Hi guys,
Just wondering if anyone has any insight or can speak to similar issues they might have encountered when trying to churn their nbn service away from Exetel.
My experiences is as follows;
Worked out the date of my end of billing cycle - selected this date (March 22nd) as my "churn across" date from exetel to Origin. Service churned across successfully on the morning of the 22nd - I assumed that Exetel would be aware due to being notified by Origin, that my existing service with them was being churned, and as such they'd be able to make the simple logical conclusion that my existing service would thus be cancelled. However, later in the day, I received a bill from Exetel for the following month's (March 24 - April 23rd) service. I tried to login to "My Exetel" on the day to confirm the service had been cancelled, but my existing service still appeared to be "active", with no obvious way of cancelling via their online platform. I submitted an online inquiry to confirm the service had in fact been cancelled, but still have not received any response. Yesterday (23rd), I submitted an email to about 3 of their online customer service email addresses I'd discovered via googling, again requesting confirmation that my existing service had been cancelled and that I wouldn't be liable for this newly issued bill - but again, I still haven't heard back from this.
Growing increasingly frustrated, I today gave their customer service phone number a call, and after being transferred no less than 3 times, I spoke to a lady who said that she'd need to get in touch with a separate team to confirm that my service had been cancelled, and that she would send me an email once she'd received this confirmation. More worryingly, she added that she couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't be liable for this next month's bill, as she alleged that Exetel require "30 days notice" as per their cancellation policy - I was absolutely baffled by this. On a "no lock-in, month-to-month" service, whereby the customer has churned across to a different service provider at the end of their monthly billing cycle, Exetel are claiming that I might still be required to pay for an extra month's completely unused service, simply because, what, it takes their billing team an entire month to work out that I don't want to use their service anymore?
Has anyone else experienced this absolute BS? What are my likely options here? Should I change my direct debit from my existing bank account to an empty debit card I have with a bank I no longer use? Are there any risks associated with doing this? Should I be getting in touch with some sort of banking/financial ombudsman in order to make a formal complaint? Department of Consumer Protection?
As always, any help or advice is extremely greatly appreciated. Cheers!
It's in their terms and yes, it's a well know poor condition in their ts and c's.
It (among other high quality customer service reasons) is why I have refused to sign up to even their cheapest deals offerings.