UTV Deactivation fee???

DMT

From Clicksilver T&C:
16.1.4 A deactivation fee of €85 (incl VAT) will be charged to the customer by UTV Internet, on top of any other money owed, should the customer cease their Eircom line or discontinue their ClickSilver service.

Does this mean that if you decide to get rid off clicksilver after your contract has expired that they slap you with a "deactivation" fee.

Do the the other broadband (DSL) providers do this as well...?

Atreides

No, thats the charge for breaking your contract afaik. Once your contract expires you have no requirement to stay with them.

machalla

Netsource do if you terminate the contract with them even with the appropriate notice period. €75. I think thats an ex-vat price too.

Atreides

yes but what if the contract expires

machalla

even with the appropriate notice period

They charge you for disconnecting whether you give them their two months notice or not it seems. In effect you are charged for the contract expiring.

I am told this is down to Eircom in fact. Apparently no other BB provider in the country (apparently) charges this disconnection fee though so its a little odd. Probably to do with the size of Netsource versus any of the other BB providers. Or possibly one could draw more cynical conclusions.

DMT

Originally posted by Skanger
No, thats the charge for breaking your contract afaik. Once your contract expires you have no requirement to stay with them.

That isn't how it reads when you read the rest of clause 16.1:

16. TERM AND TERMINATION

16.1 This Agreement may be terminated as follows and the cancellation provisions of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (the "Distance Selling Regulations") will not apply to the Service:
16.1.1 by either of us on 28 days notice, unless we terminate pursuant to Clauses 2.5 and 2.6 without notice;
16.1.2 by you giving 7 days notice if we inform you of a material change to the Service or we give notice of an amendment to this Agreement pursuant to Clause 18 where such changes are to your detriment;
If you give notice of termination of this Agreement, or we terminate pursuant to Clause 6.2, during the Minimum Period and the Service is available for you to use, you must pay all Charges payable during the Minimum Period.
16.1.3 Any fees charged to UTV Internet by Eircom for cancelling an order will be passed onto the customer.
16.1.4 A deactivation fee of €85 (incl VAT) will be charged to the customer by UTV Internet, on top of any other money owed, should the customer cease their Eircom line or discontinue their ClickSilver service.

Moriarty

Eircom wholesale charge the ISPs €60 exvat (€72.60 inc vat) for a cessation of service per port - the same price as transferring the port to another ISP incidentally. Blame eircom if you're annoyed with this.

Gadgie

I e-mailed them to ask about this a couple of months ago and was told that the charge only applies if you end your contract before the minimum period is up.

Moriarty

Well the wholesale disconnection charge is made to the ISP no matter what the circumstances are.

silent

Originally posted by Moriarty
Well the wholesale disconnection charge is made to the ISP no matter what the circumstances are.

That is true, but have you heard of any other industry asking for a disconnection fee from its customers? If there is any costs for such an action (and there is almost everywhere it's part of the business cost not are not paid directly by the customer)

I guess I will email UTV asking them about this so I can have it in writing from their staff that this does not apply unless terminating withing the contractual minimal term. Sure as hell I will not be paying 85E (they are making profit here too if it costs them 72.6 > eircom aren't they) should I decide sometime to leave them.

Moriarty

Originally posted by silent
That is true, but have you heard of any other industry asking for a disconnection fee from its customers?

I know of very few industrys besides the telecoms one that have something similar to a connection in the first place..

Originally posted by silent
If there is any costs for such an action (and there is almost everywhere it's part of the business cost not are not paid directly by the customer)

Everything is paid directly by the customer. Some companys just spell out exactly what you're paying for, while others obfuscate. UTV are charged a (large) fee by eircom wholesale to terminate a DSL connection, it's not something of UTVs own invention.

Originally posted by silent
I guess I will email UTV asking them about this so I can have it in writing from their staff that this does not apply unless terminating withing the contractual minimal term.

Work away, but it seemed pretty clear to me between what was quoted above by DMT and knowing that eircom wholesale charge UTV the same for the disconnection no matter if you've been with UTV for 5 minutes or 5 years.

Originally posted by silent
Sure as hell I will not be paying 85E (they are making profit here too if it costs them 72.6 > eircom aren't they) should I decide sometime to leave them.

I'm sure a debt collection company will be on to you then, along with a note on your credit rating when you dont pay them.

Perhaps you should have read the T&Cs before you signed up for the service?

silent

Originally posted by Moriarty
I know of very few industrys besides the telecoms one that have something similar to a connection in the first place..

Connection fee is understandable, however I seriously can't think of any industry charging a disconnection fee (gas maybe? but it's not something you'd do, seriously)

Originally posted by Moriarty
Perhaps you should have read the T&Cs before you signed up for the service?

I'm pretty sure when I signed up there was no such clause in the t&c's. Hard to prove now as I think nobody has them in hard print and the ones online are changed.

Edit: not trying to argue with you on the topic of eircom charing the disconnection fee, however I think many people will be moaning (as I did) in the next weeks when they realize that they might be charged for leaving a service like clicksilver, even though their contractual obligation of 12 months have expired. Still I'm not happy about it but what can I do, except discourage as many people from joining UTV for another reason Or at least inform them in the first place

btw, these T&C's have the following text

16.1.4 A termination fee will be charged to you by UTV Internet, on top of any other money owed, should you cease your Eircom or other authorised operator’s line or contract therefor or discontinue their ClickSilver service.

No mention of 85E (which I find offensive to make profit on top of such 'insulting' charge) as it costs them 60E+vat+minimal overhead for the transaction

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by Moriarty
II'm sure a debt collection company will be on to you then, along with a note on your credit rating when you dont pay them.

They cannot put any note on your credit record. They must obtain a judgement in the courts first. They are not a bank. Only banks are members of the Irish credit bureau.

Moriarty

Originally posted by Bond-James Bond
They cannot put any note on your credit record. They must obtain a judgement in the courts first. They are not a bank. Only banks are members of the Irish credit bureau.

It's a formality they go through, I haven't heard of them ever being refused when they've had proof of unpaid debts.

dub45

Surely there is a case to be made for all possible charges such as the termination fee to be highlighted for people when they are considering signing up with any of the ISP's and by this I mean very up front where we will see them and not tucked away somewhere in the very small print?

While the responisiblity is of course on us all to read the terms and condtions in any offer unfortunately a lot of us don't and particularly nowadays where the T&C's are on screen rather than on paper.

maxheadroom

Originally posted by Moriarty
It's a formality they go through, I haven't heard of them ever being refused when they've had proof of unpaid debts.

Unless you were to argue the case that it wasn't part of the original T&C you agreed to, or that its impossible to levvy a charge once the contract has run out... (since you're no longer their customer, they cant charge you for anything)

moose

My understanding of the utv disconnection charge is that it only applies to users who cease their contract before the 12 month minum period is up. This has been confirmed to me by their support staff.

This is why they are now asking existing customers to comit to a further 12 months in order to avail of their new enhanced and cost reduced offers offers.

moose

dub45

Originally posted by moose
[B} This is why they are now asking existing customers to comit to a further 12 months in order to avail of their new enhanced and cost reduced offers offers.

[/B]

That's not quite how a lot of existing cutomers see it!

moose

That sounds like a company line to me