Telecom scams us out of $940

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom scams us out of $940

andrewc

53 posts

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#11598 1-Feb-2007 15:06

We were recently surprised to receive a bill for $944 worth of excess internet usage. Excess usage? We're supposed to be on the unlimited Go Large plan. I immediately called and was told it would be resolved and a credit placed on the account, so this wouldn't be so much of a problem except yesterday was the due date for the month's bill, and we have a direct debit set up. Goodbye $944 -- the credit hadn't gone through, it was still "in process", apparently. Noone I could get hold of at xtra was much help, "it's with another department" they said. Here's hoping we'll get the money back soon.

The irony of the situation is some time ago I wrote an application to make it easy to check your usage, used by hundreds of people in NZ. If only I'd used it myself! (like I used to when I knew I had a traffic limited account).

Bill

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#59504 1-Feb-2007 15:29

another reason why I don't have direct debit payment for bills that may vary from month to month...

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tonyhughes

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#59505 1-Feb-2007 15:31

'scam' implies that telecom have stolen your money with the intention of keeping it. that's clearly not the case here. yes you have been wronged with cause for complaint, but you have certainly not been scammed by telecom at all.

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#59510 1-Feb-2007 15:45

I would never give a business authority to take whatever they want out of my account. internet banking makes paying the right amount a two minute job....

Mithster18

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#59516 1-Feb-2007 15:58

Lol oh well.

I once heard a story of where a woman was with Xtra for her dial-up plan & she decide to upgrade to broadband (Not sure what type)
So anyway she got Telecom to come 'round & set up her Broadband.
It was going all very well until the monthly bill came around, it seems that Telecom had given her The broadband as asked but they had left the dial up on there. Still active, but not being used.
& I THINK Telecom claims that if she no longer wanted dial-up she should have a said so. Because it seems the most sensible thing to do is to disable her dial-up cabibilities.

andrewc

53 posts

Master Geek

#59520 1-Feb-2007 16:38

Direct debit's great. Why bother with that two minutes online when you could use 0 minutes?
This is the first time it's ever been a problem, pity it's such a big one!

As for the word "scam", well ... they definitely had intention of keeping the money, or at least just crediting the account, I had to repeatedly point out to the person I was talking to that a $940 credit on the account would be nearly a year's worth of bills & I wanted the money back. This has still to happen, so the word "scam" will stand until it does.

The thing is, I told them about the problem at least a week, probably more like 2 weeks ago, and it's still "in process", and they still took the money. Thanks guys.

Mithster18

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#59593 2-Feb-2007 13:43

Oh well maybe you problem might be fixed by 30 June 2007, because why?

Theresa Gatting is leaving of course.

YAY!

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barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#59638 2-Feb-2007 20:21

many many moons ago when ADSL was like having a rocket to the moon, I was called into an Internet cafe. they had full-spped ADSL (8mbit/s with Xtra) shared by 20-25 computers and wanted a decent firewall. I liaised with the Internet cafe's technician and left them with a good Linux firewall+router, DHCP server and web-based bandwidth monitor.

next time they call me, they ask if I can re-configure their firewall for their new Internet connection. They had viruses on all of their Internet cafe computers for 4 or more months and received a bill for nearly $30,000 - to Telecom's credit they waived most of the bill on the condition they bought a 2mbit CIR frame-relay contract.

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cokemaster

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#59647 2-Feb-2007 20:48

Ah yes... the good of days of jetstream.

We ran a Jetstream 5000 connection with about 100 computers there. Even during the worse of it - it was still really nice compared to the dialup then. Of course the overage charges were scary for the first couple of months.

Sometimes I can't figure out whether: files are getting bigger and take longer to download - or - the broadband connections are getting slower than they used to be (on full speed jetstream).

The above situation is exactly why I avoid using direct debit, I perfer having the bills pushed out via email or checking online... and then once I've confirmed the charges paying using either credit card online or internet banking. Mistakes do happen (I'm sure this was a mistake rather than a deliberate action) and once this is discovered, its in everyones interests to get it resolved as soon as possible.

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weblordpepe

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#59656 2-Feb-2007 22:00

Yeah thats right.

Remember guys Telecom is an enormous company. And like many other big companies they have lots of customers. You're bound to have billing screwups from time to time.

When I accidentally paid iServe $50, I just emailed them, gave the time/date/reference number and why I accidentally paid them $50. Sure enough - the $50 came back into my account like a clingy girlfriend.

moshpit

55 posts

Master Geek

#60859 15-Feb-2007 10:18

If I recollect correctly from my call center days. Once your account is incredit. Telecom can send you a refund cheque at anytime. That was 5 years ago so I presume they can now just transfer it back to the account it debits from.

andrewc

53 posts

Master Geek

#60860 15-Feb-2007 10:23

Well, they finally credited the money back to the account 2 days ago. This is nearly a month after calling them the first time.
So it worked out in the end, thanks to persistance and patience...