The regulations are simply that if you accept an offer from someone who you would reasonably expect to be in a position to act on behalf of the company and is empowered to make such an offer, then the company is obliged to honour it.
The ‘reasonably expect’ clause is to protect against you, say talking in the pub to someone who happens to be, say, a cleaner for the company and they say, ‘well we can offer you gigabit broadband for 2p a month’. No reasonable person would imagine that the cleaner is empowered to make such an offer even if they are an employee so it wouldn’t be enforceable.
Even if the call eventually got routed to someone’s mobile working from home, then it really should have been recorded, but they do, as you say have a bit of a get out, in the calls ‘may’ be recorded.
In the event of a dispute escalating to the industry ombudsman, then they do tend to side with the customer in the absence of any recorded proof as long as your claim of what was agreed sounds reasonable.
Your supposition about targets for the week/month etc. is absolutely spot-on by the way.
The question here though is do you want to fight to get the offer agreed on the phone or simply cut your losses, cancel completely and sign up with an alternative provider?
