Meteor- A joke of a company.

kazaam

Decided I need to have a little rant about this company. As a customer for the last 31 months, they cut off my service without prior notice due to an unpaid bill. This bill was never sent out to me and is now being re-sent though they refuse to reactivate my service without payment so i have to wait for the bill and then pay it.

This is the 2nd problem I have had with this company. about 6 months ago I was cut off without prior notice for an outstanding balance of 4 euro. my bill was 124 euro and i paid 120 of it and again, they refused to reactivate me without the 4 euro.

Has anybody else had similar problems with meteor? I think its time for me to move networks as i find it highly unusual they are willing to lose a customer over these issues.

jor el

That sucks, but if you don't pay the bill, then obviously they're not going to keep fronting credit for you to use.

As for the missing bill, if that goes missing in the post, you can't really hold Meteor responsible for that. Do they not have an e-billing option, and were you not suspicious of not receiving a bill that month?

Customers need to take some responsibility in situations like this. If you don't pay the whole bill, then you face sanctions. If no bill arrives, then you should be asking them where it is.

petes

You could set up a monthly direct debit to pay the bill.

kazaam

I don't like using monthly direct debit as I have had problems with being overcharged in the past. When my bill arrives on time it is paid on time and usually that system works fine. I would have liked a text message or a phonecall first to say my bill needs to be paid then I would have started asking questions then. The only option they offered was to pay by credit card after reviewing the bill online however i only have a debit card so thats no good. Also I'm doing exams at the minute and cant get to a meteor store, I can only get to a post office where i would need the bill in hand to pay it.

I don't expect them to front me credit but I would like some warning that I'm going to be cut off.

Cabaal

Meteor do operate on-line billing where you can view your bill amount etc and see if its been paid, its on the main page after you login to use the free txt;s.

OP I can get where your coming from but you can't expect a company to provide you services if you haven't paid your previous bill,

Elmo

Most companies send a remind through the post or by text message to inform you that you are not up to date with payments. UPC even send a text message, however their credit system is a bit stupid (another story).

OP Meteor = Eircom what do you expect?

kellsum

kazaam wrote: »

This is the 2nd problem I have had with this company. about 6 months ago I was cut off without prior notice for an outstanding balance of 4 euro. my bill was 124 euro and i paid 120 of it and again, they refused to reactivate me without the 4 euro.

Are you paying €120 per month for a phone bill Im sure you could get a much better deal with any of the networks for that amount? I would shop around OP if I were you.

Lab_Mouse

well at least you know to pay the bill on time.Its not their fault you have exams,or the bill got lost in the post,or that you got the bill but only paid 120 euro leaving 4 outstanding.

Why should they spend money chasing you?(they use debt collectors to get any unpaid bills).

pointless thread to be honest

petes

Lab_Mouse wrote: »

well at least you know to pay the bill on time.Its not their fault you have exams,or the bill got lost in the post,or that you got the bill but only paid 120 euro leaving 4 outstanding.

Why should they spend money chasing you?(they use debt collectors to get any unpaid bills).

pointless thread to be honest

To be fair €4 outstanding from a prior bill is a bit much. Could they not just add it to the next bill?

Lab_Mouse

Insurgent wrote: »

To be fair €4 outstanding from a prior bill is a bit much. Could they not just add it to the next bill?

True,but they are a business not a charity.Also its a standard across most businesses.Ever try leaving your car insurance 4 euro short?do you think they would insure you for the month your left them short?

the OP didnt pay his bill,a bit crap with the circumstances,but at the end of the day its his/her look out..

also what the hell is a student spending 120 euro on phone bills,thought they lived in poverty,feeding on campbells meat balls in dingy flats in summerhill:D

smelltheglove

Op you say you are a customer of 31 months, my husband has had his phone with them for 10yrs, me around 4, both bill phones paid under his name. Paid on time evry time.

Last month our 2 yr old must have gotten a hold of our phone and topped up over €100 INTERNET CHARGES. Well this wasnt expected so we did not have the money. When teh bill came in my husband called them to see if anything could be done, basically it was tough, pay it. A few days later a text message came to remind us to pay.

On Monday we were cut off, less than 14 days after the unpaid bill. Husband called again, disgusted that this was what would happen after 10 years of loyal service and he just got a repetition of terms and consitions. He readdressed the fact that failure to pay was due to huge internet charges but still nothing.

What we will be doing now is dropping down to the lowest plan after we pay the bill and then ending our contract with them. We will take it elsewhere, it will cost us aroun €80 to end the contract but we would rather do that then continue with them after this situation, ok everyone will say well you didnt pay the ill but after all you would expect on the first occassion to be given a bit of a chance and leniancy!

whippet

i didn't think Meteor we in the market for ten years!!

mind you, how do they know that a two year old was responsible for the data. As anyone knows, a mobile phone can run up massive charges through calls or data if the user isn't carefull.

Allowing your child to use the phone is your fault not the service providers and hence they are right to charge you.

As for the argument about being loyal, that don't wash with me, you contracted to a service, meteor provided it and charged the agreed tarriffs .. loyalty has nothing to do with it.

