My provider (one of the large players) stopped charging me over 12 months ago. The plan was $79 per month.
Every month, I still receive a bill…but it's for $0.
My question is- can I be back billed for this at some stage? If so, for the entire duration that I have been receiving $0 bills?
Would love to hear from anyone with experience or knowledge in this area!
Cheers!
Buried in this document somewhere it states something like this…A provider must not bill for charges older than 160 days from the date of the charges.
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2020C00180
Basically the most they can recover from you is the last 5 months
Maybe this is why Telstra is changing all their post paid plans to prepaid.
Brilliant- thank you! I had seen something similar but its specific references were to energy and utility providers. I guess telco's and retailers fall under the same rules.
Maybe call someone?
Only after you ask on OzB.
Just trying to get as much info as I can from such a learned community, before I call up to dob myself in for $1K + bill!
Re:
Maybe call someone?
Alternatively, maybe freakin don't …?
I was quite the surfer back in the day, and if it was me I would be inclined to 'ride this gnarly wave' for as long as it lasts …
I don't know if you just miss paying. You
can pay my bill. I mean, if it will help you sleep. lol
I had the same thing happen with my internet connection at one stage, also with one of the big telcos. I don't like auto paying so I always pay manually as bills come in and it took me about 6 months to realise I hadn't receive a bill for a while. I actually called them to check, just asking what my current amount owing as I was worried about having to pay a lump sum but was told I didn't owe anything. Went on for about 18 months and in that time I did receive the odd bill but all showed $0 owing like you. Eventually I had to change to NBN and wanted to change providers so called up to cancel the service and was told I was $79 in credit and they'd send me a cheque which they did so ~18 months of free internet and $79 in my favour. Made up for the otherwise poor service.
The only thing I can think of is that at some point I accidentally paid twice for the month putting me into credit and their system just kept applying the same credit every month without actually removing the credit.
If you have bills showing $0 then it's their problem and you're just following their direction to not pay.
What an outcome- paying you to use their product!
Just like a sponsored athlete!
Esports
Put aside $79/month in an online fee-free account, if they eventually ask for it you have the money already. If not then you have a new TV /laptop /rolex/house deposit
Great strategy- thank you!
i was going to suggest this exactly
no downside
just get the balance up to the hypothetical total to start with
then auto transfer every month
and don't ever dip into it
and maybe add a bit extra each time in case they ask for interest?
excellent motivation to save if they never come calling
and don't you tell them - that's their problem to work out
Same thing with my home internet few years ago. TPG didnt charge me for over a year, I eventually rung them and they weren't interested. We moved out, Never heard of anything since.
Thanks tpg!
Mate, you're living the dream.
I miss the days when work paid for my mobile and 100meg Telstra Cable internet.
Just laugh, sleep , eat and continue everyday
We had free gas for 3 years at an apartment we lived in. Tried numerous times to sign up for an account but origin insisted our apartment didn’t have gas even though I was looking at the stove top burning gas whilst I was on the call. Moved out 3 years later never got a gas bill and never heard from them.
Amazing!
Must have been hard to leave! If only you could have bought a gas-powered ASIC to mine bitcoins for you or something lol.
I think I might be in the same thing now, have been 3 years and I didn't even know I had gas (as stove is electric). But apparently others got theirs cut when they cancelled their gas. But somehow I never applied for mine, just works.
6 years and going in my rental.
Telstra willl chase you for every $1 you owe them, good luck.
They're not allowed to ask for charges they haven't billed you for over 160 days
says who, will be a debt collector anyway.
Says Australian legislation
Says the Telecommunications Consumer Protections Code
A Supplier must:
A Supplier will not breach clause 5.4.2 because of delays due to:
i once subscribed to a particular video streaming service
i cancelled after a while
my card has long since expired anyway
but i can still watch all the videos somehow
it's been a couple years now
sometimes i feel bad
but not so bad that i've gotten around to letting them know >_>
I once subscribed to a ai generated calming streaming service. I cancelled it but they kept on giving me free service for many months. When they finally found out and corrected it they offered a discount to keep me on the service.
I had a telco provider discount my account by $20 per month where they should have charged me.
Kept the discount through several contracts until recently went to M2M and they couldn’t carry it across.
Back when I had ADSL2+, this exact same $0/mo happened to me :)
They don't pick these things up for some reason
Uh, have your updated them of your Card Expiry Date XX/2X lately?