$3200 phone bill in three months!?!

[StageLeft]

So basically, this had been happening for 3+ months, NOBODY saw it happening (yeah, right), and then they decide to backcharge for 3 months. Sounds like the phone company planned this to me...

Quite possible.

I can't say I have much sympathy for these people though if they knew in their hearts they were screwing the phone company out of a large sum of money.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

So basically, this had been happening for 3+ months, NOBODY saw it happening (yeah, right), and then they decide to backcharge for 3 months. Sounds like the phone company planned this to me...

Quite possible.

I can't say I have much sympathy for these people though if they knew in their hearts they were screwing the phone company out of a large sum of money.

While we don't know exactly how it happened, and what was going on... perhaps to them it seemed perfectly alright.. we'll assume that they just found a loophole in the system. How can it be shown that the phone company didn't know about this practice for several months, and was simply waiting for a point where it could backcharge and make the most amound of money off of it? Was there anything in the contract between the phone company and the customer that specifically said "you can't do this"? If not, the people didn't break any laws. To me, this sounds like the phone company is saying, "This wasn't illegal back then, but it is now, and you owe us for breaking the law before". Pure BS, plain and simple.

 

[ultimatebob]

Have you actually collected any of these larger phone bills that you're been sending out? I know that if I got one, I'd take it straight to my lawyer, and have him negotiate a settlement for me. I'd imagine that most other people would do the same.

Perhaps the UK telecom laws are different, but in the US you need to notify your customers in advance before increasing ANY of their phone rates or monthly fees. If your company didn't do that, your customers might have the legal loophole that they're looking for to weasel their way out of paying these bills.

Not that I would blame them, actually. Sure, your customers were screwing the company by making a manual connection, but your company seems to be screwing THEM over just as badly by overcharging for these phonecalls.

 

[Tom]

First lets analyze these amounts. You mention several bills around $1500, this is at 5x the normal rate which means it's really about $300 worth of calls in a quarter which works out to about $100 a month. I don't think $100 probably represents an outrageous amount of usage.

Second, your company offers a service to block international calls, but then allows international calls to be placed. Sounds like failure to deliver promised service to me.

Third, your company seems to have established a practice of not charging for international calls of an emergency nature and then without any notice retroactivel rescinded this practice. I don't know much about the law in the UK, but I assume your company hopes that since many of the victims of this policy are probably immigrants, that they won't know what legal options they have to challenge this change in an established practice.

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
Have you actually collected any of these larger phone bills that you're been sending out? I know that if I got one, I'd take it straight to my lawyer, and have him negotiate a settlement for me. I'd imagine that most other people would do the same. Perhaps the UK telecom laws are different, but in the US you need to notify your customers in advance before increasing ANY of their phone rates or monthly fees. If your company didn't do that, your customers might have the legal loophole that they're looking for to weasel their way out of paying these bills.Not that I would blame them, actually. Sure, your customers were screwing the company by making a manual connection, but your company seems to be screwing THEM over just as badly by overcharging for these phonecalls.

basically they can make an oftel regulator complaint and i imagine they will pay about 25-50% of the bill.

Second, your company offers a service to block international calls, but then allows international calls to be placed. Sounds like failure to deliver promised service to me.

the point is you can get an operator to override the block manuallyif you are the account holder, ie if its your account and you want to make cals you can, but other residents cant.
i didnt enquire toomuch on the exact nature of the thing, but i would have thought it was a temporary software error.