MyRepublic - They Don't Give Up Easily

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › MyRepublic - They Don't Give Up Easily

mihilli

24 posts

Geek
Inactive user

#236034 14-May-2018 16:26

So my contract with MyRepublic had expired. Due to the unsatisfactory service I was getting I elected to move to another service provider.

I tried to call MR to cancel my service but after waiting on hold for 15-20 minutes I gave up and sent them an email. Surprise, surprise. No response to the email so I decided I'd better call them to confirm.

Only had to wait about 10 minutes on hold, not too bad really.

Person I spoke to said there was nothing showing that I had requested cancellation............after a pregnant pause I asked if he could please arrange cancellation. He graciously agreed to do so.

MyRepublic, like most telcos, bills a month in advance, on the 21st of the month, so I have already paid for May's service and in fact should be getting two weeks refund.

So even though I canceled on the 11th, he tells me they will have to bill me for another month on the 21st May. Feeling very confused I asked why they would be billing me for a service that I had cancelled?

"Oh that's just how we do it". Starting to feel a bit frustrated I asked why would I pay for a service I was no longer using? His answer, "you'll have to apply for a refund".

How F___ed up is that.

As I'm paying by credit card, the bank says they'll can't block payment unless I cancel the card and get a new card re-issued. Too hard.

Avoid these guys like the plague.

Rudster

101 posts

Master Geek

#2056444 15-Jul-2018 13:36

I have been looking at moving away from MyRepublic and eating the cancellation cost due to cancelling 1 year into a 24 month contract.

Their has been some good customer service here and there but overall the whole process of joining them and using them has been disappointing.

Signed up for their Gamer Pro plan since I wanted gigabit and needed a static IP for studies. Plus the free PS4 Pro sounded nice.

Included that we wanted our phone line and needed our old number.

Day to switch over came through, internet with Spark ended, and no connection from MyRepublic. Took a week for them to connect us up switching fibre to fibre.

They lost our phone number and blamed spark.

They put us on the wrong plan and couldn't change it unless we payed the cancellation fee.

Didn't get the static IP or the PS4 Pro.

They did end up giving us the static IP for free as logs did show we specifically asked and confirmed that we would get it with our plan. So +1 there.

Refused to offer the PS4 as the offer had ended during this whole process.

They advertise the top speeds referencing steam downloads. But that's skewed as their download speeds are not affected by ADSL (Unlike major companies)

Overall speeds for gigabit were disappointing coming from someone who used BigPipe gigabit in a previous location in the same city.

Reliability has been sub par. Mostly down to Vocus so not their fault but communication through support has been painful when there are issues (50+% packet loss and being told there is nothing wrong until the next day)

Speeds have continued to drop on the international line. I can get full speeds from good servers locally but I'm barely getting 20mbit (2.5mByte) to Australia where other connections I know of on gigabit with 2degrees or BigPipe easily manage 500+.

Once I find an alternative that offers static ip with gigabit at an affordable price (MyRepublic being expensive relative to current pricing models) I'll be leaving and would recomend avoiding MyRepublic until they really change their infrastructure and support.

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Talkiet

4689 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2056552 15-Jul-2018 16:47

Rudster:

[snip]

They advertise the top speeds referencing steam downloads. But that's skewed as their download speeds are not affected by ADSL (Unlike major companies)

[snip]

Oh man, I wish GZ had a "Send this user a chocolate fish" button. This affects many things. Have a look at the Netflix Speed index for NZ and look at the top two providers. Trustpower and Myrepublic - who both offer only Fibre (and VDSL I guess for MR if you realllly want).

I am in a position to be able to see the NF performance stats across the Spark access types and ADSL is MARKEDLY worse than VDSL and Fibre. If we could drop the ADSL results out then the story would be quite different.

I mention this all now because it's worth keeping in mind as other testing starts up - consider the population being tested.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Oblivian

6945 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#2056600 15-Jul-2018 18:50

Rsp billing can be out of sync with chorus wholesale billing cycles I believe. Which is where part month issues arise, not all take it on the chin.

