Offered deal to stay with Spark but then charged for 2months in one go

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Offered deal to stay with Spark but then charged for 2months in one go

UFBfan

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#306036 22-Jun-2023 15:56

Phoned Spark to discuss a wildly out of date plan, or from another perspective, one that was over priced and under delivering. They offered a drop from $107 to $85. Negotiated for better speed at $95, service otherwise not altered.

First bill was most of that month at the old rate AND the month at the new rate. $207 in total!

Spark has had their 2 week contract cancellation period passed and we'd like to quit them over this. We were not in a contract at $107 but we are in a 12 month now. We didn't expect such a 'deal' to cost so much. Is there some legal avenue to get out of this 12 month contract?

Martin

Talkiet

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#3093556 22-Jun-2023 16:01

This is almost certainly due to a change in billing cycle on an old plan (which was billed in arrears) to billing in advance. I can't be 100% certain but it sounds like the situation explained here:

https://www.spark.co.nz/help/account/bill/understand-bill/https://www.spark.co.nz/help/account/bill/understand-bill/

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Recently joined Spark? Or made changes to your products and services?

When you first join Spark, you may see two charges for the same plan on your bill. These charges will have different date ranges associated with them. This is because Spark charges for services a month in advance.

This means your first bill will have a full month's charge from your bill’s start date. You'll also get a pro-rata charge (one-off) from your connection date up to your billing start date.

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Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#3093701 22-Jun-2023 20:54

Yea as @Talkiet said, you may have been on one of the old "Unplan" plans. Those plans were based on your actual data usage for each month and were therefore billed in arrears. So when you move to one of the current offerings (which are billed in advance) you do sometimes end up with a killer bill - which at first glance seems like a billing error.

I (and no doubt many) Spark customers went through this same issue when moving off Unplan.

If you originally signed up with Spark on Unplan, you got the benefit of being billed a month or more after you joined, as opposed to getting a bill shortly after connection. The elevated bill you are seeing now is an unfortunate consequence of switching back to the industry standard "in advance" bill.

quickymart

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#3093719 22-Jun-2023 22:31

Yes I seem to recall an invoice around the $200 mark when I moved off Unplan as well - but that was the first (and only) one. All the rest afterwards were the usual amount.

cokemaster

Exited
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Lifetime subscriber

#3093721 22-Jun-2023 22:41

Unplan was such fun to implement too :)

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UFBfan

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3093963 23-Jun-2023 11:34

Thanks for the information. You've all helped :)

Martin