Very Unhappy Bunny !

DJ_Spider

I got behind with my phone bill last month, and got a letter reminding me to pay. This I did at the post office last week. (08/02/08) I then called smart and gave them the ref no on my receipt. They said they would lodge it against my account.

On Monday I had no phone service, just a dead line. I called smart on my mobile and the first time I waited 10mins then got disconnected. I called them again and they said it was a technical problem, and they would 'reset the switch at thier end'

I eventually got my service back after about 5hrs. Then today, (wed) I went to make a call and got a american woman saying 'you are not allowed to make this call, number 16577**' Missing out the 0. I tried a mobile and got the same thing. Once again I spent money calling smart from my mobile and was told it was a fault at thier end due to the reset yeaturday and they would turn it back on, but it would take a few hours.

That was at about 11AM it is now 11:40PM and still no service. Doesn't it seam a co-incedence that my bill was overdue and now I can't make outgoing calls? I have always paid my bills as soon as I got them and am very unhappy. I am from the UK and use my smart service to call my parents as it is cheaper than using my mobile. Now I can't and they might be worrying about me.

I can get calls in, and have the broadband, but can't make outgoing calls. In the UK if you go overdue on your account they switch you to incomming calls only so your bill doesn't get any higher. But when you go to make a call it goes straight through to BT or whoever and they tell you what has happened. I can't even call smart.

Sort it out smart or we will have to leave, which we don't want to do. Am I going to get any compensation for the loss of service and using my mobile? you say you can't call me back, but I have had calls from you before.

Solair

It's a bit annoying, but they're within their rights to suspend outgoing service until you pay (and they receive) the money.

From what I gather you've an overdue bill and then paid at the post office, quoting a receipt number to smart. It's not a payment until they've actually received it which could take several days.

It's likely that their billing system bars outgoing calls if a bill is overdue by X days. This prevents further losses if you keep on calling and not paying.

At least you still have incoming calls and broadband.

There's no way you'll get compensation. Not paying your bill (regardless of the reason) is reason enough to suspend service, they've no obligations.


If you're calling the UK a lot and have a decent broadband connection like smart, can I suggest Blueface (www.blueface.ie). Get yourself a decent VoIP cordless handset (they sell a nice siemens gigaset) or get yourself an ATA (analogue terminal adaptor)

for around €10 a month you get unlimited calls to Irish and UK landlines, their service is fantastic. You also get a real landline number for your voip phone and their rates to the US, Canada and most countries around the world are dirt cheap.

rmacm

Moved from Nets & Comms - more of a consumer issue than technical.

dudara

You might have paid, but their accounts department will not know until they reconcile their bank statement and outstanding invoices. It sucks.

Skype or VOIP equivalent seems like a temporary solution.

seamus

Yeah, if you see how accounting systems work, you'll see why you were cut off.

Chances are they do a reconcile each day (as Dudara says) and probably an "unpaid customers" run once a week. The bank reconcile loads in a bank statement and automatically matches off the amount received and its reference number against the customer account number. The unpaid customers run picks up all customers with a positive balance on their account and who have already had a warning. This then turns off the service for each such customer.

Chances are, your account was picked up in the latter run before your payment appeared on their bank statement.

DJ_Spider

Yes I agree that thier accounts dept might be as much use as a chocolate teapot, but I checked it this morning and it's working now!

Probably cos I said I would leave yesturday! The thing that gets me is why ask me to give them the ref no if they are going to cut me off anyway? Oh well might get skype or something simular in case it goes again. I am right in thinking that if you pay 2E per month for the pro service you get unlimited calls? Seems a good deal to me?

Paulw

DJ_Spider wrote: »

The thing that gets me is why ask me to give them the ref no if they are going to cut me off anyway?

Cutting you off is probably an automatic system function, rather than a person cutting off individual lines.

So, when the system is flagged that the bill is overdue by x days, it simply sets a flag for your line to be blocked. Sounds totally normal to me.

I can't see anything wrong with what happened.

Solair

Basically when you pay in a post office or a bank, your payment goes into a holding account, much like your own current account, with a reference number (i.e. your smart account number) along side it.

Their accounting system then has to go into the bank account and match up your payment with their accounts system. This is usually an entirely automated process, but as was described above it's not run "live" but rather the accounts department run a cycle every X days or, on a particular day.

The whole process can take 5 working days to complete. Sometimes it's faster, sometimes it's slower, but you should always allow at least 5 working days to allow for a payment to reach any company and actually be posted to your account.

The likelihood is that Smart's accounting system flags your account as unpaid and will automatically instruct their telephone system to block outgoing calls until they've resolved payment.

If you're calling the UK a lot though, look into services like Blueface, it's all based on pre-payment (by credit or laser card) and you can't run up a bill. It's also VERY cheap and good quality. We saved a fortune on calls to the US and Canada.

I honestly can't see what the issue is though. It's not like Smart actually disconnected your phone line and imposed a re-connection fee or something. They just withdrew your outgoing service temporarily until they knew you were going to cough up. It's just a way of protecting themselves against bad debt. Most companies will do similar.

Vodafone has a similar policy.

Given that you got a reminder letter, you must have been at least 30 days late with payment.

Eircom will often completely cut off an unpaid account i.e. you'll have a dead line and anyone calling you will have "the number you have dialled is not in service..." announcements.

In the US, you actually get "The number you have dialled is NO LONGER in service!"
just to underline the fact that they didn't pay!!!

parsi

Moral of the story: Pay your bill on time.

DJ_Spider

The thing I like though is the message we got was 'you are not allowed to call this number 01657***2' or whatever number we called! but without the 0. Both mobile and landlines. In the UK they stop your outgoing calls but you can still call 0800 (freecall), 100 (operator), and customer services. With smart I had to spend over 20E on my mobile. Wouldn't it be a good idea to allow you to call customer services to sort out the problem?

Oh and parsi, this is the first time in 2yrs we missed the payment deadline!