Meteor just took all of my remaining credit while my phone was switched off!

Urban Weigl

While roaming in Spain, I received a 5 minute call from Ireland. It cost me about €7. That's fine, it's a ripoff but I knew that Meteor had the highest prices for roaming. I still have a good bit of credit left, though. I even check how much I have left to confirm.

So I switched off my phone. Turned it back on a few hours later. Dial 171 to check my voicemail, get "not enough credit left" or whatever text from them, and it won't even connect me to voicemail. I'm thinking "that's odd", so I check my credit again, and lo and behold: all my remaining credit apart from 9 cents has disappeared, just like that!

And my phone wasn't even switched on, nor do I subscribe (or receive) any texts or services. Nothing appears when I log in online at mymeteor.ie, the credit just disappeared. No explanation given.

Meteor strikes again! I guess the lesson that I have learned once again is that Meteor are a shower of scammers. Let this be a warning to anyone thinking of switching to Meteor.

dr.bollocko

I think that the last thing that Meteor want to do is scam money from people. If they are overcharging people it is because of a piss poor attempt at coding a billing system for pay-as-you-go customers. Nobody wants to be seen as overcharging because of the close eyes of ComReg.
What did you think they did, added in a line of code to scam people if they receive a call and then turn off their phones whilst roaming?
Or do you envision some tight-fisted bloke randomly picking phone numbers and taking money off of them? They will have the calls you made and the charges of these calls on record, so ring them if there has been a mistake. AAlso, have you checked your call register to see if someone has been naughty with your phone?

Urban Weigl

My phone was not only switched off, it was lying besides me while I was working on my laptop. Nobody could have "borrowed" it without me noticing, even if someone else had entered the house during this time.

I'm not saying Meteor are doing this deliberately per se, however I can tell you that they are deliberately not fixing their billing system. Credit has been taken for one call multiple times before, and their customer service has always had a "the customer is always wrong" attitude, only correcting issues after they have been reported to ComReg and/or many calls about the matter were made to 1905.

You might also recall this issue: http://www.comwreck.com/blog_47_feb3.html

That was clearly not an error in their billing system, they were scamming knowingly and not accidentally.


As far as the close eyes of ComReg, I know someone who has had an issue with Meteor since January, and its been in ComReg's hand for close to a year now. You also only have to look at the poor performance of "broadband ireland" (or lack thereof) to see that ComReg are utterly useless.

Urban Weigl

I would suggest that Meteor change their slogan to: "Meteor: we make BT Ireland's billing system look like the pinnacle of perfection".

And before you think I am biased towards BT, I also had an issue with them where they overcharged me by €30. Guess what? They were helpful, courteous and friendly about it, and did everything they could to resolve it, no need to get (or threaten to get) ComReg involved. The way it should be.

jrey1981

Someone obviously left you a voicemail and you've been charged for it.

Urban Weigl

Interesting. Meteor charge for roaming when your phone is switched off, and someone tries to call you, or if you do not even pick up the phone? If what you say is indeed true, and judging by Meteor's previous behaviour I would not put it past them, they were indeed scamming me, and it was not simply a glitch in their billing system.

Urban Weigl

dr.bollocko wrote:

I think that the last thing that Meteor want to do is scam money from people.

As new information has come to light (thanks jrey1981 very much for your post), I will call them as soon as I am back to find out if this was indeed just an innocent billing error.

I hope it was an innocent billing mistake on their part as you suggest, but judging by their track record, I am starting to think that Meteor may indeed be scamming money from people -- deliberately and just like that, and counting on the fact that most of their customers either won't notice or won't report them.

chrislad

Urban? Complaining?! Surely not!

Creamy Goodness

well they are owned by eircom tbh.

nazoil

Urban Weigl wrote:

Interesting. Meteor charge for roaming when your phone is switched off, and someone tries to call you, or if you do not even pick up the phone? ..................their billing system.

That couldn't be true.

I'm going to Australia next week and will only use the phone for receiving texts. Are you saying that if someone rings and I let the phone ring out that I'll be charged. How much? If that's the case I'm switching straight away.

chrislad

As far as I recall, you get charged if it diverts to voice mail.

Urban Weigl

chrislad wrote:

As far as I recall, you get charged if it diverts to voice mail.

Like would normally happen if you have your phone turned off or don't pick up?

chrislad

Yes, if you're abroad. It doesn't charge you at home, but it charges you for a divert when you're away.

Urban Weigl

So my phone is switched off. Someone calls, gets straight to my voicemail prompt as it's turned off and doesn't ring. Doesn't even have to leave a message, just hangs up. The call terminates in Ireland and is only a few seconds long, yet I get charged €1.20 or whatever for "roaming". Person tries a couple of times. I'm down a couple of euros.

The same thing happens if my phone is turned on but I don't pick up. And all this on top of the highest roaming charges of any Irish network.

Class!

Pythia

Also, when you're roaming, it sometimes takes a while for the call/text to actually be charged. It takes time for it to register back with Meteor. Can you check online your call details? I know I can on Meteor billpay.
It could just be that Meteor didn't deduct your credit immediately, then did it later in a lump sum.

