Meteor bill and bad customer service

vicki123

Hi all. I started a contract with meteor in November for an iPhone4s. An issue arose within the first two months as meteor kept saying that my direct debit was insufficient and they had to wait to take the money from my account. I was not happy with this as I did have the sufficient amount if money in my account. Since this has happened the issue has kept reaccuring. This has resulted in my dd being taken out of my account on random dates between the 1st and the 14th each month. I contacted my bank and they informed me that every time that meteor tried to access my dd they were successful. On the fifth of march at 8.30pm I rang meteor to see if the dd had been successful and I was informed that a successful transaction of the dd had taken place at 12.05am, so I emptied my bank account. The following day I rang meteor again and I was again reassured that the transaction was successful and that my balance was zero. However this morning I woke up to a lively text from meteor saying that my dd has been suspended until further notie, as my bill was not paid on the 5th, as I was informed. After contacting customer service and customer credit control, the nice lady on the phone tells me I am lying and that I had wiped by bank account before 12.05am on the fifth. However as I have already told u I did not do so until 8.30 pm after I was told that the transaction was successful. Now I have just returned from my bank which I have been informed that meteor did not try to access my account until the 7th. In sick of the attitude that u have received from the meteor customer service team and the meteor customer credit control team. Does anybody know if I am legally able to get out of my contract now???? Any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks a million

drunkmonkey

Ideally they would take out the money on a fixed date but that can't always happen.
As it's your bank account you are in control of it. If you looked at you bank account and seen the money had not been debited you shouldn't have emptied the bank account until payment had left your account regardless of who said what.
I don't see this as a way to cancel your contract but you do need to be in better control of what's going in and out, you can always check that on banking on-line, mini statement from a bank machine, app on your phone etc.

foggy_lad

Keep an eye on this page for contract changes which will allow you cancel the contract without penalty. http://meteor.ie/terms_and_conditions/notifications/

Also keep proper notes and only deal with meteor by email and keep all the emails and you will have a paper trail which allows you to build a case for leaving due to them not managing your account and billing properly!

MOH

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Ideally they would take out the money on a fixed date but that can't always happen.
As it's your bank account you are in control of it. If you looked at you bank account and seen the money had not been debited you shouldn't have emptied the bank account until payment had left your account regardless of who said what.
I don't see this as a way to cancel your contract but you do need to be in better control of what's going in and out, you can always check that on banking on-line, mini statement from a bank machine, app on your phone etc.

If Meteor can't manage to keep track of when they're supposed to bill the OP, and then tell the OP they don't owe any money, how is it in any way the OPs fault?

The whole point of setting up a direct debit is that you're not supposed to have to worry about it, your bill is supposed to be paid automatically.

I'd cancel the direct debit and refuse to give them direct debit access to my account again.

drunkmonkey

MOH wrote: »

I'd cancel the direct debit and refuse to give them direct debit access to my account again.

That could be the way to go, but rather than refuse it might be as handy just request that they can pay in the post office.

Max Power 2010

Not saying who is right or wrong here, but in most companies, they send an instruction to the banks on a particular date, so your account looks as if it's paid on their side.

However the bank validates the DD and then presents it to your account, that can be days later, then if unsuccessful the notify the company,.this case meteor.

For example,.my ESB DD failed this month, I got a.letter saying it failed (wasn't keeping track to be honest) and they would represent the DD on the 6th, it only came out today, 4 business days later.

dudara

This sounds a little weird to me. Meteor generates a DD file, which is presented to the bank for payment. The bank then goes and attempts to collect the money. On their next bank statement, Meteor will see all the collected receipts, and the rejected receipts due to insufficient funds.

The scenario you describe on the 5th makes sense in this context. The DD was presented, so Meteor marked the account as receipt received (this is called "cash in transit". The receipt isn't final until final confirmation is received from the bank). In the meantime you emptied the account, so when the DD actually processed, it was rejected. Meteor then had to reverse the "cash in transit" receipt on your account.

To me, based on my knowledge of billing & payment systems, something doesn't seem quite right here. But it's hard to pinpoint the case without seeing all the details.

foggy_lad

You are not supposed to have access to the funds that are "in transit" because they have been reserved for Meteor. Would clearing out an account leave those funds in the account?

dudara

You need to look at it from both sides.

At that point the cash in the OP's bank account wasn't "In Transit", as I'm guessing that the DD hadn't been presented.

But on Meteor's systems, they would have accounted for the receipt as Cash in Transit (sometimes called suspense account). The generation of the DD file moved the accounting from Receivables to Cash in Transit. The confirmation of the DD would complete the accounting, moving it from Cash in Transit to Cash in Bank.

*EDIT I'm making some assumptions here as I don't know what ERP or accounting system Meteor use. But this is based on what I've seen professionally.

vicki123

but if it's takes up to 14 days 'in transit' then it's not really direct debit?

onthecase

vicki123 wrote: »

but if it's takes up to 14 days 'in transit' then it's not really direct debit?

