Charged for an extra month after moving from Slingshot

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Charged for an extra month after moving from Slingshot

scottaro

14 posts

Geek

#141241 5-Mar-2014 18:09

So i signed up to Bigpipe on 31/01/2014 and got connected on 07/02/2014. On 25/02/2014 i received an invoice from Slingshot for the 24/02/2014-23/03/2014 period. I immediately contacted slingshot support telling that that i had switched ISPs and to cancel the charges. Payment did not get cancelled and my credit card got charged on 28/02/2014. I then contacted slingshot asking for a refund and was told that they never received notice of the switch over and the no refund would be given due to them requiring 30 days notice. I guess i'm just gonna have to wear it, according to their terms and conditions they're in the right, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth. Does anyone have any experience with this situation/any (not too time consuming) avenues i could persue to get that extra months charges back?

gregmcc

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#999670 5-Mar-2014 18:42

Ring up sling shot, advise them of the dates you switched over and that they have made a mistake.

Tell them they have a week to reverse your credit card charge or else you will dispute the charge with your bank.

More than likely the chargeback fees and the cost to slingshot will be way more than what 1 months of service is.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

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#999678 5-Mar-2014 18:51

the whole '30 days notice' is a really crummy way of doing business IMO.

The way broadband has been set up in NZ is that you shouldn't need to contact you previous ISP before you switch - this is because the bigger companies can easily make you a 'retention' offer to keep you and make life very difficult for the small guys trying to compete.

However most ISPs these days seem to have this '30 days notice' in their contract. In reality, they don't 'need' 30 days notice. They can switch you off any time they like, they just want to get an extra month's revenue form you, or make it much harder to switch.

I'm sure it is legal, but it really grates with me.
It means that if you want to switch from one ISP to another, you have 2 choices.
Either you have to set up the timing of the move with the new ISP to coincide precisely with the 30 days notice, as well as ensuring that you contact your current ISP well ahead of time. Then the danger of contacting your current ISP is that they might place a disconnection order with Chorus, which actually blocks your new ISP from placing the provisioning order. This means you potentially end up with some downtime between ISPs when you shouldn't need to.

this is the sort of thing I mean by that:

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=139404

The other option is to not contact your current ISP( as with the OP), but then you end up paying for a month you aren't even using.

Both options suck

ETA:

To the OP, the transition order from Bigpipe on the 7th Feb would definitely be considered notice to Slingshot of a disconnection, and since every ISP charges you in advance for your month, then, even with the 30 days notice, I assume the money you paid on the 28th would be for the 28th Feb to 28th March, and since your notice period goes from 7th Feb to 7th March, you should be refunded for the 8th March to 28th March. (I think :-p )

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#999685 5-Mar-2014 19:08

When I moved from my last ISP, they credited me back the unused time from the date I switched, after initally charging me for the full month. I presume as soon as you move, that the ISP stops getting charged themselves.

Slingshot

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#1000007 6-Mar-2014 10:09

Hey Scottaro,

If your billdate is the 24th and your services switched on the 7th then you definitely shouldn't be charged. Flick me a DM with your account number and I'll sort you out.

Cheers,
Chris

www.slingshot.co.nz

www.twitter.com/SlingshotNZ

https://www.facebook.com/SlingshotNZ

scottaro

14 posts

Geek

#1000093 6-Mar-2014 12:35

Chris sorted this issue out for me, Thanks Dude

floydie

474 posts

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#1001844 9-Mar-2014 19:35

ring your bank and get the charges reversed. you can do that on credit card transactions.

jeffnz

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#1001846 9-Mar-2014 19:42

looks like he got it sorted by slingshot

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myfullflavour

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#1001865 9-Mar-2014 20:06

I don't like the way it works in copper with ADSL/VDSL but it is what it is.

On fibre, churning is too easy - obtain customers Product ID, ask for new service to be provisioned on a spare Ethernet port on the ONT. Customer can give the notice period to the losing ISP without cancellation orders having an impact on the new connection.

scottaro

14 posts

Geek

#1001919 9-Mar-2014 22:34

Yeah easy as pie, funnily enough I work for one of the small Networks rolling out UFB and built the database used to store Layer 2 configuration information. The losing ISP can't even that the new ISP has a connection let alone cancel it.

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#1001934 9-Mar-2014 23:04

To be fair, if you are moving to another company for a service, you should contact that other company to cancel it, as you do have a contract with them, which only you or the ISP can cancel. A record of that cancellation request should also be made when that cancellation occurs, incase it is ever disputed.

However some ISPs do advertise in their marketing that transferring ISPs is easy and they will contact your old company, which I don't really understand how they can say that, as they don't have any part in that original contract, and they are a third party.

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

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#1001940 9-Mar-2014 23:18

mattwnz: To be fair, if you are moving to another company for a service, you should contact that other company to cancel it, as you do have a contract with them, which only you or the ISP can cancel. A record of that cancellation request should also be made when that cancellation occurs, incase it is ever disputed.

However some ISPs do advertise in their marketing that transferring ISPs is easy and they will contact your old company, which I don't really understand how they can say that, as they don't have any part in that original contract, and they are a third party.

The latter is how it is supposed to work, for reasons see my previous post above.

Technically the new ISP does not contact the old ISP, they contact chorus, who then contact the old ISP. But people would probably get confused by that, so it's easier just to say 'let us handle it'

lucky015

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#1001957 10-Mar-2014 05:40

mattwnz: To be fair, if you are moving to another company for a service, you should contact that other company to cancel it, as you do have a contract with them, which only you or the ISP can cancel. A record of that cancellation request should also be made when that cancellation occurs, incase it is ever disputed.

However some ISPs do advertise in their marketing that transferring ISPs is easy and they will contact your old company, which I don't really understand how they can say that, as they don't have any part in that original contract, and they are a third party.

Theoretically you are right, However when it comes to ISP's it tends to work differently as services are primarily transferred over to another provider rather than cancelled outright, Also disconnection requests can actually prevent the connection from being switched over properly if placed at a bad time.

This is how each ISP likely got the customer switched over to them and it is a fairly reasonable expectation that they will follow the correct procedure and terminate any further billing.

Yes the ISP may be entitled to charge further due to T&C's however this does not prevent it from being BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE and affording them serious bad will from people who may already have reason to dislike them.