UTV internet 1200 euro bill

Anti

So..

Bit of background, i moved into a place in march, there was a 1mb utv internet connection there. Line was not what i needed to it was upgraded to their 3mb unlimited package. Now the bill is not in my name, but the house owners.

Just got a call from UTV today demanding 1200euro in "download bills since march", and they say no money has been taken from the direct debit on the account since march. Apparently the line was never upgraded to the unlimited 3mb package, even though the speed was infact 3mb. And i was there when the house owner rang UTV to upgrade the connection. Obviously confirmed as in a few days the speed did increase.

Now, i have no plan on paying these ***** 1200 euro, but what are my rights here?

What im most pissed off about is the fact they wait from March till November the 19th to contact anyone about this. There is no paper bill from UTV at all and no letter, never received one as long as the line is there according to the house owner, and the money is just DD'd ouf of their account.

ScumLord

Anti wrote: »

So..

Bit of background, i moved into a place in march, there was a 1mb utv internet connection there. Line was not what i needed to it was upgraded to their 3mb unlimited package. Now the bill is not in my name, but the house owners.

Just got a call from UTV today demanding 1200euro in "download bills since march", and they say no money has been taken from the direct debit on the account since march. Apparently the line was never upgraded to the unlimited 3mb package, even though the speed was infact 3mb. And i was there when the house owner rang UTV to upgrade the connection. Obviously confirmed as in a few days the speed did increase.

Now, i have no plan on paying these ***** 1200 euro, but what are my rights here?

What im most pissed off about is the fact they wait from March till November the 19th to contact anyone about this. There is no paper bill from UTV at all and no letter, never received one as long as the line is there according to the house owner, and the money is just DD'd ouf of their account.

It's a problem on their part obviously, the fact they didn't give the customer any paper trail is a big no no, I'm pretty sure their breaking some laws there. I don't know what department your supposed to contact regarding this, is it the consumer agency? Contact someone anyway just to put the kettle on the boil so to speak.

From your point of view you successfully upgraded to a 3mb connection that's all you need to tell them after that it's their own internal problem, then tell them if it's not sorted within the next 3 days your switching providers.

Sconsey

UTV e-mail me monthly with a link to my account to check my statement, who is getting your email? did they ever check if they were being charged for the 1Mb service, the 3Mb service or the 3Mb Unlimited download service?

I'd say your best bet is to offer to pay the balance between the normal and unlimited accounts (about €5 per month I think).

Anti

Thanks for the replys guys, Just checked their fair usage policy mentions nothing about a chargable fee, just 3 forms of contact, email, letter and phone then the line will be capped.

can be read here:

http://www.utvinternet.com/Residential/ClicksilverBroadband/PDFs/NI_ADSL_FUP_May_07.pdf

Oh i should also note, that the line is still up now, and has never been throttled at all.

Cabaal

Anti wrote: »

Thanks for the replys guys, Just checked their fair usage policy mentions nothing about a chargable fee, just 3 forms of contact, email, letter and phone then the line will be capped.
.

If you login to https://www.utvinternet.com/youraccount/
Using yopur routers user/name password

If you click on cap choice it says

Please choose which course of action you would like UTV Internet to take in the event that you exceed your download cap:

OPTIONS:
Suspend my account for remainder of the month
or
Bill me for my usage over the cap

Your choice for this calendar month is to have your account suspended if you exceed your download cap.

Your current choice for the next calendar month is to have your account suspended if you exceed your download cap.

So yes they do charge and I believe the default option in this mention was charge when I first had my account created

Given you can login the the my account section using the details you have why didn't you for that whole time?

Anti

I didn't even know about that to be honest, have never been told or heard about it. And i never knew there was a problem untill today!

bk

This seems to be completely incompetent on UTV's part.

This is why charging people for going over a cap is really a bad idea. In the end stories like this will do far worse damage to UTV's reputation and force them to lose customers afraid of getting similar bills to better run companies with clearer and fairer policies.

CivilServant

Anti wrote: »

I didn't even know about that to be honest, have never been told or heard about it. And i never knew there was a problem untill today!