Rics

Tis similar in the phone company I work for.
credit management are clamping down quite heavily on people compared to how they used to. Sad situation but no real way out of it I suppose other than to get them paid on time.

Pat Mustard

I had a package with Meteor. It wasn't cheap, but I was supposed to get X amount of free texts and calls to any number, every month, so it should have had it's perks.

They continued to bill me, but they cancelled my free texts. I noticed that I was being billed for text messages, even though there was no way I was using up my quota of free texts. I rang to complain. I was told that I was referring to 'an old tariff', and that I was not entitled to free texts! Obviously I told them that the 'old tariff' was the contract that I had signed up to, so that I was entitled to the free texts as well as the free calls. Their position was that they had moved the goalposts, but that I was still in a contract with them for the duration of the 'contract period', and that I still had to pay, even though they had changed the terms of our contract.

Needless to say, my relationship with Meteor ended badly. I am not going to go into detail on that. In any case, I will never use Meteor ever again.

chrisp2281

Why didn't you just pay your bill by credit or laser card when you realsied you had no received the bill?

Secondly, if you sign up for online billing, this won't happen

Thirdly, I use direct debits for all my bills. I ahve never been overcharged but if you were, you can still check your bill and they will credit you.

It seems like it would save you alot of time trying to find out why you have no phone service.

Having said all that, cutting someone off for missing 1 bill is a bad way to run a business. People have bad months and in times like this, business's need loyalty

smelltheglove

whippet wrote: »

i didn't think Meteor we in the market for ten years!!

mind you, how do they know that a two year old was responsible for the data. As anyone knows, a mobile phone can run up massive charges through calls or data if the user isn't carefull.

Allowing your child to use the phone is your fault not the service providers and hence they are right to charge you.

As for the argument about being loyal, that don't wash with me, you contracted to a service, meteor provided it and charged the agreed tarriffs .. loyalty has nothing to do with it.

My husband got his first mobile with meteor, I see from a search it was 01 but 8 years is still a long time! We would not blame them for the chld using the phone but would expect some sort of leniancy considering we called them as soon as we received the bill to explain the funds were not available due to the extra charge.

Elmo

I think they could have had some kind of repayment method and spread over a number of months. I don't think meteor are to blame Vodafone, O2 and 3 would all do the same.

I was with O2 for years before moving to meteor. I was mugged and lost my phone during and was away from home (in college), so I asked if they would give me a cheap phone for free, and that I would pay with top ups or they could disconnect me, I felt this wasn't a hard task to manage for them, I felt that they could provide it to me under the circumstances. Since they didn't I went to meteor due to their lower prices. A month later they had a phone on the market for 29euro :mad:

Sam Vimes

Elmo wrote: »

I think they could have had some kind of repayment method and spread over a number of months. I don't think meteor are to blame Vodafone, O2 and 3 would all do the same.

They actually wouldn't in this case. 3 don't have high data rates like that and O2 have a dedicated team called the bill shock team or something like that. They'll even call you up and offer to reduce bills that are unusually high.

Elmo wrote: »

I was with O2 for years before moving to meteor. I was mugged and lost my phone during and was away from home (in college), so I asked if they would give me a cheap phone for free, and that I would pay with top ups or they could disconnect me, I felt this wasn't a hard task to manage for them, I felt that they could provide it to me under the circumstances. Since they didn't I went to meteor due to their lower prices. A month later they had a phone on the market for 29euro :mad:

In fairness that is a very hard task to manage, the system isn't set up for that. Phone credit is not a bank loan.

Random

Couple of points:

- Cutting you off for being 4EUR short seems a bit harsh on a bill for 124EUR IMO. Was this the first time?
- Whether or not your kid used the phone is not relevant. All that that is relevant is that you cannot pay the bill. If you can't afford to pay your bill why should they continue to credit you as the chances are you won't be able to afford the next one either.

kazaam

kellsum wrote: »

Are you paying €120 per month for a phone bill Im sure you could get a much better deal with any of the networks for that amount? I would shop around OP if I were you.

The bill never really comes to more than €50 per month. the €124 euro bill was due to roaming charges and was actually last summer now that i think of it.

kazaam

Lab_Mouse wrote: »

well at least you know to pay the bill on time.Its not their fault you have exams,or the bill got lost in the post,or that you got the bill but only paid 120 euro leaving 4 outstanding.

Why should they spend money chasing you?(they use debt collectors to get any unpaid bills).

pointless thread to be honest

first of all, i would pay the bill on time if I had the bill on time. I think thats fair enough. Also I started this thread to see if anyone else had similar experiences (so the thread does have a point). and thirdly dont see why i should listen to anyone that has "yer ma's gaf" as their location... pointless post to be honest.

Edit: what kind of an idiot would hire a debt collector for the sake of 4 euro just out of interest??

smelltheglove

I dont think the op means that he wants them to forget about the bill just like I do not mean that I should not be charged because my 2 yr old messed with my husbands phone, these things happen, the issue is the drastic action within such a short period, one for the op who did not receive a bill and with me for the fact that we contacted them and tried to come to an agreement over it.

