$3200 phone bill in three months!?!

[bsd]

I work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option on the phones where you can block certain types of outgoing call, international is a favourite and mobiles, but you can phone the operator and get a manual connection override, previously these operator connected calls werent charged for.

Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency or long talk time calls, and the company is stacked with debt after upgrading most of the cable boxes to digital) and we realised that people had been taking advantage of freeuinternational calls by getting an operator to connect them manually,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with of $3200 and several in the region of $1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for $1500 bucks in thm mediterranean resorts. These assholes then ring up and dispute the bill, etc, then one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs over the next few months. In short, merry christmass! 😎

 

[dabuddha]

wow thats hard to read.... so you're collecting the money or paying the money?

 

[Waveslidin]

Originally posted by: bsd
I work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option onthe phones whre you can block certain types of call, international is a favourite, and you can phone the operaor and get a manual connection override, the calls werent charged for.

Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with 3200 and several inthe region of 1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for 1500bucks in thmed resorts. These assholes then ring up and ispute the bill, etc, gthen one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs overthe next few months. In short, merry christmass!

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: Waveslidin

Originally posted by: bsd I work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option onthe phones whre you can block certain types of call, international is a favourite, and you can phone the operaor and get a manual connection override, the calls werent charged for. Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with 3200 and several inthe region of 1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for 1500bucks in thmed resorts. These assholes then ring up and ispute the bill, etc, gthen one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs overthe next few months. In short, merry christmass!

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

I think I understand him as saying that the people used the service the phone company provided illegally, taking advantage of it to get free phone calls.... and so the phone company billed the people for the calls that they thought they got as free....

They shouldn't have pulled that crap, but a $3200 bill seems ridiculous.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

just like those morons who used their service illegally are getting theirs. and your point is?

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: Waveslidin

Originally posted by: bsdI work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option onthe phones whre you can block certain types of call, international is a favourite, and you can phone the operaor and get a manual connection override, the calls werent charged for.Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with 3200 and several inthe region of 1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for 1500bucks in thmed resorts. These assholes then ring up and ispute the bill, etc, gthen one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs overthe next few months. In short, merry christmass!

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

fug off moron, this is a business, they took advantage, and we are charging them, dont expect any other business to get one set of cutomers to cross subsidise some self indulgence, and basically fraud. their kids will get a lesson, and their parents will be shown up for being dishonest.

 

[LOLyourFace]

u wanna see what's more ridiculous?

I had a friend of mine named Myung, his uncle is the president of S. Korea. I remember I got into his car and there was an AT&T phonebill on his glove compartment. It was $2400~ I asked WTF?

he said:
"Talking to my gf in Korea.."

OMFG

 

[Waveslidin]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: Waveslidin

Originally posted by: bsd I work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option onthe phones whre you can block certain types of call, international is a favourite, and you can phone the operaor and get a manual connection override, the calls werent charged for. Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with 3200 and several inthe region of 1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for 1500bucks in thmed resorts. These assholes then ring up and ispute the bill, etc, gthen one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs overthe next few months. In short, merry christmass!

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

I think I understand him as saying that the people used the service the phone company provided illegally, taking advantage of it to get free phone calls.... and so the phone company billed the people for the calls that they thought they got as free....

They shouldn't have pulled that crap, but a $3200 bill seems ridiculous.

It was their loophole. I would debate if that is "illegal" when they leave the system open for that. Were there any specific rules addressing that? Who knows, who cares, I agree with you in the fact that they should own up to their actions. I am the last person in the world that will let someone walk away from taking responsibility, and corrective measures for their actions. I don't even dispute the fact that they should be billed for them. It just was the way the guy posted it, being all smug and happy that people were about to get these huge, unexpected bills at Xmas time.

 

[acidvoodoo]

u work for blueyonder?

 

[Waveslidin]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

just like those morons who used their service illegally are getting theirs. and your point is?

Again, you say "illegally" so matter of factly. Was this just a loophole they weren't aware of, and then closed it? If so, I would debate that as being "illegal"

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: Waveslidin

Originally posted by: bsd I work at a UK Cable Company, and we have an option onthe phones whre you can block certain types of call, international is a favourite, and you can phone the operaor and get a manual connection override, the calls werent charged for. Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,:| , and by law we can back charge for three months, so we did, queue one person with a $11100 bill for 1 quarter, and bills I have dealt with 3200 and several inthe region of 1500, you can have a couple of summer holidays for 1500bucks in thmed resorts. These assholes then ring up and ispute the bill, etc, gthen one woman tried to forge proof of a missing payment for $1000. Of course most of them will get the money extracted plus legal and credit agency costs overthe next few months. In short, merry christmass!

