Meteor charging for calls outside of contract

pedantic.pat

Hi all,


I need advice on my rights with an issue between myself and Meteor. I will try to keep it short. Any help/advice offered appreciated.


14th June 18 Month Contract up for renewal.


14th June Called Meteor to request a switch to Meteor PAYG.
Was Informed by Customer Service my Contract was up and i needed to give a months notice and an email confirmation - I sent this 1 hour later.
We signed off the conversation with her confirming I will revert back to Pay as you go on 14th July.


Great. I was able to go abroad 14th July to 15th August as PAYG customer and not pay 30 euro a month for minutes i am not using.


I came back from my trip today to send a webtext to discover I am still on their "300 Talk and Text" 18 Month Contract. Not only that - I have been charged 20 Euro Roaming charges.

Regarding the roaming charges - I used an international sim to make local calls while abroad. When i switched to Meteor sim to check for messages from home i forgot to change back and made a number of calls to local numbers on the meteor sim. (I was not careful to check the correct one was in the phone because i presumed if the meteor sim card was in the call would have been rejected due to insufficient credit.)


I called Customer Service earlier and explained the mistake by them, he confirmed they received the cancellation request etc. But i would probably have to pay the Roaming charges and to call cancellation department in the morning.


Can they charge me for these roaming calls even though they took place outside of our contract?

Thanks for help,


Pat.


Edit: Apologies if the above is incoherent - I have been travelling for the last 48 hours and have not had a wink of sleep .

foggy_lad

They confirmed you were switching to pay as you go from a certain date so legally they can't charge you for a bill-pay service from that date.

tell them you dispute all those roaming charges as you should not have had use of a bill-pay account while roaming. this is Meteor offering you credit on a prepay account without your permission which is strictly forbidden!

pedantic.pat

thanks for the reply foggy lad.

Makes the call to meteor alot easier as I know i'm in the right now.

Although I know from dealing with them previously they will just turn around and say "we are going to charge you anyway"

On my first bill they charged me a month in advance I presume now so that they would have the upper hand in these sort of disputes.

foggy_lad

pedantic.pat wrote: »

thanks for the reply foggy lad.

Makes the call to meteor alot easier as I know i'm in the right now.

Although I know from dealing with them previously they will just turn around and say "we are going to charge you anyway"

On my first bill they charged me a month in advance I presume now so that they would have the upper hand in these sort of disputes.

They did the same with my broadband when I cancelled. They never cancelled it and tried to claim that the payment in arrears was for the 30day notice period. I cancelled the direct debit and next month they charged me yet again for the broadband! Bloody useless customer care and billing departments and they appear to do this a lot. Many people will believe their lies and won't notice they are still being charged for months which all makes it harder to get your money back from them. They also fraudulently set up a cancelled direct debit without my knowledge or consent.

AngryLips

I don't think you can dispute the roaming charges given that you used the phone but you have a good case to argue for them to credit back your line rental for that period where you should have been on prepay.

RangeR

pedantic.pat wrote: »

thanks for the reply foggy lad.

Makes the call to meteor alot easier as I know i'm in the right now.

Although I know from dealing with them previously they will just turn around and say "we are going to charge you anyway"

On my first bill they charged me a month in advance I presume now so that they would have the upper hand in these sort of disputes.

Do you pay by the Direct Debit Scheme? If so, you are in the position of having an un-authorised direct debit taken from your account. In this case, you have absolute rights and guarantees.

If it is established that an unauthorised direct debit was charged to your account, you are guaranteed an immediate refund by your bank of the amount so charged where you notify your bank without undue delay on becoming aware of the unauthorised direct debit, and in any event no later than 13 months after the date of debiting of such direct debit to your account

1. Notify your local branch [the one that maintains your current account that the direct debits come out of] that an un-authorised Direct Debit has been made.
2. Inform them of the details
3. Request, under the Direct Debit Scheme, that you require an immediate refund. This is where it gets tricky. Anecdotally, about 100% of banking frontline staff don't know the Direct Debit Scheme rules and will refuse you. If [when] they refuse, ask them for the phone number to their Group Complaints Department.
4. If [when] refused by your local bank, ring the Bank Group Complaints Department. Explain the situation and request an immediate refund. It might take an hour, but you will get it.

This is YOUR account. It doesn't belong to Meteor OR your bank. It's YOUR money. You are supposed to have FULL CONTROL over it. In reality, you have no control but we are trying to change that.

DO NOT accept "Sure, we'll get that refunded within two weeks" or whatever. The rules are clear. The refund MUST Be immediate. Personally, I'd allow an hour or two but no more.

What I've outlined above does NOT negate your potential liability to Meteor. It just reverses the un-authorised Direct Debit taken from YOUR account.

foggy_lad

AngryLips wrote: »

I don't think you can dispute the roaming charges given that you used the phone but you have a good case to argue for them to credit back your line rental for that period where you should have been on prepay.

Of course they can be disputed! Meteor provided a service after the date they had agreed there would be no such service!

AngryLips

foggy_lad wrote: »

Of course they can be disputed! Meteor provided a service after the date they had agreed there would be no such service!

