Billing Shambles

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Billing Shambles

marmel

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#243455 12-Dec-2018 13:00

What is the easiest way to speak to someone who knows what they are doing? I am 5 weeks into a complete shambles which now includes five phone calls, two emails and a personal visit to a 2degrees store. STILL NOT SORTED.

In brief I ordered a Huawei Mate 20 Pro pre-launch with a new plan. Four days before the launch date I decided to cancel this and just purchase the phone direct from a NZ retailer.

I emailed 2degree's and told them to cancel the phone/plan.

Well four days later after receiving no reply I received a shipping notification for the new phone from 2degree's. So first call to help desk to tell them I had already cancelled the order, advice was to wait until the phone arrived and then to call back and arrange to return it. Told me that they probably wouldn't have seen the email as it was ONLY 4 DAYS AGO??????????

Phone arrives, I ring back and ask if I can just return the phone to a store as I was going to be in Auckland, I was told this would be fine.

Return phone to Sylvia Park store, luckily I insisted on a receipt as they didn't even bother opening the cardboard box the phone/wireless charger was in.

Anyway now this was sorted.......

About a week later I got another shipping notification for the bluetooth speaker that was part of the original package. Another call made to return speaker.

No record of the phone being returned........

So an email sent with the receipt attached for the return of the phone, I was also told a courier bag would be sent to return the speaker.

About 4-5 days later I get a call from a CSR advising the phone has been received. Good, some progress.

Two hours later an email from obviously a different CSR advising they couldn't read the receipt attached to the email to confirm the phone had been returned. I just ignore this.

No courier bag sent.

Next bill arrives, still being charged for the phone that was returned a month ago and the new plan which wasn't supposed to exist.

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#2144077 12-Dec-2018 13:12

Another 34 minutes on the phone today, another promise they will get this sorted......

Linux

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#2144088 12-Dec-2018 13:33

You should include @2degreescare

John

marmel

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#2144152 12-Dec-2018 14:28

This is turning into the gift that just keeps on giving.

Just got another email advising I have reached the account credit limit, despite the fact the account is up to date, is paid in full every month and the last bill which isn’t due until the 13th Dec is only $152, which by the way includes the charges for the phone I have returned and the number that isn’t supposed to exist. I can only assume the CSR I spoke to today has applied some sought of debit to my account instead of the credit. Account balance should be about $100.

2degrees you suck.

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#2144158 12-Dec-2018 14:36

Not a very polite way to talk to a company on Geekzone! Staff volunteer time on here I think no one would want to help you now!

John

marmel

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#2144169 12-Dec-2018 14:48

Given that multiple CSR staff have failed to sort this out either through incompetence or lack of effort I don’t hold out much hope that anyone else is going to help. I have wasted several hours on the phone trying to sort this out, at a time of the year when I am working 70 hour weeks, so yeah I’m a bit grumpy about it.

I think my time with 2degrees is due to come to an end very shortly.

Hammerer

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#2144176 12-Dec-2018 14:56

marmel:

In brief I ordered a Huawei Mate 20 Pro pre-launch with a new plan. Four days before the launch date I decided to cancel this and just purchase the phone direct from a NZ retailer.

I emailed 2degree's and told them to cancel the phone/plan.

Well four days later after receiving no reply I received a shipping notification for the new phone from 2degree's.

It's not primarily a billing shambles!

My sympathy is more likely to be with 2Degrees staff because you appear to have created the order cancellation shambles.

1. Having unrealistic expectations about changing your mind after committing to buy.
2Degrees does provide for cancelling the order within specific timeframes and outside that only according to their best efforts at the time. Order changes are difficult at the best of times and this worsens when insufficient advance notification is given. I think that your expectations are unrealistic and your actions were unhelpful because you tried to cancel only 4 days from launch when the shipping process can easily eat up that lead-time.
Now while writing this I notice your ill-judged responses which clearly indicate your lack of self awareness.
So are you aware that your ill-considered actions were the genesis for this shambles?

2. Ignoring the Terms and Conditions for your order.
Given your apparent lack of awareness of your contribution to this "shambles", I also expect that you didn't take any notice of 2Degrees' Terms and Conditions and the cancellation time intervals.
So how far outside the change of mind interval were you?

3. Failing to follow the correct process(es).
Starting with sending an email and expecting the same priority as phoning them. I'd be surprised if you didn't know that email is one of the lowest priority channels for almost every business. The Ts & Cs said call 0800 022 022.
So why didn't you phone the phone company?

I presume that you ordered online so here's their an extract from the Ts & Cs for that channel

https://www.2degreesmobile.co.nz/termsofuse/mobile/extra-services/online-store-terms-and-conditions/#our----change-your-mind-guarantee

Cancelling or changing your order

When you make an order and get your order number, you have committed to buying the item(s) from the Online Shop. Having said that, we understand that sometimes people make mistakes. So if that happens, call us on 0800 022 022 straight away (and in any case within 5 days) and we’ll do our best to fix any problems. As long as your order hasn’t been processed, we should be able to make any changes you need. We may even be able to cancel the transaction if that’s what needs to happen.

[Edited to reformat because for some reason my lists don't work properly using Firefox on Geekzone]

marmel

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#2144178 12-Dec-2018 15:02

The order for the phone/plan were both cancelled before the phone was even shipped, like I referred to in my original email. If this had been sorted when the phone was returned there wouldn’t be an issue.

In 6 phone calls not a single CSR has managed to sort this out, refer to my post above about the last email I received this afternoon which appears to have created even more issues.

