
Warrington
WA4 6WU

Phone:
0845 050 1614 or 01925 430049

Fax:
0845 050 1615 or 01925 430059

E-mail:
enquiries@otelo.org.uk

Website:
www.otelo.org.uk

Other useful contacts

Should you wish to contact the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the regulator of the communications industry. They can be contacted by at:

Postal Address

Ofcom Contact Centre
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA

Phone:
0845 456 3000 or 020 7981 3040

Fax:
0845 456 3333

E-mail:
contact@ofcom.org.uk

Website:
www.ofcom.org.uk

How to obtain this Code of Practice

This code of practice is available from our website www.firstcitytelecom.com. Alternatively customers can request that a copy is posted, faxed or e-mailed to them by calling our Customer Services Department on .

Data Protection Act

First City Telecom complies with all relevant data protection legislation as laid down by the Data Protection Acts of 1984 and 1998 to protect all user information. Our privacy policy details the personal information we collect about you and describes how we may use that information. This policy can be viewed at www.firstcitytelecom.com/files/privacy.pdf

Additional information

Ofcom, the regulator for the UK communications industry, has approved this Code of Practice for the purposes of section 2 of the Communications Act 2003. The Guidelines for producing codes of practice can be found on Ofcom’s website at www.ofcom.org.uk

If you have any questions regarding this code of practice, please e-mail customercare@firstcitytelecom.com