Phone number for 18185.co.uk (Finarea)

NFH

YoungNick wrote: »

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)?

My credit card was replaced because of fraud just before the billing error; therefore the payment failed. I immediately asked Finarea to correct the billing error before I updated my credit card details. I have been asking them ever since to fix it but they don't reply.

System

[QUOTE=NFH;51974689_Finarea_are_in_breach_of_Regulation 6(1)(c) of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.[/QUOTE]
As Finarea are a Swiss company and not a member of the EU the Electronic Regulations 2002 do not apply

System

NFH wrote: »

My credit card was replaced because of fraud just before the billing error; therefore the payment failed. I immediately asked Finarea to correct the billing error before I updated my credit card details. I have been asking them ever since to fix it but they don't reply.

My guess is that Finarea consists of a couple of smart guys (probably), who invested quite a bit in setting up their totally automated billing and customer interface. Now they employ, say, one telecoms techie who buys whatever Tbytes are being dumped on the network market cheapest on a given day, and one work experience student who occasionally reads the messages from the (few) people who persevere to the end with the 'report a fault' pages on the website, intervenes if he or she recognises the issue as one that can be resolved from a preset menu, and ignores it otherwise.

As I say above, I think you would face disproportionate effort to try to contact a boss in Lugano, but it might be possible, eg via the Swiss telecommunications regulator.

An alternative pragmatic approach could be to
(a) pay the erroneous invoice by bank transfer, while simultaneously using the 'report a fault' webpage to put it on record that you are doing so 'under protest'
(b) hope that this re-activates your account
(c) if it does, change your payment method to Direct Debit, and
(d) use the website to report the billing error, yet again
(e) hope that the automated system then hears you, and makes a refund on your next invoice (it did that for me, once, when several calls had been routed to a recording of barking dogs)
(f) if you don't get a refund, either write it off, and tell yourself that it's worth it because future calls will be so cheap; or run up a bill equivalent to whatever Finarea owes you, let them take it by direct debit, claim a refund from your bank under the direct debit guarantee, and use the Finarea website to tell Finarea what you have done and why. The risk of that is that Finarea may suspend all your accounts with them. They are most unlikely to claim against you in a UK county court, but if they did, you would have a cast-iron defence, and maybe counter-claim - and they would have to give UK contact details.

NFH

!!!!!! wrote: »

As Finarea are a Swiss company and not a member of the EU the Electronic Regulations 2002 do not apply

Incorrect. They are a Swiss company operating in the UK and their terms and conditions state clearly "The laws of England and Wales apply to this Contract, unless you live in Scotland in which case the laws of Scotland apply".

System

They do not have a presence in the UK as required by the directive. A web site is not a presence

shall apply to the provision of an information society service by a service provider established in the United Kingdom

If they so wished they could run their business under the laws of Swaziland

ETA

If they run a similar service in France then French law would apply. The law used is for the country that You are based.

NFH

!!!!!! wrote: »

They do not have a presence in the UK as required by the directive. A web site is not a presence

Their web site is hosted in Switzerland anyway.

!!!!!! wrote: »

If they so wished they could run their business under the laws of Swaziland

True, but they have chosen to operate under the laws of England and Wales.

System

They operate the contracts only under English/Scottish law. That has no bearing on electronic commerce.

From 18185 site:
The laws of England and Wales apply to this Contract, unless you live in Scotland in which case the laws of Scotland apply.

They still do not have a physical presence in the UK to put them under the electronic commerce directive

Hazzanet

http://www.askcomreg.ie/erau/finarea_sa.0.0.343.details.LE.asp

Finarea SA Company Name Finarea SA Trading Names
Postal Address PO Box 5648 6901 Lugano Switzerland Website
Company Telephone +41 919225431

Heinz

My 18185 bills are rarely more than £9 (2 months). Just out of interest NFH, how much was this incorrect bill?