Phone number for 18185.co.uk (Finarea)

NFH

Does anyone have a telephone number for 18185.co.uk (Finarea)? I've tried e-mailing them and submitting a fault report on their web site many times over the last 18 months, but my service is still down. They just ignore correspondence, and in the meantime I've had to use their other services on 1899 and 18866 which are more expensive.

By failing to provide an e-mail address on their web site, which makes it possible to contact them rapidly and communicate with them in a direct and effective manner, Finarea are in breach of Regulation 6(1)(c) of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.

System

As I expect you already know, Finarea is a Swiss company based in Lugano. It offers dirt cheap telephone calls because everything is totally automated. Billing in the UK is done in the name of Connect Telecom, but Connect won't know anything about technical issues.

If I've understood correctly, you can still log into your 18185 account? If you can log in, what does the site show about invoices and payments? Is it possible that the automated system has suspended your 18185 account?

NFH

YoungNick wrote: »

Is it possible that the automated system has suspended your 18185 account?

Yes, my account has been suspended because of a billing error.

System

I don't think you're going to get anywhere with trying to find a phone number for Finarea in Lugano, or with contacting Connect Telecom in the UK. The pragmatic view is that it's so cheap because Finarea has essentially no staff. You have to operate on the basis that you're dealing with a rather dim robot!

For some reason I no longer recall, Finarea once failed to collect a payment from me. Their system sent an automated email asking me to do a bank transfer instead, and gave a (UK) sort code and account number. I used these, and was then able to re-instate the direct debit.

Heinz

NFH wrote: »

Yes, my account has been suspended because of a billing error.

If it's a bill you cannot clear because the 'payment failed', try the BACS method to correct the situation.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=5603177&postcount=204

NFH

Heinz wrote: »

If it's a bill you cannot clear because the 'payment failed', try the BACS method to correct the situation.

No, it's not that simple in my case. It requires human intervention to fix it, which is why I need to contact them.

System

Have you already ploughed through from the "report a fault" webpage, via "problem with invoice", "account", and "account blocked" to get to this:
"This has not solved my problem, click here for the Customer Services form" ?

NFH

YoungNick wrote: »

Have you already ploughed through from the "report a fault" webpage, via "problem with invoice", "account", and "account blocked" to get to this:
"This has not solved my problem, click here for the Customer Services form" ?

Yes, several times. They never respond.

System

Ah. Are you willing to post a bit more about what the issue is, from Finarea's point of view?

NFH

YoungNick wrote: »

Ah. Are you willing to post a bit more about what the issue is, from Finarea's point of view?

It was a billing error on a previous invoice.

System

Can you tell us what happened about payment of the erroneous invoice? Is is possible to guess what, from the point of view of Finarea's totally automated account management software, caused this software to suspend your 18185 account (but not 1899 and 18866)?