So in 6 phone calls, 2 emails and a store visit over a 6 week period the plan has not been cancelled, they are still chcarging me for the phone that was returned a month ago.

Pretty sure it is fair to call that a shambles.

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Hammerer

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#2144252 12-Dec-2018 15:29

marmel: The order for the phone/plan were both cancelled before the phone was even shipped, like I referred to in my original email.

You didn't say that and I suspect that you didn't read or comprehend my entire post.

What you said was that you emailed them and got no response before the phone shipped. You tried to cancel while ignoring the Ts & Cs and 2Degrees process thereby failing to use the proper channel which could have expedited the cancellation and avoided your shambles.

I emailed 2degree's and told them to cancel the phone/plan.

Well four days later after receiving no reply I received a shipping notification for the new phone from 2degree's.

marmel

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#2144257 12-Dec-2018 15:35

No I think you have failed to understand what has transpired, Maybe read through the posts again.

I emailed AND phoned 2degrees before they even sent the phone to me and told them I had changed my mind. The email was sent within 24hrs of the order being placed, the first phone call when they sent me a shipping notice four days later.

I have also told you this wouldn’t be an issue if the matter had been sorted when the phone was returned on the 9th November. Instead this has dragged on and on with repeated mistakes made by their staff, including it appears by the person I spoke to today.

If you think this level of service is acceptable and think that this is in someway of my doing you are sadly mistaken.

Aredwood

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#2144258 12-Dec-2018 15:36

Sorry to say it, but trying to cancel only 4 days out from shipping was not a good idea. As the order had likely already been passed to a 3rd party logistics company, to enable speedy shipping on launch.

What you need to have happen, would require manual changes to your account. This in turn would require a high level manager to carry out and approve. As there is no way that a large company would give 1st level CSRs root access to the billing system (too much fraud risk).

This means that the CSRs that you spoke to, probably could only send an internal email to the right manager. That manager might be very busy, away on leave, or still verifying things (checking that the phone has definitely been returned). Which itself might be more difficult if the phone has already been resold by the store that it was returned to.

Either way, don't expect this to be sorted out instantly. And under contract law, 2degrees were not under any obligation to even accept your cancellation. So be nice to them, as they are being nice by accepting your cancellation when they don't have to.

marmel

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#2144260 12-Dec-2018 15:38

Their T and C’s include the cancellation policy so yes they are under obligation to cancel an order when requested.

I say again in what way is it acceptable for this to have dragged on for over a month, I mean how many managers can be on holiday??

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#2144265 12-Dec-2018 15:47

I'm a 2 degrees customer and happy, but i'm with the OP on this.

4 Weeks to sort this would be frustrating. 2 degrees has a system which the OP followed and it's fallen down and now his account has hit a credit limit it shouldn't have.

You can debate the rights and wrongs of cancelling the order, but 2 Degrees was obviously happy to take the phone back so no real issue there. The issues are after the return happened.

Hope it gets sorted by Xmas. Not sure I'd be walking away from a supplier for one bad (and admittedly extended) issue personally, but I understand the frustration here.

Hammerer

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#2144266 12-Dec-2018 15:48

marmel: I emailed AND phoned 2degrees before they even sent the phone to me and told them I had changed my mind.

So now I can see that your situation is more justifiably annoying given that you called the correct number. That nullifies my third point but not the other two: unrealistic expectations and outside T&C timeframes.

FYI, I did read your original post and you didn't say that you phoned them. Writing "told" doesn't tell us that you "phoned" them. The word "told" means to "give an account"; the email was the medium and the message was to cancel.

I emailed 2degree's and told them to cancel the phone/plan.

marmel

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#2144275 12-Dec-2018 16:04

The single most frustrating thing about this ordeal is that I have had contact with at least 7 2degrees staff, not a single one has offered to follow up on this or take any ownership whatsoever.

Instead they are either happy, or trained, to simply follow the script and move on with apparently no interest in if this gets sorted or if the next person down the line does their job.

It simply isn’t good enough.

Aredwood

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#2144419 12-Dec-2018 18:00

Going off the terms and conditions posted above. Did you receive an order number and / or get an order confirmation before you phoned 2degrees to cancel the order?

As that policy reads as - we are happy to cancel orders for any reason if they haven't been processed yet. (fair enough as 2degrees wouldn't yet have done anything with the order).

But if the order is already processed, or part way through, then you can only cancel on compassionate grounds. Which I would interpret as something like you loosing your job, having serious medical problems etc. That would put you under hardship if you were forced to continue with the contract. (As 2degrees would have already incurred costs from 3rd parties by this point, so any cancellations at this stage would cause them a loss)

I don't regard buyers remorse as a valid reason to cancel. Especially in relation to reading the first sentence of the cancellation policy.

I fully agree that the time taken, multiple phone calls etc is still a shambles though. Which I guess would be to do with the 1st level CSRs maybe not having a proper process to refer the case to a higher level.

But unfortunately, the process for cancelling in process or fulfilled orders is almost certainly a manual process. Being close to Christmas means that key staff are more likely to be away on leave. Due to the GCSB and Huawei saga, there might be a higher number of cancellations than normal, which might be stretching the internal systems for processing cancellations.

Edited to add

Maybe the original CSR who accepted your return / cancellation wasn't following correct procedure. Which would cause more problems, as although 2degrees would still be obliged to continue with the cancellation process. It would then only be able to be done by someone with the authority to override normal company policy.

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