Suggestions for writing to your MP.

[ForumFriend]

Use the template below to help you compose your letter to your MP.  Make the necessary amendments to suit your circumstances. Remember to include copies of your letter(s) to the OFT and Trading Standards.

(If you are unsure of your MP, or their contact details, see separate post for help.)

Dear
 
Concerns about an online trader
 
I wonder if you could pursue, on behalf of myself/my family an issue which has caused me/us a great deal of distress and which is not being satisfactorily resolved.  It relates to a company who are using an 'innovative' method of billing on the internet for adult sites, and who claim that I/we owe them money for a subscription to one of their sites. Their sign up procedure requires no personal information, but apparently involves merely clicking a few boxes to accept downloads.  Hidden within a barrage of terms and conditions are an agreement to accept software which disrupts the user's computer should they fail, at the end of a 'free 3-day trial' to either unsubscribe or to thereafter pay a subscription fee of [insert the amount appropriate to your case].

If you search online for Platte Media or Platte International, you will uncover some lively forum debates around their methods and strong-arm tactics, and there have been a number of articles in Guardian Technology and on You and Yours (Radio 4). There is even a Forum for victims of their billing method, which was set up in August 2007.

Following a number of complaints to Trading Standards and the Office of Fair Trading, the latter body acted in the Spring of last year to try to bring the company’s methods in line with acceptable business practice.  It was, at that stage, trading as MicroBill Systems, but has since been ‘taken over’ by Platte.  From my own experience, however, I do not feel that this action has been sufficient, and there continue to be a stream of complaints about the way they are operating.

I have just written to Trading Standards and the OFT to add my own complaint to those from other consumers, and I attach copies of these letters.  I feel most strongly that the way this company is operating is completely contrary to the interests of the consumer, and am most upset that they are haranguing me for payment of services that I have neither solicited nor used.  Furthermore, there is a major issue of the ease with which minors can access their adult content.

Please would you raise this issue on my behalf with the OFT, and with appropriate Parliamentary committees who may decide that it is a matter to be raised in the House. 

If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
 
Many thanks