On Friday afternoon, a MyRepublic salesperson came to my house. The fibre deal on offer sounded nice ($200 credit), and the monthly cost was lower than my current 2degrees monthly fibre cost. I figured it might be worth a shot if the $200 would cover my 2degrees break fee.

The salesperson said I'd have 5 days to cancel if desired. This was important to me because I did not want anything to be actioned if I decided to not go ahead. Still, I was keen at the time to go for the deal, so I gave him my name, drivers license number, and typed a password into his tablet.

After the salesperson left, I rang 2degrees and discovered my break fee would be $300. Also searched around and looked at other ISPs' offerings (it had been a few months since I looked). I decided I wasn't really that keen on this offer anymore.

So, I rang MyRepublic and asked to cancel. A representative called me back and said they'd put in a ticket to cancel the account, no time estimate though.

Saturday morning, I received a txt from MyRepublic asking for my direct debit details. So I emailed support asking to confirm if my account is being cancelled or not (as receiving a txt asking for bank details doesn't really instill confidence in me that this is being actioned).

Saturday afternoon, I received a txt from MyRepublic saying my order with Chorus to transfer my fibre is scheduled for 27 May. And it's just like, wow, I did not ask for any of this so quickly. I was under the impression from the salesperson that I would have a 5-day cooldown period before any of this would happen.

The Commerce Commision has a handy door-to-door and telemarketing sales page with a PDF fact sheet that lays out the 5-day thing from the Fair Trading Act quite well.

So I rang MyRepublic, spoke to a representative about this, and he said, "Yeah, we don't actually follow that." He was confident that a cease order would have been sent to 2degrees already. I then rang 2degrees to see if they had received any notice, but nothing yet.

I then rang MyRepublic again to try and confirm to cancel, but got hold of someone else who took my details and said they'd call me back to cancel. And now I'm waiting.

Looking at MyRepublic's Sales & Marketing Code of Practice, this paragraph (emphasis mine):

If you signed up through our door-to-door team, you will have the right to cancel at any time during a 5-day cooling off period. In the event of cancellation during the cooling-off period, your agreement is treated as if it had not been made. Please be aware that you will lose your right to cancel during the cooling-off period once we have commenced activation of the services or you use the services, whichever is the earlier. Any Equipment provided to you free of charge, you will be required to be returned to us (unused and in the same condition as when it was provided to you) within 5 days.

I'm aware that the 5 days is not up yet, but receiving the txt saying the fibre transfer has been scheduled, makes me feel like this is not going to be cancelled in time. I asked to cancel before any activation took place.

If I hadn't asked to cancel before receiving today's txts, would MyRepublic be trying to dodge the Fair Trading Act's 5-day cooldown period? Switching ISPs through Chorus is a unique service, since you can only have one ISP providing you service, and actioning this before the 5-day period is up is not on.

I hope MyRepublic can cancel this quickly. It feels like MyRepublic is jumping the gun way too fast.