Way back in May 2009 I went overseas for some time, and rang up Foxtel to terminate my account. FOOLISHLY I agreed to instead 'suspend' my account, until my return, when I would call them and reactivate my service.
Upon my return, finding I didn't miss FOXTEL at all, I decided to not bother, and to cancel the service. However, it wasn't high on my list of priorities. The FOXTEL set top box sat unused and disconnected.
Sometime in Feb 2010 I noticed FOXTEL had taken several bites from my credit card, over 200 bucks of bites. I rang them up and discovered that they had reactivated my account automatically.
I decided then to terminate our business relationship.
FOXTEL however, took one further bite from my credit card, so now they had taken over 300 dollars from me, without my permission. I called them on 9 March 2010 and they agreed to refund my money. I had to send my set top box back. I did, happily.
About a month later, I received a letter advising me that they had 'credited' my account with 305.54c. not refunded my credit card, note, they continued my account - with a 'credit'. Despite my request to terminate our business relationship.
Being somewhat preoccupied with other things I didn't immediately follow this up. Recently I have been going over all my paperwork from last year, and found the credit letter from FOXTEL. Today I called them and chatted to the accounts department.
Apparently, although they agreed to refund my money, when this was passed to their accounts team leader area, that decision was overturned. They never told me they had changed their mind, just sent me a 'credit' letter.
They are adamant (according to their notes) that I never asked for termination, which is why they are justified in keeping my money. Part of their problem is that when I called in Feb 2010 to cancel my service, nothing happened. When I was billed again that month, I was furious, and called up on 9 March 2010 and had the service terminated ASAP. Best case - They could rightly claim I owed them one months service, not the three months of fees they have STOLEN from me.
I would counsel all who have FOXTEL accounts to closely monitor your credit card statements. They have stolen my money, and may steal yours. The FOXTEL accounts department are thieves. I would never use their service again.
You should have called an cancelled your account...
ReplyDeleteYou mention heaps of times that you "didn't immediately follow this up" pretty much you let it slip and got burnt...
I'm sorry but what did you expect them to do, you ask for it to be temporarily suspended while overseas but then you get back and simply forgot about it... of course they were going to reactivate it...
Plus you would have noticed it back on as without a doubt you would have turned on the TV and gone... OMG Foxtel is working... you would have assumed it was a mistake and you were getting it for free and not said anything...
I freely admit I should have followed it up.
ReplyDeleteHowever your assumptions are wrong.
i asked to terminate the service in may 2009, they offered to instead suspend the service. they never told me it would automatically just come back on. you try and stop your foxtel service - they have psyops operatives at hand...
I never even noticed they had reactivated the service, i only noticed in early feb 2009 when i looked at my credit card statement.
They also failed to disconnect the service when i called them in february and billed me again, it wasn't until i called again in march that they finally deactivated it.
they then offered to refund my money, then changed their mind - and didn't tell me.
very very poor form on foxtels part.