PSA/Reminder: BigPipe will charge you a full month when you cancel. Even if it's the 2nd.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › PSA/Reminder: BigPipe will charge you a full month when you cancel. Even if it's the 2nd.

ToucanSam

25 posts

Geek

#312281 3-Apr-2024 14:53

Hey team,

Moving house and switching to Quic. (Thanks @michaelmurfy)

For anyone considering BigPipe, please know that when you cancel your service even outside of contract, they will charge you for a full month.

In my case, this means that I got service for 2 days and they're charging me for all of April.

When I asked for a refund they quoted their terms of service and told me to get lost.

Previously BigPipe was one of my go to recommendations, but unimpressed is an understatement.

EDIT: I gave BigPipe more than a month of notice. NOT 2 days. It was only when it was coming up to the end of service and I inquired about the refund amount that I was pointed at the ToS.

EDIT 2: For the sake of clarification, I called and asked to cancel my service in February. They asked me what day I wanted to cancel, I told them the last day I was in this house because I knew the settlement date, they said no problem. At this stage, it would of been NICE (not mandatory) for the rep to say "Hey, you're moving out really close to the end of the month and you should be reminded that we can't do partial month refunds. Is that date still ok or did you want to cancel earlier?".

RunningMan

8953 posts

Uber Geek

#3213777 3-Apr-2024 15:14

Not really PSA, just you didn't check the terms before you cancelled. Not universal, but still pretty common for 1 billing cycle to be the notice period, but you only gave 2 days.

Jase2985

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#3213778 3-Apr-2024 15:15

so you are unhappy that they charged you a full month, well within their rights, under their ToS which you agreed to.

did you give them advanced notice of the switch and that you were changing a couple of days into the billing cycle?

ToucanSam

25 posts

Geek

#3213786 3-Apr-2024 15:28

Hey team,

Look, I'm happy to take the L. I did agree to the Terms of Service, but I also don't expect any business in NZ to be unable to offer partial refunds.

BigPipe is not a hotel. They haven't lost further sales because I cancelled my service.

I also did give them more than 30 days notice that I was cancelling. I'm not cancelling my service and finding out today. I'm only finding out today that they can't refund any portion of a month. Which again, seems incredibly silly.

So it's a PSA for anyone who might be considering BigPipe because I don't think "no partial month refunds" is standard in many service contracts. Should people read the ToS? Of course.

Putting consumer unfriendly terms in your service contract does not excuse what should be a fairly simple process to refund the difference.

robjg63

4096 posts

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#3213791 3-Apr-2024 15:45

I seem to recall previously with other connections that you always got charged for the whole month.

i.e. No pro-rata charging or refunds.

Is Quic's policy actually any different?

On this page https://www.quic.nz/fineprint/

Under the "Termination" section:

2. No refunds for the services remaining period will be provided if a cancellation is before the customer’s next billing due date.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

ToucanSam

25 posts

Geek

#3213794 3-Apr-2024 15:54

Thanks Rob.

No, it's part of Quic as well. And that's fine. I'm not disputing their legal ability to do it. Just that I think it's silly and technologically unnecessary.

2degrees gave me a partial refund when I switched to BigPipe. Vodafone gave me a partial refund when I switched to 2degrees.

Again, happy to take the L, but other folks might appreciate knowing before they pick up service that they could lose $100 based on their move out date.

nztim

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#3213811 3-Apr-2024 16:42

ToucanSam:

2degrees gave me a partial refund when I switched to BigPipe. Vodafone gave me a partial refund when I switched to 2degrees.

That was so very nice of them, but they are under no obligation to do so.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

evnafets

537 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3213813 3-Apr-2024 16:51

I'm just finding this post a little ironic given Bigpipes guide on How To Switch ISPs without ruining everything

Quoting verbatim:

Place your order with Bigpipe (or the ISP of your choice, which is obviously Bigpipe)
– If your current ISP is one of those annoying ones that requires 30 days notice, (which is most of them – so check!) then you can ask us to connect you, say, 35 days in the future so you don’t end up being double billed – no worries, we’ll wait.
– If you just want to get on Bigpipe goodness ASAP, then choose a convenient date for that (just bear in mind your current ISP might charge you an extra 30 days even though they aren’t providing you a service, just because they like free money and putting ‘gotchas’ in their contract)

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freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
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Geekzone

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#3213836 3-Apr-2024 17:47

So what's the obvious step here? How can one change ISPs without being charged?