Not really, because it required the OP to avail of the service also. If the move to prepay was successful then top-up would have been required so the OP can't really make a convincing case that they were ignorant of the fact either.

foggy_lad

pedantic.pat wrote: »

Hi all,


I need advice on my rights with an issue between myself and Meteor. I will try to keep it short. Any help/advice offered appreciated.


14th June 18 Month Contract up for renewal.


14th June Called Meteor to request a switch to Meteor PAYG.
Was Informed by Customer Service my Contract was up and i needed to give a months notice and an email confirmation - I sent this 1 hour later.
We signed off the conversation with her confirming I will revert back to Pay as you go on 14th July.


Great. I was able to go abroad 14th July to 15th August as PAYG customer and not pay 30 euro a month for minutes i am not using.


I came back from my trip today to send a webtext to discover I am still on their "300 Talk and Text" 18 Month Contract. Not only that - I have been charged 20 Euro Roaming charges.

Regarding the roaming charges - I used an international sim to make local calls while abroad. When i switched to Meteor sim to check for messages from home i forgot to change back and made a number of calls to local numbers on the meteor sim. (I was not careful to check the correct one was in the phone because i presumed if the meteor sim card was in the call would have been rejected due to insufficient credit.)


I called Customer Service earlier and explained the mistake by them, he confirmed they received the cancellation request etc. But i would probably have to pay the Roaming charges and to call cancellation department in the morning.


Can they charge me for these roaming calls even though they took place outside of our contract?

Thanks for help,


Pat.


Edit: Apologies if the above is incoherent - I have been travelling for the last 48 hours and have not had a wink of sleep .

AngryLips wrote: »

Not really, because it required the OP to avail of the service also. If the move to prepay was successful then top-up would have been required so the OP can't really make a convincing case that they were ignorant of the fact either.

As stated the OP was not aware they were using the Meteor sim to make chargeable calls and there is no cost for receiving texts while abroad.

Meteor failed to disconnect the service even after the notice was given and have even charged the OP for the next months use because line rental is paid a month in advance.

OP i suggest you write an email to ComReg detailing everything you have stated in your first post and they will sort meteor out, also cancel all direct debits on your bank and credit cards and inform meteor you are doing this by email! they will insist you write a letter to them to cancel the direct debits but that is bull according to the regulators.

AngryLips

foggy_lad wrote: »

As stated the OP was not aware they were using the Meteor sim to make chargeable calls and there is no cost for receiving texts while abroad.

Let's put it this way, the OP should've known - either way why should the operator shoulder the cost of that error?

RangeR

AngryLips wrote: »

Let's put it this way, the OP should've known - either way why should the operator shoulder the cost of that error?

It was the operators error. The SIM shouldn't have worked.
I do agree that the OP should shoulder SOME of the burden. Ignorance is no defense. It's just lazy.

foggy_lad

AngryLips wrote: »

Let's put it this way, the OP should've known - either way why should the operator shoulder the cost of that error?

It is Meteor's error and one that means they are breaking the law by charging the op for the services, it is against the law to offer or provide credit to anyone without their consent or knowledge and this does include bill pay and prepay mobile phone accounts!

It is also against the law to provide credit without a valid credit agreement and without terms and conditions being outlined to the consumer.

on a bill pay account it is in fact a credit arrangement and once it was cancelled the operator had no permission to continue providing credit to the op.

for prepay it is easier to police as it only involves negative balances on accounts which have been banned for several years since the introduction of GPRS and picture messaging. most operators were unable to cut off the internet usage when the credit reached €0.00 so instead racked up negative balances on accounts but this was challanged and they had to stop this practice and repay everyone who had been affected.

AngryLips

By using the service you are consenting to it, whether you do so in full knowledge or out of your own ignorance. And the credit agreement and T&Cs in place when the account was set up would still be in force until the account was terminated. I reckon there's a good case for the standing charge to be wavered but the cost of usage is just something to stomach.

pedantic.pat

Hi,

Thanks for all of the replies,

I have not called Meteor yet, I am waiting to hear back from Comreg before i do so i know whether i have the right to cancel the direct debit. - Thanks for this suggestion.

The Direct Debit is not due to come out of my account until 4th September so they have not charged me for the roaming calls yet. They have charged me in full for the 4th July and 4th August DD - wrongly, they should only have charged me half the bill on 4th July.

I will call my BOI branch on Monday and will try and use the useful info RangerR has given. - Thanks again for that.

If anyone has any relevant info or links please post as i do not want to be winging it when dealing with these people.

Thanks

Regards,

Pat

RangeR

pedantic.pat wrote: »

I have not called Meteor yet, I am waiting to hear back from Comreg before i do so i know whether i have the right to cancel the direct debit. - Thanks for this suggestion.

I don't mean to sound like a dick but you don't need ANYONE's permission to cancel a Direct Debit. A direct debit is just permission to a company with withdraw funds. You can cancel it at any time. However you still may have to pay the bill by other means [cash, cheque].

You don't even need to cancel the Direct Debit. You just need to inform your bank that there is a dispute about hopw much is owed and not to process the Direct Debit until you resolve the dispute.

It's YOUR account, not ComRegs, not Meteor's and certainly not the banks.

Your nick doesn't do you justice.