Boy, aren't you in the holiday spirit? Yeah, they made the calls, so I do partially blame the people as well. But your rejoicing in the fact that they are going to get these huge bills at Xmas time...and possibly ruin it for them AND THEIR KIDS, makes you nothing short of an ass. What a scrooge. Don't worry, you'll get yours one day buddy.

I think I understand him as saying that the people used the service the phone company provided illegally, taking advantage of it to get free phone calls.... and so the phone company billed the people for the calls that they thought they got as free....They shouldn't have pulled that crap, but a $3200 bill seems ridiculous.

some one has to pay for it, and cable and wireless who do the international part wont let us off, and the equipment suppliers wont rebate a little bit, they got the service, we billed them.

its like uncapping a modem because the bandwidth 'is supplied', you are gonna get billed for 54 or so times the normal half megabit service costs, perhaps.

 

[boi]

Daaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyymmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... Haven't people heard of email!!!

 

[LikeLinus]

fug up moron, this is a business, they took advantage, and we are charging them, dont expect anyonther business to get one set of cutomers to cross subsidise your self indulgence, and basically fraud. their kids will get a lesson, and their parents will be show up for being dishonest.

Where's my handy Retard-to-English decoder ring when I need it?

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: boi
Daaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyymmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... Haven't people heard of email!!!

or video/ voice messenger. i coudnt believe the bills when i first saw them, then i found out the story.

 

[Waveslidin]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

fug up moron, this is a business, they took advantage, and we are charging them, dont expect anyonther business to get one set of cutomers to cross subsidise your self indulgence, and basically fraud. their kids will get a lesson, and their parents will be show up for being dishonest.

Where's my handy Retard-to-English decoder ring when I need it?

Thank god I wasn't the only one thinking that. I'm amazed I actually deciphered his first post.

 

[acidvoodoo]

:frown: what company u work for

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
:frown: what company u work for

there are only two, NTL and Telewest, both pwned by the bond holders now.

 

[acidvoodoo]

do telewest log calls? for example, if some looser keeps callin me, can i note the time down and ask them frothe name and number of who called? cause me can't be arsed with lamers with no d!cks 'prank' calling me

 

[bsd]

im was only temping there and finished today, but you can get digital call barring for 1stlg a month I think. also if you ring the customer service number on your bill they will be able to tell you properly, and if youring off peak you should get through quickly. maybe the prank call problem is with the free off peak local calls, and kids just do it for a joke.

 

[bsd]

btw what did you think of telewests service, pricing, product quality, and the alternatives of BT, Freeview or Sky?

I think its a good service especially the free local calling for 16stlg per month, I think that is 24/7, and blue yonder for 25/35 a month depending on speed, plus you get a rented Network Cable Modem. Having said that I think the TV package is expensive, mainly due to content costs and lower ad revenues than terrestrial TV, and I would not want to find myself spending 40stlg a month on that if I lived in a Telewest or NTL area. But I would love Film 4, some arab and persian channels, and so on and a few chill out channels like MTV or Base.

 

[acidvoodoo]

ye, i'm very impressed with the broadband service. u always hear of ' the more people with cable in the area with cable, the slower it gets', well that hasn't happend to me *yet*, i always get my maximum speed. i only ever have lost service once, which was at like 2am ,so i shoulda been in bed anyway😛 i'm considerig upgradin to the 1mbit, but now just yet. i guess as BT is giving no competition to BY, they have no need to go even firther and introduce 2mbit

i don't use the digital service that much, mainly it's the rest of my family that does, but it;s quite good. i think people with sky get better channels, but with blueyonder u always seem to get those channes a few months after, for no extra charge so that's good.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

The first time someone got through, the company computers should have realized "Hey, these people are getting free international calls!" or operators should have notified the company when people were always calling for an override.

If they built a blackbox and h4x0rd the company lines, that's illegal. If they took advantage of an obviously moronic company with little to no auditing or security practices - company's own damn fault IMO. To not notice something like this for three months is ridiculous, especially if so many customers did.

Or perhaps they did notice, and just decided "Hey, let's be like the Americans and fvck the customer when it really hurts! Christmas!"

< George Carlin >
"As the salesman says this, he positions himself directly behind the customer and proceeds to 'service the account'."
< /GC >

Good old American business practices.

