Pricewatch

Phone Bill makes refunds trickier

November 5, 2009 @ 1:29 pm | by Conor Pope

I don’t get premium rate services at all. The idea that people will spend over a euro a message to get lame jokes or horoscopes sent to their phones fills me with bafflement. The only time I’ve used a premium rate service was for a Pricewatch article earlier this year when I had my fortune told by Irish Psychics Live. I paid nearly 30 quid to be told that by the end of the year, I’d have me a new job, a new wife with some new children on the way.

The whole area is set for a big shake-up in the coming weeks with the watchdog for the sector, Regtel, being subsumed into the Communications regulator ComReg. Under the new legislation self-regulation by the industry will come to an end and substantial fines for abuses by operators of popular phone services will be introduced. But there’s a but - consumers who have been overcharged or ripped off will find it more difficult to seek redress according to RegTel’s chairman Fred Hayden. Under the new system, ComrReg can not force errant companies to give refunds. Seems a bit remiss to me.

4 Comments »

November 5, 2009
3:21 pm

The year’s not over yet, oh Conor of little faith.

Comment by jean

November 5, 2009
5:15 pm

I had a wonderful experience with Meteor today.

I downloaded an app last month called “Get the focal” (basically an Irish/English dictionary with a user interface) and agreed to the €5 charge.

Imagine my surprise then when Meteor charged me €7 for downloading the bandwidth-throttling 383K that comprises the application.

Scalpers. A quick google shows that lots of other folk have similar gripes with Meteor. My contract is up in December so I’ll be jumping ship.

Comment by Larry Murphy

November 9, 2009
1:50 pm

I also got a fine surprise from Meteor recently.

I signed up to Bill Pay 2 weeks ago and within only a few hours i received a message to tell me that my data usage was being suspended as i had reached €150. (It actually turned out to be over €260)

As you might imagine, this came as quite a shock, especially considering that all these charges were applied to my account before i had even received the settings from meteor to begin using the data services on my phone. Still waiting to hear back as to what is going to be done about it.

On an aside, when i called to sort out this problem, i was told that my first bill would be “a bit higher than normal” as a result. I think my bill has been put on hold until this is sorted out but as yet i am sceptical and wholly unimpressed with Meteor.

Comment by Vincent Carey

November 9, 2009
11:33 pm

Hi not sure if you have received my e-mail. I am some what confused re the reply your reader revived from eircom.Would the readers elderly parents be receiving a free line rental from the dept of Social and family affairs already and if so how could they be applying free rental for two months to their account as a gesture of goodwill.

But may be I have assumed incorrectly that they are in receipt of this payment system on their line rental

Comment by pat savage