[TelstraClear] Going to war with TelstraClear

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [TelstraClear] Going to war with TelstraClear

Novatech

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#19879 4-Mar-2008 15:53

I'm having a bit of an issue (to put it mildy) with Telstra at the moment regarding disconnection or rather 'suspension' of their services.

I was rather overdue with paying them (about two months) and they 'suspended' my cable and phone services.

This is ok, they are a company, they are there to make money and if they are not getting it it's their right to not provide the services, although a phone call or email warning us that this was going to happen would have been nice as the internet is an intergral part of both my porfessional and social life (Sad I know).

I contacted them to verify that it just wasn't another outage, got the bad news told them 'ok it's goinng to take me while to get the money together to pay the arrears' and left it at that resigning myself to a month or two without internet at home.

Fast foward two months, I've nearly got the needed amount together when a bill arrives in the mail for two further months of services (on the 40gb/10mbit plan + home phone) that has not been provided for that period.

I give them a call (pretty annoyed), and get told that it's because the service was only 'suspended' not 'disconnected', at this stage I've decided to write them off as an ISP and find someone else, So I decided to organise 'disconnection'.

Apparently it's going to take them another 4 weeks to send a technican out to 'disconnect' the currently unusable service - another month that I'm going to get charged for.

Surprisingly I have managed to stay civil thought out this procedure, there's no point venting at some poor call center drone for a policy that not their doing, but I'm completely unable to reach anyone further up the heirachy to give both barrels.

I'm starting the 'Disputes Resolution Service' of which they are a member of and I'll see where that goes, but if there's no joy with that
I'll be spending my two free days a week standing outside either their retail outlet or their corprate HQ with a sign expressing my displeasure.

Does anyone else here have any feelings or advice on this ?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#114595 4-Mar-2008 16:21

This is similar to another query here in the forums, regarding Vodafone. Similar story, service suspended for late payment, new bill arrives with charges.

It was also the same consensus: having a service suspended for not paying the bill doesn't cancel the contract and monthly charges, which keeps ticking in the background.

Sorry I can't say anything in the sense that "no they shouldn't charge", but that's just normal procedure and according to the industry.

Novatech

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#114605 4-Mar-2008 16:34

Heh. I was discussing this with a few friends of mine, who just happen to be law students looking for a project for the first semester. I'll still go through the disputes procedure and see what comes of that, but they have taken it on as a theory project for now which may produce some interesting results.

offtopic: I've just been given a EEEpc (Thanks boss!). It is a shiny peice of kit and combined with cafenet and umm other wireless access methods that's going to keep me going untill Actrix provision a line for me.

DonkeyKong

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#114606 4-Mar-2008 16:36

Yea, it's part of the Terms and Conditions of your Contract.

I've dealt with a friend on this topic before.

If your account is overdue, we may:

suspend any of the services that you have asked us to provide;
charge you any temporary disconnection charge; and
continue to charge you any recurring monthly charge applicable for those services during the period of suspension.

Novatech

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#114615 4-Mar-2008 17:11

yeah, have spent a chunk of this afternoon going through their terms and services with a tame landshark - Still i'm hoping that making enough noise might make them reconsider what I consider to be a masterfull bit of asshattery.

I'm still attracted to the idea of standing outside their retail outlet with a sign expressing my feelings (carefully labeled as opinion).

sbiddle

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#114623 4-Mar-2008 17:31

DonkeyKong: Yea, it's part of the Terms and Conditions of your Contract.

I've dealt with a friend on this topic before.

If your account is overdue, we may:
suspend any of the services that you have asked us to provide;
charge you any temporary disconnection charge; and
continue to charge you any recurring monthly charge applicable for those services during the period of suspension.

Such Terms & Conditions are fairly standard in any contract that may involve a term contract period. This is to stop people who may decide to stop paying their bill as a way out of their contract. You also do need to be aware that if you do have a term contract then you won't be able to cancel the service either without paying a penalty either.

chakkaradeep

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#114627 4-Mar-2008 17:58

Its in the TOC and very clear. If you dont pay, then you dont get the service, yet your contract stays. If you *start a war*, you would loose

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Chaks

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n00dy

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#114633 4-Mar-2008 18:27

Surely you are not that naive to think that just because you forget to pay an account or the fact you dont have an account that you dont have to pay. Ignorance is no excuse. Most companies are resaonable if you are have financial problems, I have found that if you contact a company before they contact you, you can most times come to an arrangement. Ignoring a bill always will have issues later on.

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Jughead

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#114800 5-Mar-2008 11:44

Hold up!

You can't suspend a service and then expect a customer to pay for a service you wont let them use!

At Telecom if your account is barred for non payment you dont pay any more rental. the flip side is you have a set amount of time to pay before you are disconnected permenently. If you are in contract you will then get charged disconnection fees.

If you are in contract then break the contract through non payment, d/c fees are justified but you can't tell me that paying a monthly fee for a service you cant use is justifyed.

