Chorus UPC looking for my money!

son.of.jimi

2 months ago I switched from Chorus who I had been using since 2003 to Sky because the Chorus service in my area had basically gone to the dogs. Now I'm using Sky and it's fan-bloody-tastic with zero problems at all.

Today I had a Call from UPC saying that i owed them money for the last month even tho the last direct debit i payed gave me service til April 3rd, I have been using Sky since April 2nd and I sent a letter of cancellation to chorus Back in Ferbuary.

As I type i'm on hold to UPC as they are trying to work out what I apparently owe them which is nothing as i stopped using them 2nd april. I've been on hold for 47 minutes now....

Has anyone else had this problem with UPC?

fat-tony

Two years ago I wrote to Chorus requesting they discontinue my service. I gave them a month's notice (just after the monthly direct debit) and cancelled the direct debit from the next payment. They wrote back after two weeks and said it would take a month to send out an engineer to disconnect the service. I wrote back and told them that it was their problem if they couldn't get a service engineer with a wire cutters to me in time.

He eventually arrived about two weeks after the cancelled DD and snipped the cable. Chorus then started sending me bills for the two weeks service. Ignored them, eventually stopped....:p

IT Loser

fat-tony wrote: »

Two years ago I wrote to Chorus requesting they discontinue my service. I gave them a month's notice (just after the monthly direct debit) and cancelled the direct debit from the next payment. They wrote back after two weeks and said it would take a month to send out an engineer to disconnect the service. I wrote back and told them that it was their problem if they couldn't get a service engineer with a wire cutters to me in time.

He eventually arrived about two weeks after the cancelled DD and snipped the cable. Chorus then started sending me bills for the two weeks service. Ignored them, eventually stopped....:p

I did the same. Just ignore them. They are bullies.

Solair

The simple solution is to get rather legalistic with them in return.

You can't just send people random bills for services they are not getting and threatening letters if they don't pay them. That's called racketeering and it's a criminal offence.

Send them a letter with a photocopy of their letter and explain that the service has been disconnected since X date and that if you receive any further communications from them that you will be forced to seek legal advice.

Send this by registered post to their customer loyalty department in Limerick (not the PO BOX number)

Also, track the registered letter and get the POD from www.anpost.ie
(they'll send this out to you by email)

The POD details the signature etc so they can't deny they received anything.

cgarvey

Spot on with the advice there Solair.

snaps

Ive ranted and raved about this in the cable section. I tried to cancel my old upc account in GAlway when i moved house early this year. I sent them 3 letters in which the 2 before the 3rd one was not recieved so it took them 3 months to cancel my subscription. Things got nasty as well after i had cancelled my direct debit. Unfortunatly they had my new address as i had to take their service out in new house. Apparently they count the 30 days notice when they RECIEVE the letter, not when you actually send it. I will be going strictly FTA and foreign satellite as soon as my current contract is up. Ill use upcs cables they have put in to power my 4 FTA recievers from my dish though! Handy.

byte

MODEDIT: Thread moved.

touts

They are absolute cowboys when it comes to this. I had huge problems getting them to disconnect me. They kept sending bills even though I had sent several letters and e-mails requesting disconnection. They maintained that if I did not pay them it would damage my credit rating. I eventually got it sorted but to be honest you would want to have no other option before dealing with UPC.

snaps

I ended up paying for nearly 3 months i never wanted. Sickening really considering ive had them as a provider for nearly 9 years between houses and moves.

Solair

People really need to stand up to this kind of thing. They're a cable company, not the revenue commissioners. They've only got a right to be paid for service that they've provided / that you have contractually agreed to pay for.

Can you imagine if you went to your local supermarket and they decided to charge you for a load of items that were not in your trolley and when you disputed this they threatened to have you done for shop lifting?

I don't see this kind of behaviour by a utility company as being any different.

I really can't see how this kind of behaviour is acceptable from any company. Personally, I think they should be facing heavy penalties for behaving like that.

Don't take any stick from them though and seek legal advice.

At the very least ring the National Consumer Agency and see how to proceed. Comreg are as useful as an underwater hairdryer or a chocolate tea pot.

altered121

Solair wrote: »

The simple solution is to get rather legalistic with them in return.

You can't just send people random bills for services they are not getting and threatening letters if they don't pay them. That's called racketeering and it's a criminal offence.

sending a bill for service you no longer recieve is not racketeering // min term contract and things like notice of termination etc all all most likely buried in a contract you sign to get 'legalistic' about any contract most of these american companies are very careful about their legal footing on actions they persue

Duffer2

All well and good, but I find myself in a slightly different situation.

In a genius move, NTL (or whatever the hell they are called now) cut the main cable in my area without agreeing a wayleave to resite same. Thus I've had no service for the last month, and no prospect of any return service either apparent from my conversations with both their customer services and technical departments (unusually my dealings with both have been pleasant and polite, if ultimately unsatisfying).

I'm about to tell them (in polite terms) to poke it up their hole and go to the Sky+ service (to be fair, the DVR is pretty good but nowhere near as good as Sky+). As I see it, they are in breach of contract as they are not supplying me the service I contracted them for, so as far as I am concerned the contract is null and void and the one month notice equally so.

Thoughts?

Solair

altered121 wrote: »

sending a bill for service you no longer recieve is not racketeering // min term contract and things like notice of termination etc all all most likely buried in a contract you sign to get 'legalistic' about any contract most of these american companies are very careful about their legal footing on actions they persue

The problem is that when you've complied with all the terms and conditions, gone through all the motions of cancelling and they still send bills that it becomes highly legally questionable.
This does appear to be the case in many people's dealings with a large number of Irish telecommunications companies.
It's usually down to pure incompetence / bad administration rather than anything malicious, but the tendency is to adopt the 'customer's always wrong' philosophy. It leaves a very bad taste in peoples' mouths and I think it's very damaging to the industry as a whole as it means that people don't switch providers etc as often as they might if the whole process was less painful.

Comreg have a role in ensuring that customer service is maintained at a respectable level. However, as with most things they're not involved / completely useless.