Place an order with the new ISP and ask for the connection date to be on Day X (the planned last day with current ISP).
30 days before Day X you give notice that you are moving ISPs and hope new ISP connects on Day X and current ISP actually closes account on that day.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong (TM)?

The current ISP terminates now instead of in 30 days because CSR did not listen to request.
New ISP loses order, your 30 days run out, connection is terminated following your request and new connection doesn't exist yet.
New ISP loses order, your 30 days run out, connection is nor terminated and a new month connection is charged so you have to wait another 30 days since you are paying anyway.

One way out of this perhaps:

Ask the new ISP to connect on the unused ONT port a few days before Day X.
Give the current ISP 30 days notice before Day X asking to close the account on that day and not worrying since the Internet should be provisioned by then.

The problem with the solution above is that you might end up overlapping some days with both ISPs but you don't risk not having Internet.

eonsim

398 posts

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#3213848 3-Apr-2024 18:23

My fun case:

Tell current ISP you are changing ISPS over 30 days before, specifying the date you are changing to the new ISP, organise with the new ISP. At 00:01am the on the day of the change over the original ISP terminates the connection, at 7am the new ISP tries to connect you and finds out that the Fiber connection has been disabled. Request fibre provider to re-enable it, that takes 24hrs without internet.

Not a great in a WFH world...

Conclusion safer to have the new ISP do all the work and not bother giving the old ISP 30days notice.

MaxineN

Max
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#3213850 3-Apr-2024 18:30

To give some benefit of the doubt with OP, this shouldn't be hard as you can send a disconnect order to the LFC and it will be completed within 24 hours.

I know in my time at One New Zealand if you wanted to be disconnected on X date we'd do it on X date and automation would send it to the LFC to be done. I don't remember anyone around me ever applying the 30 day notice (https://one.nz/help/my-one-nz/cancel-an-account/) and I certainly don't remember myself doing so. It does mean that we still front the charge for the month from the LFC, but the billing stops immediately once the disconnect order completes on our side, and you'd be automatically rolled back charges (as you can't charge 1 month in advance for something that doesn't exist).

One other thing to note that not all systems are perfect. If you placed a transfer, you run the risk of the LSP NOT getting the notice to initiate the disconnect order.

The ISP is well within the right to enforce it as those were the terms you signed up. However it doesn't need to be this way.

Raising a second connection on the ONT with your GSP and once it's up raising a disconnect order on the LSP is the only "clean" way of doing it.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

nztim

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#3213910 3-Apr-2024 21:33

freitasm:

What Could Possibly Go Wrong (TM)?

The current ISP terminates now instead of in 30 days because CSR did not listen to request

The current RSP cannot terminate the connection if there is an in-flight service order on the ONT Port (one inflight order per ONT port) - My recommendation is always have the current RSP confirm with the LFC the transfer is in-flight

freitasm:

Ask the new ISP to connect on the unused ONT port a few days before Day X.
The problem with the solution above is that you might end up overlapping some days with both ISPs but you don't risk not having Internet.

^^^^^^^^ This is the best option

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

myfullflavour

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Full Flavour

#3213925 3-Apr-2024 21:59

We’re all forward billing (err thanks Chorus) and no one wants to mess around with refunds, hence the 30 days.

If you gave us notice today (3rd of April), it’s all handled in quite an orderly fashion eg the last bill we send you will have the correct amount of a couple days remaining to pay.

My preference is port 2 activations due to reasons given above but the industry has gone a different route and RSPs are now being actively queried when we don’t use the official transfer process

So for best success:

1) ask new RSP to connect 28 days in future
2) give old RSP 30 days notice to cancel
3) double pay a couple of days for smooth transfer peace of mind

nztim

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#3214052 4-Apr-2024 08:50

myfullflavour:

1) ask new RSP to connect 28 days in future
2) give old RSP 30 days notice to cancel
3) double pay a couple of days for smooth transfer peace of mind

This is again assuming new RSP places an in-flight order with Chorus, if they don't or do it "closer to the time" the LSP will place a disconnect order locking the ONT port.

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

freitasm

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#3214060 4-Apr-2024 09:10

Can we all agree the process is not smooth and error-free?

mljdpl

7 posts

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#3218377 14-Apr-2024 17:03

Your post @freitasm is a pleasant change from some of the hard-nosed comments that I have read on geekzone attempting to justify poor customer service and customer unfriendly business processes.