Hi All.

A valued business client of mine, who has been with Spark for as long as they can remember, is facing an 'excess usage' charge in the thousands of dollars for exceeding their broadband plan allowance.

Over the December/January holiday period while their office was largely unattended, a software error (which can be proven) resulted in some recently installed online backup software continuously re-uploading the same piece of data to a server across the other side of town.  The client's 200Gb plan was significantly exceeded, with several Tb of traffic generated.  The fibre plan they were on has over-use penalties of $1.50 per Gb, and the resulting bill is several thousand dollars higher than normal.  

This client arranged plan changes and upgrades over the phone, and were never directed to the My Spark portal to set up usage alerts.  After some discussion, in recognition of this information not being provided, Spark have offered a 50% discount on the overuse charges, leaving several thousand dollars still to pay.

Spark have advised my client that "we do not actively monitor our customer’s usage. Given this, we would not have been aware of the high usage, and therefore excess charges, until the bill was generated and you raised the issue with us."

However if you look at the residentials plans, Spark states on their web site "When you go over your data limit, we won’t charge you for every extra megabyte you use.  Instead we charge you for blocks of data. It costs $5 per 5GB up to a max of $50. After that you’ll charged as though you were on the unlimited data plan for the rest of the month."

So which is it?  Do Spark actively monitor customer plans for high usage or not?  Or do Spark deliberately not monitor Business Broadband clients usage in order to be able to swindle them out of as much money as they can?  If Spark proactively support their residential clients to prevent unexpected bills, why are they not protecting their business clients in the same way?

Spark?

Sincerely,
Mike