1 – Applying a “letter only” cancellation notice policy so that it is difficult for a customer to prove, at a later stage, a cancellation request was sent in the first place.

2 – Applying a 30 days notice period on cancellation notices so it’s hard to time a cancellation request so that you don’t get charged another month of unwanted service.

3 – Once you send a cancellation letter, a member of their team will call you saying that rather than cancel the campaign you can “pause” it until when needed again. Then when you send them another letter of cancellation they will tell you your campaign was on pause and not cancelled and that they require 30 days notice so you’ll basically need to pay upfront for another month of unwanted campaign. This will repeat itself in a viciuos circle from which is difficult to permanently get out.

Basically their tactic is to hold on to a customer as long as they possibly can squeezing out money out of them even when the customer no longer requires the service.

4 – Their payment charges are not standing orders or direct debit, quite conveniently for them, making it very difficult for you to cancel the transaction before hand, unless you cancel your card (or pretend you’ve lost it) so your credit card company will send you a new card.

This is how you trap them: When you send the cancellation letter, make sure you send it recorded delivery and keep the receipt containing the tracking number (usually starts with “GB”).

Keep a copy of the letter on your hard disk (the time stamp on the properties of the file will prove that the letter was not created or modified at a later date).

Obtain proof of delivery (this will also contain a signature from the Lavora member of staff that in turn collected the letter) from the royal mail online tracking service.

Let Lavora, or whatever they change their name to, charge you, then report the transaction as fraudolent and send your credit card company all said paperwork and any invoices containing Lavora Web’s trading address (this will also prove that Lavora Web and Answer IT group are the same trading company) and your credit card company SHOULD cover your loss, investigate the matter, and take action against them.