Urban Weigl

It has appeared since. Basically, Meteor has "stolen" all of my remaining credit except for 9 cents because someone was trying to reach me while my phone was switched off.

This isn't mentioned anywhere on:
http://www.meteor.ie/payg_roaming.html
or:
http://www.meteor.ie/payg_roaming_faq.html
or:
http://www.meteor.ie/payg_roaming_rates.html

chrislad

Pythia wrote:

Also, when you're roaming, it sometimes takes a while for the call/text to actually be charged. It takes time for it to register back with Meteor. Can you check online your call details? I know I can on Meteor billpay.
It could just be that Meteor didn't deduct your credit immediately, then did it later in a lump sum.

That's true but not for a certain few countries. France, Spain, the UK, Germany, Portugal, USA, Switzerland, Sweden, Cyprus and a few more are all CAMEL roaming countries. Meteor has agreements with networks in these countries and as such, credit comes off immediately. If you were in Canada or Greece, your post would be 100% correct. For some odd reason, more than likely security reasons, the CAMEL roaming only applies to Pay as you Go, not bill pay.

faceman

chrislad wrote:

Yes, if you're abroad. It doesn't charge you at home, but it charges you for a divert when you're away.

Total rubbish.

jrey1981

If you divert your calls before you leave Ireland and do not switch the phone on in the destination country, you are not charged for the diverted part of the call.

If however you turn on your phone on arrival in your destination country and then for whatever reason turn off your phone and someone rings you, then you get charged.

Annoying, yes, but what you can do - if you wish to have your phone on so you can receive text messages for example, to try to keep down roaming costs are all or some of the following:

On arrival in destination country, cancel all diverts.
Tell people to text you rather than call you.
Keep your phone on and when someone calls and you don't answer, (and providing their caller ID is displayed) call them back on a landline or with a prepaid card that gives cheap international calls for example.

verbatim

Meteor stung me for this as well. I was in Slovakia and someone rang me 3 times, I didnt answer and they went to my voice mail, so I got charged massive rip off rates.
I rang to complain and they basically said tough ****. Since the voicemail calls only lasted about 3 seconds each I was very annoyed at being charged a few Euro each time. They said they bill per minute when roaming, but I had to point out to them that there were 2 charges applied to the call, one charged per minute and the other charged per second. So since its possible for them to double bill me per second, why cant they do that for both charges, but they didnt have an answer.

They are ripoff merchants and I wouldnt advise anyone to go near them.

They also cut off my free webtexts for a month, without telling me. Took 6 phone calls and a threat to cancel my contract before they were finally able to tell me that actually they had cut them off. Turns out their 300 free webtexts are only free if you dont use too many of them. Turns out that sending 24 free texts in 2 hours is enough for them to accuse you of trying to curcumvent their free webtext limit.
I found this hillarious because I still had 286 webtexts left month! I'm guessing however that because I use FF on Linux, their poorly coded site was throwing up errors they hadnt seen before, thus jumping to the conclusion that I was the problem, not them. And in the end all I got was 20Euro off my bill for their incompetence.

krpc

Urban_Weigl, I'm guessing you called 1905, what did they have to say for themselves about your predicament?

Urban Weigl

I did. Twice. The first lady I spoke to could not even see the charges, and claimed my credit couldn't have gone because I wasn't charged anything by Meteor.

She than asked for permission to log into mymeteor.ie. I thought that was a bit odd, but gave her my mobile number a second time, along with my PIN. She again couldn't see the charges, so I had to literally walk her through how to use mymeteor.ie! Anyway, after she did see the charges, I was told that there is a "connection fee for roaming even when a call isn't connected". That didn't make sense to me, but wishing to stay courteous and not argue about it, I asked her to escalate the issue. She said she'd open a ticket and someone would call me back tomorrow morning as far as I remember.

Well, nobody called me back tomorrow morning or indeed afternoon, so I called 1905 again late afternoon the next day. I explained about the charges and that my phone was switched off. I was told for the first time that Meteor charges for voicemail/diverts when abroad, even when the phone switched off. I pointed out that I was not told about this by Meteor at any stage, and that before I went roaming I looked at all three pages relevant to roaming and PAYG customers on their web site, and there was no mention of this.

I was put on hold several times, and eventually I did get refunded. So as far as I am concerned, this issue has been resolved acceptably for me at least, though obviously other customers will still be stung by it, but honestly because it was resolved for me, I'm now too lazy to report them to the ODCA.

I did ask that she pass along that it should be mentioned in their roaming frequently asked questions and price list, and she promised that she will pass that along, as currently it only seems to be mentioned in their "internal terms and conditions", which isn't much really. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Until Meteor change their policy on roaming, I would recommend customers who do need roaming to do one or more of the following: turn off their voicemail and all diverts, switch to another network like O2 or Vodafone, or leave your Meteor mobile at home. I am of the opinion that this confusing and highly random pricing structure for roaming is probably costing Meteor money at the end of the day, because people will vote with their feet and switch to a different network (some will, and I am seriously pondering it myself now), or they will be afraid to take their mobile with them on holiday and simply leave it at home. Both times Meteor loses out.

krpc

I am pleased to see the issue in itself has been resolved.

