IBB, fraud or mistake? Check your bank statements!

inigo

I was wondering if this has happened to anyone and your opinion of what I should do, apart from quitting IBB…

Last 15 and 16 of September my bank account was charged with the monthly 24.99 EUR for Ripwave, yes, twice, once each day. In both it appears OP/Irish Broadband as Description.

Previously, on 12 September, I had received 2 emails both from support@irishbroadband.ie, Subject: Your Irish Broadband Invoice. One of them looks like the ones I have received in previous months with a digital signature and the invoice as pdf attachment with the Irish Broadband logo, VAT analysis, all looking good. In the body of the email it says: Sales Invoice XXX000000 (this is not the real name) from Irish Broadband.

However, the second email, received 1 hour before the other one, has the sentence: The following is a digital signature… and so on but does not have the actual signature. The attachment is called Remittance_advice.PDF, does not have any company’s logo, no VAT analysis, and the reference, called Our Ref, is the name of the attachment I had received in the “good” email. In the body of the email it says: Payment notification from Irish Broadband.

So I’ve been charged twice. The second “weird” email looks dodgy to me. Is this some kind of fraud or is it a mistake from IBB? Has this happened to anyone before? What do you think I should do?

Thanks.

Sponge Bob

have you a one customer two ( or more) sites account with IBB ?

inigo

Do you mean if I pay for 2 or more services from IBB? I only have the Ripwave from them...

Sponge Bob

Well if you are a 1 customer at 1 site with 1 service setup (ripwave only) you should not get a remittance advice which is a pseudo invoice format (one for each site / costcentre for larger companies that are multi site ) .

Normally you pay for whats on the invoice, and only once, and you do not pay for whats on the remittance advice at all so it would be fraud , <frankly> if you had a DD taken for both of them .

A remittance advice is not an invoice in other words.

inigo

Thanks for the quick reply. So I should try and contact IBB, you reckon.

irlrobins

inigo wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply. So I should try and contact IBB, you reckon.

Would have been the first thing I would have done....

Sponge Bob

inigo wrote:

So I should try and contact IBB, you reckon.

Their billing system is not as bad as the criminally inept BT but nobodys billing system should take a DD for both and Invoice and Remittance advice .

Send them an email stating that you are prepared to pay the invoice as always but if they ever try to take a DD for each of the Invoice and the Remittance Advice that you will contact the Garda Fraud Squad and will also promptly invoice them back for your time and effort at 3 times the misbilled amount as well .

Why do I fear they won't answer that email ??

wavin

inigo wrote:

I was wondering if this has happened to anyone and your opinion of what I should do, apart from quitting IBB…

Last 15 and 16 of September my bank account was charged with the monthly 24.99 EUR for Ripwave, yes, twice, once each day. In both it appears OP/Irish Broadband as Description.

exact same thing happpened me too.i emailed them when i noticed and got a reply a day or 2 later saying it was a software problem and the 2nd lot of money they took would be put back, must check is it back yet....

Sponge Bob

Ah well. Its not a one off so.

Nobody should EVER have a DD taken for a Remittance Advice, only for an Invoice. I wonder if they have cash flow problems of some sort ?

Get on to Comreg as well , consumerline@comreg.ie , and get them down there sharpish .

cgarvey

Step 1 is to ring them, and see if they can shine any light on it.. always.

ComReg will probably be as interested as a dead duck, if you've not at least tried to contact the provider abou tit.

condra

good luck getting through to them

falteringstar

I have a friend who worked in IBB and has adviced, for many reasons not to get it, one of the particular reasons she gave was that she knows a girl in the finance dept who charges alot of people twice without realising it all the time!!