They say they will take the bill again on the 22nd and will not connect us again until that bil has been paid which we fully accept. I could go down and pay it on Friday if I so wished but due to the hassle of it I may as well just wait until they take it, it is more an irritation than anything else, obviously we cant complain as we did not pay the bills but under the cricumstances it is a little harsh.

Random

smelltheglove wrote: »

I dont think the op means that he wants them to forget about the bill just like I do not mean that I should not be charged because my 2 yr old messed with my husbands phone, these things happen, the issue is the drastic action within such a short period, one for the op who did not receive a bill and with me for the fact that we contacted them and tried to come to an agreement over it.

They say they will take the bill again on the 22nd and will not connect us again until that bil has been paid which we fully accept. I could go down and pay it on Friday if I so wished but due to the hassle of it I may as well just wait until they take it, it is more an irritation than anything else, obviously we cant complain as we did not pay the bills but under the cricumstances it is a little harsh.

Anyone can claim that their kid did XYZ to their phone. Yes, there should be a little common sense and whatever.. we're all human .. but they've probably heard every excuse under the sun at this stage.

smelltheglove

Random wrote: »

Anyone can claim that their kid did XYZ to their phone. Yes, there should be a little common sense and whatever.. we're all human .. but they've probably heard every excuse under the sun at this stage.

Fair enough although we never used that service before and over 100 euro worth of it was used up in one shot so it would be pretty strange in comparison to all other bills, the most expensive one ever.

Anyway whether it be that or something else, 14 days is a pretty short period!

Random

Re: we never used that service before
So you used something, didn't check how much it cost, and now want to whinge about it. (from their point of view)

I could go on and so could many others.

I guess the main thing all these types of thread come back to is that a feature that allows you to cap your bill at a certain amount each month is one that's highly desirable and may be a very positive step from a customer relations point of view.

Elmo

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In fairness that is a very hard task to manage, the system isn't set up for that. Phone credit is not a bank loan.

Could they not have put my a count into minus figures? After all their phones are subsides for the customers and I am sure they knew that prices were about the reduce dramatically and I would have stayed with them.

But I do understand big companies don't like going out of the way for one small request that would rarely be asked. But once you do it once :rolleyes:

Sam Vimes

Elmo wrote: »

Could they not have put my a count into minus figures? After all their phones are subsides for the customers and I am sure they knew that prices were about the reduce dramatically and I would have stayed with them.

But I do understand big companies don't like going out of the way for one small request that would rarely be asked. But once you do it once :rolleyes:

Credit generally can't go into minus figures. That's not the purpose of credit anyway. There'd probably even be legal issues with doing it this way. And if you got the phone in a shop it'd be down a phone and the money it should have taken. There's a lot to consider in doing it, technically it's probably possible but the system is not designed to do it so it would be very complicated and error prone

Could you not have just borrowed a few quid from a friend instead of asking o2 to spot you the money?

As for knowing prices were going to drop, when I worked in a shop I never knew about price changes until they were announced. Telling us that prices were going to drop would negatively affect sales just before the drop

Fighting Irish

lol

what do you want off them? free service and a handjob? get over yourself

Elmo

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Credit generally can't go into minus figures. That's not the purpose of credit anyway. There'd probably even be legal issues with doing it this way. And if you got the phone in a shop it'd be down a phone and the money it should have taken. There's a lot to consider in doing it, technically it's probably possible but the system is not designed to do it so it would be very complicated and error prone

Could you not have just borrowed a few quid from a friend instead of asking o2 to spot you the money?

As for knowing prices were going to drop, when I worked in a shop I never knew about price changes until they were announced. Telling us that prices were going to drop would negatively affect sales just before the drop

I have worked with one of the mobile companies and I have seen them take money off customers and put them in the minus figures. I was talking to customer services not sales.

I could have asked my parents, I was in college at the time so I didn't have money so I didn't like asking other friends for a loan of 80euro for a new phone.

what do you want off them? free service and a handjob? get over yourself

No as I said the mobile phones are subsides anyway so I wasn't asking for much. I actually think my situation was more of a sob story then "my child went on the internet."

Totally over myself I was just relating a story as to the fact that mobile phone companies won't go out of their way to help customers. Sin É.

smelltheglove

Well I got a slightly better outcome today, I received a phone call from the credit department, the many asked did I want to reach some sort of payment agreement, I explained the previous conversations my husband had witht he company and the reason for failure to pay, i.e. the unexpected internet charges. The rep said he was surprised we were not offered a payment agreement as he could see we never had any issues regards payment in all our years there and he could tell the main phone was there since the beginning.

The rep even offered to investigate the internet charges, I replied by saying I was sure it was the child and had no issue paying just did not have the funds to pay in full on time, this was satisfactory to them and the rep said as long as it was paid before the next bill it would be ok with them to arrange two installments.

I suppose you just have to get on to the right people.

kazaam

Fighting Irish wrote: »

lol

what do you want off them? free service and a handjob? get over yourself

Hillarious ( but not really). I thought i made it clear what i wanted was a bill... read the original post mate!