Read commerce Commission latest social media update user comments regarding the internet speed beta testers they just asked for for a good time.

Whinery

104 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#2056709 15-Jul-2018 21:38

Rudster:

Reliability has been sub par. Mostly down to Vocus so not their fault

Odd. I'd say that an ISP that depends on a single upstream provider chose their own path. That is a deliberate choice on their part. So I'd call that their fault. They chose a delicate network, because it's cheaper. Don't give them a free pass for that. It's the cause of many of the problems people have with them.

mattwnz

19387 posts

Uber Geek

#2056741 15-Jul-2018 23:07

Talkiet:

I mention this all now because it's worth keeping in mind as other testing starts up - consider the population being tested.

Cheers - N

I just hope they will compare apple with apples when this testing heats up. Not apples with oranges, as consumers deserve to get clear uncomplicated figures so they can easily compare.

Nil Einne

459 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2067841 4-Aug-2018 00:33

About the original topic. It sounds like this isn't a problem for you but bear in mind a number of NZ ISPs now or did as of ~2 years ago require 30 day cancellation notice even if you don't have a contract and are moving providers. I believe this includes Spark and Slingshot. According to this https://www.gpforums.co.nz/threads/485582-Orcon-requires-30-day-notice-to-cancel-broadband-wtf it also includes Orcon. You can try giving the notice and timing your move around this, but there's the risk they will actually cancel something so the general advice is just to move over and let the ISPs communicate the move and eat the extra.

Talkiet:

Oh man, I wish GZ had a "Send this user a chocolate fish" button. This affects many things. Have a look at the Netflix Speed index for NZ and look at the top two providers. Trustpower and Myrepublic - who both offer only Fibre (and VDSL I guess for MR if you realllly want).

I am in a position to be able to see the NF performance stats across the Spark access types and ADSL is MARKEDLY worse than VDSL and Fibre. If we could drop the ADSL results out then the story would be quite different.

<snipped>

Trustpower don't only offer fibre. They also offer ADSL and VDSL. I don't know what their relative numbers of each is. Since they only really go into the game in the UFB era, and maybe even started with UFB (not sure), and also I think heavily promoted UFB where it was available including with the cheapest plans (e.g. 30/10) there's a resonable chance they have a higher percentage of fibre customers. (I think they may also heavily push customers to move to fibre when it becomes available?) Although they also targeted the extreme low end of the market so I suspect they have a fair few ADSL customers. A pensioner relative who's computer knowlege isn't that high is with Trustpower ADSL, for about 2-3 years I think.

BTW to make sure I wasn't completely confused I checked the Trustpower website and found this gem https://www.trustpower.co.nz/For-Your-Home/About-Our-Products/Types-of-Broadband

Trustpower's website:

ADSL Broadband

If you can’t get broadband or prefer to keep your internet use to a minimum, a dial up connection could be your option.

But anyway it's clear from the rest of their website they do offer ADSL.

hio77

'That VDSL Cat'
12984 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Voyager

Subscriber

#2067842 4-Aug-2018 00:44

Whinery:
Rudster:

Reliability has been sub par. Mostly down to Vocus so not their fault

Odd. I'd say that an ISP that depends on a single upstream provider chose their own path. That is a deliberate choice on their part. So I'd call that their fault. They chose a delicate network, because it's cheaper. Don't give them a free pass for that. It's the cause of many of the problems people have with them.

damn @whinery, i take it you aren't with myrp anymore!

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Whinery

104 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#2067958 4-Aug-2018 12:34

hio77:
damn @whinery, i take it you aren't with myrp anymore!

Nope. I'm surprised they are still around, if they weren't, I could talk about them.

Tracer

343 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2086118 8-Sep-2018 14:33

Currently experiencing this exact issue. I did get an automated Zendesk reply in response to my email. How long is reasonable to wait on a helpdesk phonecall? I personally feel > 5 minutes is pretty unreasonable.

-e- Just checked my Inbox, and I received a response just now asking me to confirm DoB + address. Yay, 5 days is so fast!