- M4H

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: acidvoodoo
ye, i'm very impressed with the broadband service. u always hear of ' the more people with cable in the area with cable, the slower it gets', well that hasn't happend to me *yet*, i always get my maximum speed. i only ever have lost service once, which was at like 2am ,so i shoulda been in bed anyway😛 i'm considerig upgradin to the 1mbit, but now just yet. i guess as BT is giving no competition to BY, they have no need to go even firther and introduce 2mbiti don't use the digital service that much, mainly it's the rest of my family that does, but it;s quite good. i think people with sky get better channels, but with blueyonder u always seem to get those channes a few months after, for no extra charge so that's good.

glad too hear you like the broadband blueyonder. we had one megabit in the office, and you can watch a 2MB photo fill a screen in a couple of secs! Quite a few people are favouring 1Mb just for quick download convenience and perhaps running game servers. as i understand it there is 27Mbps of data bandwidth in a cable, literally, so if it gets saturated they have to split this cable into two, and add another another one, thereby halfing the number of users on each cable.
bt wont be able to compete without ethnet over fibre to the street, and then copper for the last 250 metres, and wifi would be cometetive in costs to that, but youd still have to get tv separately, and cable could go from multiplexing all the voice, data, and video, to an ethernet type encoding which would mean only the channels being watched would be transmitted, that would free up a lot of redundant bandwidth for video on demand and internet data. so late night midweek you could get maybe 100Mbs easy.

 

[bsd]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
The first time someone got through, the company computers should have realized "Hey, these people are getting free international calls!" or operators should have notified the company when people were always calling for an override.If they built a blackbox and h4x0rd the company lines, that's illegal. If they took advantage of an obviously moronic company with little to no auditing or security practices - company's own damn fault IMO. To not notice something like this for three months is ridiculous, especially if so many customers did.Or perhaps they did notice, and just decided "Hey, let's be like the Americans and fvck the customer when it really hurts! Christmas!"< George Carlin >"As the salesman says this, he positions himself directly behind the customer and proceeds to 'service the account'."< /GC >Good old American business practices.- M4H

i cant imagine it has gone on for that long, i know cable and wirless changed hands a while ago and that may have been the reason. eitherway like you said it would crop up, maybe they did it as part of a new phone strategy and realised people were ripping them off.

its not that we didnt notice it for three month, that was the amount of time we could back charge for.

what it probably was, was a software error meaning they werent getting charged, and when it was found they worked on it.

if they got a lot of abuse it would be obvious in the first quarter with a margin ratio change analysis of the profitability of the service, so i dont think it was endemic and anyway it only applied to two of four databases for london (we have over 15 databases nationally).

 

[AlienCraft]

Originally posted by: bsd

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
The first time someone got through, the company computers should have realized "Hey, these people are getting free international calls!" or operators should have notified the company when people were always calling for an override.If they built a blackbox and h4x0rd the company lines, that's illegal. If they took advantage of an obviously moronic company with little to no auditing or security practices - company's own damn fault IMO. To not notice something like this for three months is ridiculous, especially if so many customers did.Or perhaps they did notice, and just decided "Hey, let's be like the Americans and fvck the customer when it really hurts! Christmas!"< George Carlin >"As the salesman says this, he positions himself directly behind the customer and proceeds to 'service the account'."< /GC >Good old American business practices.- M4H

i cant imagine it has gone on for that long, i know cable and wirless changed hands a while ago and that may have been the reason. eitherway like you said it would crop up, maybe they did it as part of a new phone strategy and realised people were ripping them off.

its not that we didnt notice it for three month, that was the amount of time we could back charge for.

what it probably was, was a software error meaning they werent getting charged, and when it was found they worked on it.

if they got a lot of abuse it would be obvious in the first quarter with a margin ratio change analysis of the profitability of the service, so i dont think it was endemic and anyway it only applied to two of four databases for london (we have over 15 databases nationally).

"Recently we stared charging for these calls at 5x the normal rates (they arent meant for non-emergency calls) and realised that people had been taking advantage of free uinternational calls,"
The back door was left open and then you charge back at 5x rates... that is wrong... just plain wrong.... Blaming the customers that outsmarted the system is counterproductive to customer loyalty. Not that they should be allowed to continue, but the fault is SHARED here. I'm sure the idiot who was in charge still has his job.... You were only temping and you swallowed the company line hook line and sinker....
Merry ChristmA$$ indeed!

:disgust: