changed to Bigpipe and 2 degrees still charging me for next months rental

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › changed to Bigpipe and 2 degrees still charging me for next months rental

newb

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#189181 19-Dec-2015 16:19

I switched over to Bigpipe (from 2degrees/SNAP) on the 15th this month and it is currently working fine with the new ISP (Bigpipe).

My 2degrees billing period was the 18th so I assumed I wasn't going to get charged for another month as my services with 2degrees have been disconnected.

2degrees insist I pay for the new month even though I was disconnected / rolled over before the billing period. Is this normal? I thought the current ISP handled all the disconnection etc and advised the old ISP? 2degrees say they have no knowledge this connection was disconnected and refuse to refund the $120 they deducted from my credit card for the period 18 Dec 15 - 18 Jan 16.

I'm already going to pay them the early disconnection fee $299 but have told them I wont authorise payment while this extra payment is in dispute.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? I guess i'll have to take them to the disputes tribunal.. not impressed with 2degrees (would have second thoughts about using their services again in the future).

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#1453568 19-Dec-2015 16:46

This is the 3rd post about this very same issue on here in recent days, and one of probably hundreds of very similar threads that have been posted this year.

In a nutshell... The process for moving between ISPs is complex. My simple advice to make this as painless as possible is to *never* contact your old ISP first. Contact your new ISP and arrange for your new connection to be installed. Once this is done contact your old ISP and advise them of a disconnection. This may mean paying for a month's extra service if they have a 1 month notice period. My advice for people who don't like paying double is quite honestly to just suck it in and absorb it - because if you don't you'll end up being one of the many people posting on here about problems with no service as they try and move between ISPs.

The losing ISP may or may not receive notice about you changing. More often than not they won't, as it depends entirely how the new service is provisioned. I'm assuming you didn't contact 2degrees to advice of a disconnection when your new connection went live?

If you want to know more about the process there are literally hundreds of similar threads on here which will provide a lot more information rather than my simply repeating what's in them all.

Based on everything you've posted above I don't see any issue in what 2degrees have done.

newb

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#1453609 19-Dec-2015 18:07

Thanks for your reply.

I originally rang 2degrees to cancel back in November and then placed an order for Bigpipe to install fibre on my line for December.

Bigpipe said they couldn't do anything while 2degrees had an existing "job" on the line and advised me to ring them back to cancel my disconnection - which i did.

If this "hold" was not in place, i would not have had this issue.

Your procedure for changing ISP's is spot on. Unfortunately most people wont know until they encounter issues.

I've never had that problem going from Telecom to another ISP (or any other ISP for that matter) - just 2degrees.

Perhaps i've been lucky with other ISP's in the past.

sbiddle

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#1453617 19-Dec-2015 18:25

So you moved from DSL to fibre? This is very different to moving DSL connections between providers.

newb

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#1453619 19-Dec-2015 18:31

The switch from 2degrees to Bigpipe was fibre to fibre.

Prior to that, I moved from Telecom VDSL to Snap VDSL (now 2degrees). I upgraded from VDSL to fibre later on with SNAP.

newb

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#1453656 19-Dec-2015 20:27

Bigpipe said 2degrees received an email from Chorus stating that the billing for this connection will cease from 09:00 AM Monday, 14th December so they would have been aware of the changeover.

I find it interesting that 2degrees will not be charged, but will continue to charge me for this connection after this date (whether or not it may be in the terms and conditions, 30 day notice etc). How can this be justified?

I am going to ring the Commerce Commission on Monday morning and write to Fair Go for advice on how to proceed with this.

sbiddle

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#1453669 19-Dec-2015 21:40

newb: Bigpipe said 2degrees received an email from Chorus stating that the billing for this connection will cease from 09:00 AM Monday, 14th December so they would have been aware of the changeover.

I find it interesting that 2degrees will not be charged, but will continue to charge me for this connection after this date (whether or not it may be in the terms and conditions, 30 day notice etc). How can this be justified?

I am going to ring the Commerce Commission on Monday morning and write to Fair Go for advice on how to proceed with this.

I'm still not sure what your actual issue is. Your provider had a 30 day clause in the contract (as do a lot of other providers) but you don't want to pay this?

I'm not sure what either the Commerce Commission or Fair Go will do about a company simply enforcing their BAU terms and conditions that are no different to a lot of other providers.

rugrat

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#1453722 20-Dec-2015 00:46

It's not possible to give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over, that's how I see the issue.

If someone could give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over then the 30 day contract clause would be fair enough.

I think it's a worthy thing to have fair go have a look at, it's not just 2degrees with these contracts though.

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Brumfondl

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#1453832 20-Dec-2015 11:27

rugrat: It's not possible to give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over, that's how I see the issue.

If someone could give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over then the 30 day contract clause would be fair enough.

I think it's a worthy thing to have fair go have a look at, it's not just 2degrees with these contracts though.

Sorry, but I call bollocks on this since I did it myself when I changed from Slingshot to Bigpipe. I set a date when I wanted to change that would mean I would be able to give Slingshot 30 days notice which meant doing it just before my bill would be due. I then contacted Bigpipe and got a confirmed date, as supplied by Chorus to Bigpipe, for when the changeover would occur that was in the time-frame that I was looking at. This actually took a couple of goes as Bigpipe initially put the changeover for almost immediately, but eventually I got a date that was to my liking. I then called Slingshot to cancel and give them their required 30 days notice.