Tweet them with hashtag #donotmovetometeor

dudara

onthecase Helpful posts only please.

dudara

onthecase

dudara wrote: »

onthecase Helpful posts only please.

dudara

What was not helpful about 'tweet them'. Worked for me. Back in your box now

dudara

I'm very tempted to give you an infraction, but as you're a relatively inexperienced poster, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

To make that a truly helpful post, you should add more detail as to why the OP should follow that course of action.

In addition, you've posted the same comment multiple times about the hashtag across multiple forums, which is bad Boards etiquette.

dudara

Legislator

The term 'in transit' is not releveant. When a company, Meteor in this case, presents direct debits to their bank they will normally do so two to three days before the direct debit is due. The due date is the date that you should have been advised by Meteor when you got your bill. On the due date the direct debit will be processed against the payer account and the amount will be credited to the company account. However if the payer has insufficient funds the paying bank will return the DD to the company and will reverse the transaction on the company account. The company in turn will reverse the transaction on their account system.

daenerysstormborn3

OP I have had serious issues with Meteor and direct debits, resulting in (a) being out of pocket by over €100 on two occasions because they decided to take my DD twice when they failed to take it correctly on their side and (b) my service being cancelled on four occasions due to their inability to apply the DD properly to my account (they have admitted all of this) and my account then going into the overdue period due to their mistake.

Their customer service is an absolute joke for starters. For instance the four times they cut off my service with no notice due to their own mistake I was left with no way to contact them as my mobile is the only phone I have and as I did not become aware of my service being suspended until late in the evening (because they gave me no notice of same) and their credit control department, who according to them have the only authority to reactivate accounts, who don't open until 9a.m. and close at 5p.m. (I think, either 5 or 6) are the only number you can dial on your phone when service has been suspended, you are then left with no way of contacting them if your service has been suspended.

I understand phone companies regularly deal with people who don't pay their accounts and my sympathy is with them under those circumstances but while they are very quick to expect you to fix their mistakes when they make them (as they expected in my case when they expected me to go to either a Meteor Store or Post Office to pay my bill when they failed to take my DD correctly) they are very unhelpful should you actually require some customer service from them, such as in the OP's case of trying to ensure their bill was paid and being given incorrect information.

Unfortunately the only way I have ever seen anyone successfully get out of a contract with the likes of a phone company or tv provider penalty free is through engaging the services of a solicitor.

cherryghost

Bumping as I have a similar issue along with numerous others.

I've had sufficient money in my account since I signed up for bill pay, 30 euro a month, around the same time as the OP. I'm having the exact same issue with their DD system. It's been rejected every month since despite have more than enough in the account. I ordered a new mandate form from them and again requested from the bank the DD order. It still gets rejected.

For any of the now overdue payments I've paid directly through my bank. It was fine for the month of December and January. However I've just recieved my bill for March and I've been requested to pay an overdue amount from February, which has been clearly paid by myself, shows up in my bank statements no bother at all. I'm getting nothing but shrugs off Meteor customer service so what can I do?

Thirdly, which I didn't cop on until last month is that in November I signed up for a 30 euro a month plan. MyMeteor account states that I'm signed up for a 35 a month plan. Partially my own fault for not checking until now but what can be done with that? Haven't contacted them about this yet as I only copped on this afternoon

daenerysstormborn3

cherryghost wrote: »

Bumping as I have a similar issue along with numerous others.

I've had sufficient money in my account since I signed up for bill pay, 30 euro a month, around the same time as the OP. I'm having the exact same issue with their DD system. It's been rejected every month since despite have more than enough in the account. I ordered a new mandate form from them and again requested from the bank the DD order. It still gets rejected.

For any of the now overdue payments I've paid directly through my bank. It was fine for the month of December and January. However I've just recieved my bill for March and I've been requested to pay an overdue amount from February, which has been clearly paid by myself, shows up in my bank statements no bother at all. I'm getting nothing but shrugs off Meteor customer service so what can I do?

Thirdly, which I didn't cop on until last month is that in November I signed up for a 30 euro a month plan. MyMeteor account states that I'm signed up for a 35 a month plan. Partially my own fault for not checking until now but what can be done with that? Haven't contacted them about this yet as I only copped on this afternoon

Regarding the 3rd paragraph of your post i have had that same problem every month since the direct debit that they originally messed up, meteor tell me i owe 2 payments eventhough i'm up to date. I don't know what kind of idiots they have running that company.

Galadriel

pixiebean22 wrote: »

Regarding the 3rd paragraph of your post i have had that same problem every month since the direct debit that they originally messed up, meteor tell me i owe 2 payments eventhough i'm up to date. I don't know what kind of idiots they have running that company.

I have been with Meteor for years and then suddenly one month they stopped taking the direct debit, I only found out when they text me to say my bill was overdue, the same thing happened for the next two months - they told me I had cancelled the direct debit which was certainly not true, but as they said I had cancelled it I called my bank and actually cancelled it, now I just pay it each month in one of their shops.

daenerysstormborn3

Same here, i now pay by eft every month

pleasereadme

Hello
I have found that meteor don't have what we would like to call customer care .Once they are getting money from you they don't care.I am sorry I every became a Meteor Customer.They just are not trained to help people.