I'm pretty sure you get an email telling you to check out your monthly statement like every other UTV customer with that link (myself included). Either you were misinformed or dropped the ball big time...

lawrenceSummer

unless you changed the name when you changed the speed it sounds like its the homeowners probelm,

try and change to another provider and then dispute the bill, if they didnt take the direct debits out then they can wait for the payments

Anti

Thanks again for the replies. Nope the name its self, and the direct debit never changed. It was a simple "Hi can you upgrade to 3mb unlimited please" "Yeah sure, done" type of deal. Ive gotten their billing department to forward me on all charges, and i can see i was on unlimited untill april/july bill then it seems to have been taken off. And the DD hasn't been taken since March for the phone or internet, which is strange. Also, ive been onto their tech support so many times since march for the connection being down in the area and they never mentioned anything to me, which i would imagine would be flagged on the account when the tech/cs guys have to look up account details when you ring in.

I'm more then happy to pay the 250ish euro for the service i have been provided, and the extra 5.99 per month for th eunlimited, but the 1200€... They can kiss my black ass, i'm going back to ntl/upc.

Cabaal

Anti so the bill is not in your name correct?

You say in your first post UTV contacted you, was it you or the account holder on the bill who they actually contacted?

The request for a breakdown of the bill, did this come from you or the bill payer? Have you been given this yet if it was you?

The request to upgrade the package to 3MB, did this come from you or bill payer?

Ok basically if the answer to any of the above is you then UTV have breached the Data Protection Act by allowing an unauthorized person (you) to deal with the account instead of the account holder....unless of course your added as a second billing contact.

This would be a very series matter and could be refereed to the data protection commissioner by the account holder.

Anti

No, the account holder was contacted today by phone, the bill breakdown was requested by her daughter, and sent to her email address. She is not linked with the account at all. The 3mb unlimited account upgrade came from the bill payers daughter too in the presence of the bill payer. They have also dealed with me in the past on technical issues. And im pretty sure im not a second billing contact.

Cabaal

Technically speaking there could be two issues, if the daughter is not on the account they shpould have neither upgraded the account or provided billing details.

If the billing contact is under 18 this would also be a second issue, but the fact they gave account details to a party not named on the account I'd be concerned about this if I was the account holder.

Technical issues (unless they gave a/c details or new passwords) wouldn't be an data protection issue afaik,

Xcellor

Anti wrote: »

there was a 1mb utv internet connection there. Line was not what i needed to it was upgraded to their 3mb unlimited package.

UTV only offer an add on to their speed packages of unlimited.

Just because you upgraded to 3mb does not automatically mean you have unlimited. Even if you have 7.6 mb connection you still ahve to pay th 5.99 to get unlimited...

Tell them you will pay the 5.99 which is the unlimited surcharge for each month that you went over and see if they will take this... U.TV asking for over 1000 is just stupid...

Frankly to let this much credit run up in this day and age is stupid...

Cabaal

This is correct all UTV's packages come with caps and you can only add the "unlimited" option as a add-on.

Anti

Indeed, Ive been on the phone to them today and the account holder. Unlimited was added in march, but then seems to have fallen off the account in july(From then on every month there is the download cap paymets) for some reason. The bill payer is more then happy to pay for all the charges from the normal bill and unlimited addon from march untill now, as thats only fair. You get a service you pay for it. But the 1200 part can gtfo.

Cabaal

Anti wrote: »

The bill payer is more then happy to pay for all the charges from the normal bill and unlimited addon from march untill now, as thats only fair. You get a service you pay for it. But the 1200 part can gtfo.

That seems pretty fair your still paying for what you asked for, unless they can somehow prove you requested the unlimited option to be removed then they will have to put it down to a system error .....that and fact that you haven't been getting monthly e-mails with the invoices

Anti

Got a call back from UTV tonight. Tail between their fecking legs. All calls were recorded from the bill payer ringing in for the upgrade to 3mb in march with unlimited package added on, confirmed with bank details for the new DD as the price had changed. Obviously a problem on their end. It was all good on their end until a few months after where it fell off. Now i dont mean or want to be racist or anything, but i blame all this on the indian phone monkeys they have working for them. "Internet down, Retart your pc sir" you know the kind of deal.

Not one appology, nothing at all. Asked to terminate contract as the contract has been in breach for longer then their T&C's... Told there was a fee....

A few hours after that the line is now in comparable speeds to 56k.. Thanks UTV great way to look after your customers. Takes days to upgrade the line, but only a matter of hours to downgrade it.

d22ontour

As long as you ain't stung with a 1200e bill it's all good.

Cabaal

Yeah cancel/migration charge is 29.99, you could perhaps go along the lines of compensation for stress (large bill) etc and look for 29.99 charge to be waived?

Depends how much you want out, in fairness given they fecked up so much they should be waiving the charge imho

Glad they're not charging you the full bill