On the day specified by Bigpipe my connection went down so I took this as a signal the changeover had happened and then reconfigured my router for Bigpipe and Bob's you auntie, I was up and running with a better connection with a different provider with no more money paid than I had to.

It is very doable, it just takes patience and planning. It did help that I had read various threads on here about which ISP to talk to first, etc., so I didn't get it all screwed up by Slingshot putting in a Cancellation or anything like that.

If you are in a rush then expect to pay for overlapping services. I wasn't and didn't.

newb

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#1453847 20-Dec-2015 11:44

My issue is that the switch between ISP's shouldn't be as complicated as it is.

If this is the "3rd post about this very same issue on here in recent days, and one of probably hundreds of very similar threads that have been posted this year" like you say, then the process is not as straightforward as it seems.

I wouldn't have set a date for the cutover to coincide a few days before the next billing cycle with 2degrees (i.e. a month later) if i knew it wasn't going to achieve anything - I would have done it ASAP. It was my mistake not contacting 2degrees soon after Bigpipe provisioned the new date, I just assumed it was all done as part of the whole process.

I had the intention to cancel 30 days with 2degrees in November but I had to reverse it when Bigpipe said they couldn't do anything while 2degrees had the cancellation request and they had to wait for that to be completed.

The system is flawed.

newb

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#1453854 20-Dec-2015 12:26

Brumfondl:
rugrat: It's not possible to give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over, that's how I see the issue.

If someone could give 30 days notice and do a smooth change over then the 30 day contract clause would be fair enough.

I think it's a worthy thing to have fair go have a look at, it's not just 2degrees with these contracts though.

Sorry, but I call bollocks on this since I did it myself when I changed from Slingshot to Bigpipe. I set a date when I wanted to change that would mean I would be able to give Slingshot 30 days notice which meant doing it just before my bill would be due. I then contacted Bigpipe and got a confirmed date, as supplied by Chorus to Bigpipe, for when the changeover would occur that was in the time-frame that I was looking at. This actually took a couple of goes as Bigpipe initially put the changeover for almost immediately, but eventually I got a date that was to my liking. I then called Slingshot to cancel and give them their required 30 days notice.

On the day specified by Bigpipe my connection went down so I took this as a signal the changeover had happened and then reconfigured my router for Bigpipe and Bob's you auntie, I was up and running with a better connection with a different provider with no more money paid than I had to.

It is very doable, it just takes patience and planning. It did help that I had read various threads on here about which ISP to talk to first, etc., so I didn't get it all screwed up by Slingshot putting in a Cancellation or anything like that.

If you are in a rush then expect to pay for overlapping services. I wasn't and didn't.

There is a certain order in which you should do things like sbiddle said above..

Most people wouldn't bother researching how to change from one ISP to another as they expect it would be straightforward.

If the losing ISP puts in a cancellation request with Chorus, the new ISP should be "able" to better manage the new request for provision, rather than waiting for that order to be completed or cancelled/reversed.

sbiddle

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#1453894 20-Dec-2015 13:33

newb:
If the losing ISP puts in a cancellation request with Chorus, the new ISP should be "able" to better manage the new request for provision, rather than waiting for that order to be completed or cancelled/reversed.

Multiple service orders on a connection at once would simply be the world's biggest recipe for disaster.

sbiddle

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#1453895 20-Dec-2015 13:35

newb: My issue is that the switch between ISP's shouldn't be as complicated as it is.

If this is the "3rd post about this very same issue on here in recent days, and one of probably hundreds of very similar threads that have been posted this year" like you say, then the process is not as straightforward as it seems.

Most of the posts relate to people losing service because they a) lodge a disconnection with their LSP which b) means a new connection order can't be lodged until a) is complete.

I don't think you'll find anybody in the industry who doesn't agree that things don't work as simply as the end user expects. The real problem is there isn't a simple way of making the whole BAU process as simple as an end user would expect - if there was it would already exist.

Jase2985

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#1453914 20-Dec-2015 14:18

the LSP should be upfront when contacted with regards to changing service and say look this is how it works, tell the new ISP first. thats all it is really the LSP not bothering to inform the customer of how the process works

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#1454349 21-Dec-2015 11:06

Hi All,

For our Broadband connections, at the current point in time we do require the account holder to contact us to close an account. It is worth noting that we don't have a 30 day notice period, we bill to the end of the end of the billing period the disconnection occurs in.

In most cases where a customer advises us that they are transitioning, we will hold off placing disconnection orders until around the date they are moving, if transition orders haven't appeared from other providers. If we are just advised that you wish to disconnect, we'll arrange a disconnection.

@newb, can you please message us with your customer number, and we'll doublecheck and make sure your account is in order for you.

Thanks

Ralph ^JOB

newb

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#1454633 21-Dec-2015 16:14

2degreesCare: Hi All,

For our Broadband connections, at the current point in time we do require the account holder to contact us to close an account. It is worth noting that we don't have a 30 day notice period, we bill to the end of the end of the billing period the disconnection occurs in.

In most cases where a customer advises us that they are transitioning, we will hold off placing disconnection orders until around the date they are moving, if transition orders haven't appeared from other providers. If we are just advised that you wish to disconnect, we'll arrange a disconnection.

@newb, can you please message us with your customer number, and we'll doublecheck and make sure your account is in order for you.

Thanks

Ralph ^JOB

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