Orcon to pay $25,000 in privacy breach

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon to pay $25,000 in privacy breach

Lias

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#173380 20-May-2015 23:36

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/68702228/orcon-to-pay-25000-in-privacy-breach

Ouch..

tl;dr they baycorp'd some poor bloke after totally stuffing up his connection, and they have just been given a somewhat substantial slapping for it.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

richms

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#1308978 20-May-2015 23:39

Makes me happy.

My messup with them was them not managing to load a direct debit form twice but telling me on the bill that it would be paid by direct debit so not to worry. So I didnt.

I will never use them again unless I am giving them fake details.

Richard rich.ms

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Lias

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#1308983 20-May-2015 23:51

Honestly if TelstraClear (and now Vodafone) got charged 25k for every time they've stuffed up my bill, they'd go bankrupt, so it's not just Orcon that makes billing stuffups. But TCL/Vodafone at least have eventually sorted out my bills, and almost always given me credits (beyond correcting the error) to compensate for the stuffups. Ditto Telecom/Spark when I was a customer.If Orcon's way of handling things is to BayCorp it instead of fix it, no wonder they got the smackdown.

mattwnz

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#1308987 21-May-2015 00:14

That is interesting about it affecting their credit rating. On fair go , it said that if a debt is referred to baycorp, it wouldn't affect your rating if you then paid it. I believe Baycorp won't accept disputed accounts anyway.

richms

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#1308989 21-May-2015 00:21

Thats true in the old days, but when they refer you with incorrect postal details and you dont respond then its too late. Because why the hell ask for my postal address if you are going to post crap to the tin box on the side of the road that I never check because noone sends stuff to it.

Nowdays its all reported, positive and negtive actions, even if its not refered to collection or its bounced back because its all BS, it can still have a negative effect on it.

The orcon debt is basically why me and my business partner couldnt open an account at ASB for people to pay into and had to settle for westpac since they would let someone have internet access to an account with no overdraft facility, whereas asb wouldnt because of the credit check.

Richard rich.ms

mattwnz

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#1308994 21-May-2015 00:31

richms: Thats true in the old days, but when they refer you with incorrect postal details and you dont respond then its too late. Because why the hell ask for my postal address if you are going to post crap to the tin box on the side of the road that I never check because noone sends stuff to it.

Nowdays its all reported, positive and negtive actions, even if its not refered to collection or its bounced back because its all BS, it can still have a negative effect on it.

The orcon debt is basically why me and my business partner couldnt open an account at ASB for people to pay into and had to settle for westpac since they would let someone have internet access to an account with no overdraft facility, whereas asb wouldnt because of the credit check.

I would have thought Baycorp would be required to wipe the debt, and any bad recordsm as it was disputed. I was once taken to Baycorp for a library fine that was over 5 years old. My card got stolen, and was reported to the police, but books taken out on it as there is no security on library card. But I never received any warning about the debt from the library/council, nor a warning that it would be taken to baycorp. So I got them to make sure my debt was wiped, and that it wasn't going to affect my credit record.

mudguard

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#1309351 21-May-2015 15:23

I worked for a consumer finance company for five years, I would've looked at 50,000 credit checks. Armed Forces personal would easily have had the worst credit checks on average for any occupation (aside from those not working). Usually it would stem from an address issue.
However a $250 debt would normally be overlooked by most companies unless they're purely relying on the computer score. There will be more to the story as per usual and Orcon won't say obviously. 99% of the time it was because someone failed to pay a bill or disconnection fee, moved addresses and never followed it up. I don't normally have any sympathy.
People don't realise what having adverse credit can do, prevent rentals, an on contract mobile account etc.

NB. I just read the Stuff article, it seems different to the Herald one I read this morning. The Herald gave the impression that the install went ahead, and it was just a poor connection. Whereas stuff gave more detail, as the customer received the wrong modem, and then cancelled the connection.

Having said that, the customer was subsequently denied additional lending from GE Money and turned down for a debt consolidation loan. I can absolutely guarantee there is other stuff on the credit check. Most companies don't care about small services defaults (power, phone) or traffic infringements. So there's something else going on. And it's cost Orcon for not following the process.

bameron

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#1309723 22-May-2015 10:36

Hi all,

Orcon takes privacy and consumer rights matters very seriously. We recognise the treatment of Mr Taylor was subpar and a number of errors were made and we apologise for the way his case was handled. Orcon has since introduced a range of rigorous processes into the business to ensure compliance and that disputes are handled properly. Orcon also participates in the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution Service for managing any disputes that may arise from time to time.

Cheers

nzkiwiman

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#1309938 22-May-2015 14:34

bameron: Hi all,

Orcon takes privacy and consumer rights matters very seriously. We recognise the treatment of Mr Taylor was subpar and a number of errors were made and we apologise for the way his case was handled. Orcon has since introduced a range of rigorous processes into the business to ensure compliance and that disputes are handled properly. Orcon also participates in the Telecommunications Dispute Resolution Service for managing any disputes that may arise from time to time.

Cheers

Love these PR replies
They wouldn't be needed if any of it was actually true in the real world

Spin, spin, spin

Salami

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#1309939 22-May-2015 14:36

I would've been more excited if Vodafone received the fined :)

timmmay

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#1310161 22-May-2015 21:33

Shame on Orcon. A great way to deter new customers, and if they're a public company they've probably lost value as a result.

mattwnz

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#1310202 22-May-2015 22:09

timmmay: Shame on Orcon. A great way to deter new customers, and if they're a public company they've probably lost value as a result.

Aren't they now owned by Slingshot or Callplus? They used to be a SOE under Kordia.