Any views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer Telecom NZ

rscole86

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#114801 5-Mar-2008 11:55

How is it not justified? YOU entered into a contract and told them that you would pay for xyz every month until the contract ends. The contract states that they have every right to suspend your services if you fall behind on your payments.

You have the option of terminating your contract if you wish, that way you pay your penalty and nolonger have to pay your monthly fees.

Potentially Novatech could be stopping a next door neighbour from using TCL's services. TCL like all companies want money, but they also want to keep their customers. So it is in their interest to keep Novatech signed up, as they are more likely to catch up on their payments than not.

Overall I have to say that Nocatech has unfortunately got to pay up here, and that TCL are within their rights to carry on charging for a service, even if it is not being used.

Novatech

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#114802 5-Mar-2008 11:55

Yes, the point I was making is that I'm not angry about being disconnected, even being charged reasonable fees for that. What's getting me grumpy is being charged full price for a service that i'm not getting.

Getting charged untill then end of the billing period in which the disconnection happened is ok, it's just expecting be to be paying $150/month for three months for the pleasure of *not* using their service seems a little unfair.

I really don't care if it's 'industry practice'. In hindsight I really should have checked the terms and services when I signed up more clearly, but I didn't expect to be in this particular situation.

sbiddle

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#114804 5-Mar-2008 11:56

Jughead: Hold up!

You can't suspend a service and then expect a customer to pay for a service you wont let them use!

You can if the terms & conditions in the contract say you can.

jpollock

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#115190 7-Mar-2008 13:39

I do believe that there is usually a requirement of reasonableness and notification.

I personally wouldn't expect to continue to be charged for a service if the vendor had removed service. Disconnection/reconnection charge? Perhaps. Monthly fee? No.

I would also expect the vendor to TELL ME that my debt would continue to accrue when I call in to ask why I no longer had service.

Saying, "It's in the contract!" doesn't always give the creator of a contract the way out. Contracts are never absolute, and they should never be used as weapons.

For example, from personal experience, employment contracts with competition clauses are generally unenforceable. The employee can sign it, but it can't be enforced. Courts generally take the view that people should be able to make a living. However, if there is a specific transfer of funds at the termination of employment attached to that clause things change.

You also can't sign contracts that result in illegal behaviours, nor can you agree to personal injury.

I feel that this is the same as the multi-thousand dollar data bills. Sure the company CAN do that, but is it reasonable for them to do it? Does it instill customer loyalty? Or does it result in another segment on "Fair Go"?

They can just as easily disable access when the account hits an "unreasonable" amount of money. My credit card company put an instant block on my credit card when I used it to make a call in LA and then AKL 11 hours later, and that was 10 years ago!

---
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johnr

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#115202 7-Mar-2008 14:00

This is one war you are going to lose!

You are taking a monkey apple gun to a gun fight!!

sleemanj

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#115871 11-Mar-2008 00:27

johnr: This is one war you are going to lose!

Not necessarily. But it won't be easy to win.

Many years ago, I had two cable modems, because bandwidth overage was so expensive and I couldn't get a higher cap on a single modem. This is years ago. Anyway, I had two modems and the idea was I switched them 1/2 way through the month, one was disconnected, one connected, so I get twice the bandwidth for twice the money, instead of twice the bandwidth for like 30 or 40 times the money.

One particularly stress induced month (I'd left my job, pretty much burnt out etc) I forgot to change modems. And when the bill arrived it was like 4 grand or something because of the insane overage (although, nothing compared to vodafone overage!) charges, if I'd remembered to switch it would have been $150 or something like that.

So, being somewhat, let's say, annoyed at this I proceeded to write to T/Clear asking them to see reason. They said no.

I didn't want them to cut me off, so I begrudginly paid the bill (thank's mr Visa). But I asked them again, pointing out how I was paying but didn't think I should have to.

They said no.

I complained some more. They said no some more.

I pled poverty, that this debt was crippling my new business. They said good luck with the business, but no.

I said how about you just credit account the value, you can keep the money and you keep a customer. They said no.

I said I'd go to Fair Go. They still said no.

I probably wrote 10 letters back and forth to various departments, all the time, they would reply something like "you knew the deal, no refund for you".

I'd given up hope after about 6 months of this back and forth. When one day out of the blue was a letter from TelstraClear, from somebody new, who said something like "ok, just this once we'll do it".

A month or so later I had a printed refund cheque.

Moral of the story, even if the company is technically within thier rights, just keep up the pressure, eventually somebody might see reason.

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James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...

Dratsab

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#115878 11-Mar-2008 06:53

n00dy: Most companies are resaonable if you are have financial problems

Indeed they are. I was in a flatting situation a few years ago where the electric company hadn't been round and read the meter for over 6 months, electing to send estimates only. We never checked the meter and when it was finally read we ended with with an invoice of well over $800. One phone call to the company got me the email address of a customer support rep. One lengthy (and polite) email to the rep got a nice discount and 3 months to pay the balance of invoice with absolutely no penalty.

My point (question) here is, why didn't talk to Telstra about drip feeding payments? I'm sure they would have been able to work something out with you...

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