You might wish, if so inclined, to lodge a complaint with ComReg, explain the situation, and leave it in their "capable" hands. I don't imagine they would contact you again after initial contact is made.

I said this before, and I will say it again, the networks in Ireland have an amazing ability to falsely advertise goods and services (or have hidden clauses that are not accessible to customers), and due to the pure and utter incompetence of ComReg and ASAI amongst others, in most cases, get away with it!!

CK.1

Let me get this straight, if I am abroad and I have my phone on and then turn it off, I am charged for a divert to my voice mail everytime someone calls until I switch it back on again in Ireland? What happens if I arrive back and don't turn my phone on for a week? Am I charged for roaming diverts even though I am in Ireland? This sounds crazy.

Urban Weigl

CK.1: Correct, you are getting it straight. Meteor will charge you every time a call gets diverted to voicemail, even when your phone is off! This will continue when you are back in Ireland, until the first time you turn it back on here. As far as I know, you are also charged twice for each call, once a connection fee of about €1.20 + another €1.20 a minute billed per second. So your phone is turned off, someone tries to call you a couple of times, you're easily down €10. You could lose €100+ in credit over a few days, without having your phone even on, or if you don't turn it back on again right away when you're back in Ireland.

I don't have a problem with this, to be honest, but Meteor must make the customer aware of it in a clear and concise way. As it stands, it is not stated in any of their price lists. As far as I am aware of, it is only in their "internal terms and conditions".

krpc

Urban Weigl wrote:

CK.1: Correct, you are getting this straight. Meteor will charge you every time a call gets diverted to voicemail, even when your phone is off. This will continue even when you are back in Ireland, until the first time you turn it back on here. As far as I know, you are even charged twice for each call, once a connection fee of about €1.20 + another €1.20 a minute billed per second. So your phone is turned off, someone tries to call you a couple of times, you're easily down €10. You could lose €100+ in credit over a few days, without having your phone on, or if you don't turn it back on again right away when you're back in Ireland.

To be honest, I don't even have a problem with this, but Meteor must at least make the customer aware of it in a clear way. As it stands, it is not stated in any of their price lists, at least none that I have seen. I wasn't even any the wiser after reading their roaming frequently asked questions, which is above and beyond. As far as I am aware of, it is only in their "internal terms and conditions".

Internal terms and conditions are worth nothing. Although the networks are quite fond of this phrasing, they're pointless. They do not and cannot form part of a person's contract. It's like me selling a phone that looks like it's in perfect/mint condition, but ultimately it is broken on the inside and won't work in some shape or form. I decided not to tell the buyer as this knowledge was something I wished to keep to myself. Pure crap! Internal terms and conditions. I swear if you could see my face right now lol

Urban: A couple of questions:
Is this the first time you roamed with meteor
And if so:
Did you ring customer service (1905) and ask about the charges?
Or:
Did you go into a meteor shop and ask about the charges?

Because afaik it's standard practice to chrge for voicemails while away (as it is a call received)

Our man in Havana

All the networks to this. solution: cancel all diverts.
O2 are a particular problem as you cannot disable diverts at all. :eek:

Urban Weigl

O2 told me they don't charge for diverts, only for retrieving voicemail. That being said, even if they did (which would be wrong), someone calling you and only getting voicemail (and hanging up) would only cost you 1 or 2 cents each time, as they don't charge a connection fee like Meteor.

Result: someone calling you and getting voicemail a couple of times will cost you €10 on Meteor, but €0.10 on O2. E.g. Of O2 do charge after all, which contradicts what they told me, Meteor would still be ONE HUNDRED TIMES more expensive than O2.

I haven't talked to Vodafone yet, but could not find anything about it apart from that they charge a once-off fee of €0.79 if you call 171 to check your voicemail while abroad, no matter how long you stay connected to voicemail. I will call 'em later and find out more.

Urban Weigl

Here's the deal with Vodafone.
If your phone is turned off, or you don't pick up, and someone calls you and gets your voicemail prompt, you will NOT get charged unless they actually leave a voicemail message, in which case you will be charged €0.79. Unlike Meteor, who charge you even if no voicemail message is left. While this is a little more reasonable, I still could not find any reference to it on Vodafone's web site, which is unreal. If someone else can, please let me know.

Urban Weigl

So basically:
Someone calling you several times but only getting your voicemail prompt while you are away, costs:
Meteor: €10
O2: €0.10 (I'm gonna assume they do charge for this, which contradicts what the girl on the phone said)
Vodafone: €0 (unless the person actually leaves a message, in which case it's €0.79 no matter how long that message is)
3: Who the hell cares! They don't have any customers yet...

As far as I am concerned, you can charge an unfair price, that's fine. You can charge a million for a biro, but it must be clear. In all the above cases, it's not mentioned in any price list. As I'd only spent 10 minutes trying to find it in Vodafone's price list, I thought I'd be fair and ask them. "Is it on your price list?". The answer was a straight "no". I later looked at terms and conditions, and found no mention of it there either.